Tata Motors reports 10.5% rise with healthy sales of Jaguar Land Rover

Healthy sales by its British brand Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), primarily in China, once again came to the rescue of Tata Motors which on Thursday reported a 10.5% rise in consolidated net profit at Rs2,075 crore for the second quarter ended September 30.

The net profit was impacted by squeezed margins due to rising costs, especially marketing, and slackening demand for commercial vehicles given the gloomy economic scenario, the company said here.

Robust sales in China helped the JLR report an overall 14% higher sales in the quarter. China contributed over 21% of the overall sales for the brand, Tata Motors Chief Financial Officer C Ramakrishnan told reporters.

Consolidated revenue rose 19.9% to Rs43,403 crore in the July-September period, he added.

The company plans to launch six new passenger and 25 commercial vehicles in the second half of the fiscal, Tata Motors Managing Director for India Operations Karl Slym said.

The CNG and diesel variants of its ultra-low cost car Nano are in the offing, which may happen as early as the next calender year, he said.

However, on a standalone basis, which represents its domestic operations, revenues dipped to Rs12,481 crore in Q2 compared to Rs12,954 crore a year ago, Tata Motors said.

The company's operating margin also slipped to 5.9% from the 7.2% a year ago.

"Weak macro-economic outlook and sluggish industrial demand coupled with diesel price hike, have impacted medium and heavy commercial vehicles sales," Ramakrishnan said.

A healthy jump in receipt of dividend from JLR and other subsidiaries (Rs1,312 crore versus Rs29 crore) resulted in the standalone net jumping nearly eightfold to Rs867 crore from Rs102 crore in the year ago period. This comes after four straight quarters of declines.

Commercial vehicle sales grew 4.8% to 1,36,353 units during the quarter, while passenger vehicle sales rose 11.6% to 72,603 units.