A combination of lower raw material costs and record sales helped the country’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles, Hero Honda, to post a 83 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 500.1 crore for the first quarter ending June. The net profit for the April–June period of last year stood at Rs 272.9 crore. Net sales for the three-month period was Rs 3,811 crore, a 34 per cent rise against the Rs 2,843.5 crore earned for the same quarter last year.
“Factoring the company’s spending on the IPL and the T20 (cricket) series, the net profit posted has surpassed expectation,” says Deepak Jain, Analyst at Edelweiss Securities. At the Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, deprciation and amortisation) level, gross profit surged by about 97 per cent to Rs 604.5 crore.