Indias Maruti tops Q3 profit view on strong passenger car demand

India's Maruti tops Q3 profit view on strong passenger car demand

BENGALURU (Reuters) -Maruti Suzuki India Ltd reported better-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday, as the countrys biggest carmaker benefitted from strong demand for its passenger cars, sending shares up as much as 2.4%.

Profit for Maruti, which has over 40% market share in the countrys passenger vehicles segment, came in at 23.51 billion rupees ($288.53 million) for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with 10.11 billion rupees a year ago.

Car sales in the country are up nearly 23% this quarter from a year ago, aided by festive demand and improved availability of semiconductors, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers has said.

Maruti, majority owned by Japans Suzuki Motor Corp, sold 465,911 vehicles in the quarter, up from 430,668 units the same quarter last year.

The company said it had about 363,000 pending orders, out of which about 119,000 orders were for newly launched models.

Analysts on average had expected the company to report a profit of 18.81 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

($1 = 81.4825 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)

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