REUTERS - Tata Motors Ltd reported a 42 percent rise in quarterly profit thanks to a one-off gain related to changes to Jaguar Land Rover's pension plans, masking a fall in the carmaker's income.
The company said its total income fell about 10 percent to 599.72 billion Indian rupees ($9.4 bln) in April-June, as its operating performance was hit by lower wholesale volume sales of Jaguar Land Rover, excluding sales from the group's China joint venture, and a slowdown in its heavy vehicle business, among other factors.
"... the first quarter results have not met our expectations," Tata Motors Chief Executive Guenter Butschek said in the results statement.
However, Jaguar Land Rover sales in China jumped 30 percent in the first quarter from a year ago and rose 16 percent in North America.
Butschek said the group had accelerated its focus on topline, market share growth and major cost reduction initiatives in the last few months.
"Leveraging the expected market recovery, we are confident that these initiatives will help us to present significant improvement of our financials in the coming quarters," he said.
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Tata Motors said it made a consolidated profit of 31.82 billion rupees in the first quarter ended June 30, compared with 22.36 billion rupees a year earlier.
Changes to the way JLR's pension payments are calculated resulted in a one-time gain of 36.09 billion rupees.
Combined retail sales of Jaguar saloons and Land Rover sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) increased 3.5 percent to 137,463 in its first quarter from a year earlier.
($1 = 63.8150 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Jessica Kuruthukulangara in Bengaluru; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Susan Fenton)
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