Tata profits defy falling sales

[frigidmagi]

BBC

Tata Motors has announced a 58% rise in net profits as lower steel costs helped outweigh a fall in vehicle sales.

Tata made a net profit of 5.14bn rupees ($107m; £65m) in the April to June quarter, compared with 3.26bn rupees in the same period a year ago.

India's largest carmaker sold 127,340 vehicles in the period, down from the 133,079 it sold a year earlier.

Tata Motors, which owns the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, launched the world's cheapest car, the Nano, in April.

"The company's continued focus on cost efficiencies, coupled with reduction of raw material prices, inventory reduction and improvement in sales realisation, yielded considerable benefits," Tata said in a statement.

But it added that exports "continued to be severely impacted... in the wake of [the] continuing tumultuous global environment".

Exports fell 43% to 5,220 vehicles.