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India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki on Thursday reported a 26.9 percent year-on-year rise in its standalone net profit for the June quarter to Rs 1,975.3 crore.
The average of estimates of 18 analysts polled by Reuters had pegged the company's bottom line to come in at Rs 2,272.7 crore.
The Delhi-based maker of cars and sports utility vehicles recorded a stand-alone total income of Rs 22,731.2 crore for the quarter, 11.1 percent higher than in the corresponding quarter last year.
The Reuters poll had estimated the company's revenue to come in at Rs 22,471.4 crore.
Maruti Suzuki's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the reporting quarter came in at Rs 3,622 crore, while its EBITDA margin stood at 15.94 percent.
These numbers are not strictly comparable on a year-on-year basis because in the same quarter last year, the company incurred a one-time excise duty expense.
The pressure of rising cost of raw material was felt by Maruti Suzuki too during the quarter under review, but it resorted to an increase in product prices only in June.
The automotive major hiked prices of all its products by nearly 2 percent.
Maruti Suzuki, which manufactures and sells passenger vehicles under the brands Swift, Baleno, Brezza and Dzire, among others, clocked a volume growth of 24.3 percent year on year to 490,479 units in the June quarter.
Domestic volumes rose by nearly 25 percent to 458,967 units, while export volumes remained largely unchanged at 25,724 units.
Sales of the company's only commercial vehicle Carry, a mini truck, saw a near-fivefold increase to 4,873 units.
The higher sales volume resulted in an expansion of the company's operating profit, which rose 59.7 percent on year to Rs 2,631 crore.
The company attributed this growth to a favourable product mix and its own efforts to reduce cost but said that these were partially offset by a rise in commodity prices and the weakness in the rupee.
Most of Maruti Suzuki's new launches, such as the Swift, Dzire, Baleno and Vitara Brezza, have been received well in the market. The Ignis is the only model that has seen a lukewarm response.
Despite increasing its manufacturing capacity in the form of its new plant in Gujarat, the company is still faced with a demand-supply mismatch for some of its models.
Maruti Suzuki enjoys a share of 53 percent in the domestic passenger vehicle market, according to data provided by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).
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