New Delhi: Eicher Motors on Monday reported 2.39 per cent increase in consolidated profit after tax at Rs 532.95 crore in the third quarter ended December 31,2018.
The company had posted a profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 520.5 crore in the same quarter last fiscal, Eicher Motors said in a regulatory filing.
Total income during the period under review stood at Rs 2,488.19 crore as compared to Rs 2,316.49 crore in the year-ago quarter, it said.
During the quarter, the company's two-wheeler arm Royal Enfield posted 3 per cent rise in revenue from operations at Rs 2,341 crore as compared to Rs 2,269 crore in the same period last fiscal.
Royal Enfield sold 1,93,871 motorcycles in the quarter, down 6 per cent from 2,02,736 units sold in the same period last year.
In the Commercial Vehicles (CV) segment, VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV) - Eicher's joint-venture with AB Volvo, saw 9 per cent increase in revenue from operations at Rs 2,818 crore as against Rs 2,590 crore in the year-ago quarter, it added.
VECV sold 16,936 trucks and buses in the quarter, growing 4 per cent over the same period last year.
Commenting on the quarterly performance, Eicher Motors Managing Director and CEO Siddhartha Lal said the latter half of 2018 was a challenging period for the two-wheeler industry in India.
Factors like increased insurance requirements, rising raw material costs and the subsequent price rise due to regulatory safety requirements impacted the momentum of the industry, he added.
"Royal Enfield's market share recorded improvement on a sequential basis, while volumes in the quarter were impacted," Lal said, however adding it is a temporary impact due to a price reset.
"We continue to remain optimistic about the trend of premiumisation in the motorcycling industry, and are confident that this trend will continue in the future," he added.
On the CV front, the company said during the quarter, certain non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) scaled back their lending activities affecting sales and the trend of heavy discounting continues in the CV industry despite the sustained demand.
"While the demand momentum continues in the CV industry, sales were affected especially in HD segment due to change in axle load norms and liquidity crunch," Lal said.
