India's Tata Motors posts Q1 profit on strong JLR sales

BENGALURU, July 25 (Reuters) - Tata Motors (TAMO.NS), Indias largest automaker by revenue, reported a third consecutive quarterly profit on Tuesday, helped by price hikes and strong demand for cars in its luxury Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) segment.

The company posted a consolidated net profit of 32.03 billion rupees ($391.31 million) for the April to June quarter, compared with a loss of 50.07 billion rupees a year before.

Analysts on average expected a profit of 26.29 billion rupees, per Refinitiv IBES data.

Tata Motors, which produces Indias top-selling Nexon sport utility vehicle (SUV), has benefited from a string of price hikes for its passenger vehicles and falling input costs, analysts have said.

The company also approved a simplification of its corporate structure by cancelling its A ordinary shares issued in 2008 and then in a further share sale in 2010 and rights issue in 2015.

Meanwhile, a 29% jump in JLRs retail sales – excluding that of its China joint venture – drove up Tata Motors quarterly revenue 42.5% to 1.02 trillion rupees.

JLR, which usually forms two-thirds of the companys revenue, accounted for over 70% of first-quarter revenue.

However, second-quarter production and cashflow at JLR is expected to be lower than the first due to an annual summer plant shutdown.

Shares of Tata Motors closed up 1.6% ahead of results. They have outperformed the Nifty Auto indexs (.NIFTYAUTO) 25% increase so far this year, with a 64.8% rise for the year as the company swung to a profit on improved sales and financials at JLR.

($1 = 81.8530 Indian rupees)