BENGALURU (Reuters) -India’s biggest carmaker Maruti Suzuki reported fourth-quarter profit on Friday that marginally missed estimates as input costs shot up.
Maruti’s standalone profit rose 47.8% on-year to 38.78 billion rupees ($465.4 million), compared with analysts’ estimates of 38.97 billion rupees on average, as per LSEG data.
This is Maruti’s first profit miss in almost two years. The last time it fell short of estimates was in the quarter ended June 30, 2022.
For the reporting January-March quarter, the company’s total expenses rose 16.3% to 343.55 billion rupees, driven by a more-than-10% jump in input costs.
Revenue from sales, meanwhile, grew more than 19% to 366.98 billion rupees, helped partly by a price hike implemented at the beginning of the quarter.
Sales of passenger vehicles in India have risen to record levels over the last two fiscal years, with sports utility vehicles (SUVs) that form one in two cars sold in the country fuelling growth.
While Maruti does not share an exact number for SUVs, its share of utility vehicles – mostly SUVs and multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs) – was at 36% in the fourth quarter, compared with 24% a year earlier, with sales up 71.5%.
($1 = 83.3200 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Varun Hebbalalu and Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Sohini Goswami)
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