By IANS,
Chennai: Commercial vehicles maker Ashok Leyland Ltd reported a 59 percent decline in its net profit for the third quarter of the current fiscal despite an increase of 22.5 percent in the topline.
The company closed the period under review with a net profit of Rs.43.37 crore and revenue of Rs.2,227.25 crore as against Rs.104.63 crore and Rs.1,817.49 crore respectively earned during the corresponding period of 2009-10.
During the third quarter, the company had sold 18,437 units up from 16,129 units sold the previous year.
“As I had forewarned, after the robustness of the second quarter of this fiscal, Quarter 3 has been bit of a dampener attributable to the time taken by the market to accept the new emission norms and critical supply issues,” managing director R. Seshasayee said in a statement.
According to him, there are number of positive signs for the fourth quarter and beyond – there is still good traction in the economy, agricultural output is expected to be encouraging, the commercial vehicle is showing buoyancy on the back of adequate freight availability and high capacity utilisation.
“Exports have been witnessing a boom with our strong markets witnessing a welcome robustness which should help us double our export numbers by end of the fiscal. By ramping up our production to meet this increased demand, Ashok Leyland is targeting to finish 2010-11 strongly, nearing 95,000 vehicles,” he added.
For the nine months ended December 2010, the company earned revenue of Rs.7,289.18 crore and a net profit of Rs.333.07 crore as against Rs.4,312.84 crore and Rs.201.01 crore respectively posted during the corresponding period of the previous year.