Maruti Suzuki's Q4 profit jumps 57.7% at Rs 1,839 crore

The company reported a profit of Rs 1,839 crore for the three months ended March 31

Maruti Suzuki India posted a 57.7 per cent jump in quarterly profit on Friday as price hikes and lower sales promotion costs helped the country's top carmaker outweigh the impact of high raw material costs and global semiconductor shortages.

The New Delhi-based company reported a profit of Rs 1,839 crore ($240.81 million) for the three months ended March 31, compared with Rs 1,166 crore a year earlier.

The company reported a 51.14 per cent jump in consolidated net profit to Rs 1,875.8 crore in the fourth quarter ended on March 31, 2022. The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,241.1 crore in the same period of the previous fiscal, Maruti Suzuki India said in a regulatory filing.

Carmakers worldwide are raising prices to counter higher input and freight costs that are expected to take a bite out of their earnings. Maruti, which sells every second car in India and is majority-owned by Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp, has hiked prices five times from January 2021 to April 2022 and also lowered sales promotion expenses.

However, Maruti, which has already warned that chip shortages could have some impact on 2022-23 production, said, there were pending customer bookings of about 268,000 vehicles for the year ending March 31, 2022 due to the shortages.

Analysts had expected Maruti to earn Rs 1,474 crore.

Total revenue from operations rose 11.3 per cent to Rs 26,740 crore.

The company sold a total of 16,52,653 vehicles during the year, up 13.4 per cent over the previous year, it said, adding domestic sales were at 14,14,277 units, up 3.9 per cent over FY 2020-21.

"Production during the year was impacted by shortage of electronic components by an estimated 2,70,000 vehicles, mostly domestic models, because of which there were pending customer bookings of about 268,000 vehicles at the end of the year," Maruti Suzuki said.

In addition, the first quarter witnessed a disruption owing to the second covid wave, it said.

($1 = 76.3680 Indian rupees)

(With inputs from agencies)

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