JLR sales boost Tata Motors in Q4

Tata Motors has reported a drop of 36.7 per cent in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended March 2013 at Rs3,945 crore. This still beat market expectations, as sales from its UK-based Jaguar-Land Rover (JLR) arm once again helped shore up the bottomline.

Consolidated net sales were up 10 per cent at Rs56,002 crore.

Profits at JLR were down nearly 46 per centat £378 million, even as revenues went up 21.9 per cent at £5,053 million. The fall in net profit was mainly on account of a £225 million one-off tax gain credited during the year-ago quarter.

In the domestic market, however, the struggle continued, with the company posting a net loss of Rs312 crore as against a profit of Rs565 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago.

Standalone margins came in at 3.6 per cent.

Tata Motors does not expect any immediate recovery in the domestic market this fiscal as demand remains tepid. Sales of commercial and passenger vehicles (including exports) fell 31.1 per cent last quarter.

''The environment within the industry is expected to remain challenging this year, which will have an impact on sales of our products as well as for the industry,'' said a company official.

The company said it managed to maintain its market share in the medium and heavy commercial vehicles category last fiscal despite slower sales. It launched around 40 products in the commercial vehicles segment last financial year and plans to add a further 50 products in the current year.

In the passenger vehicles division, Tata will launch more variants and refreshes during the year.

''We will have aggressive product actions in all segments, wherever we are present and wherever we are not present,'' said Karl Slym, the company's managing director.

The company spent around Rs2,900 in capital expansion last fiscal and expects to maintain spend at around Rs3,000 crore in the current one, to be split equally between commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles.