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Bajaj Auto Q1 net beats f’cast, shares up
Posted by Yogesh on Thursday, 10 July, 2008
MUMBAI, July 10 , India’s No. 2 motorcycle maker, on Thursday posted a better-than-expected first quarter profit as it rode sales of higher-margin bikes, and said it expected to offset higher input costs with new launches.
Bajaj Auto, which relisted in May following a restructuring which split the manufacturing and financial services businesses into separate firms, will launch four new 125 cc motorbikes in 2008/09 as it cuts dependence on lower-margin 100 cc bikes.
Bajaj, a unit of Bajaj Holdings & Investment , said net profit in its fiscal first quarter to end-June was 1.75 billion rupees on net sales of 23.11 billion.
That compared with a Reuters poll forecast of a net profit of 1.66 billion rupees on sales of 23.0 billion rupees.
Shares in Bajaj, which has a market worth of $1.5 billion, were up 2.0 percent at 460 rupees at 0622 GMT in a weak Mumbai market.
Operating margin, a key gauge of profitability, fell to 11.5 percent from 13.4 percent a year earlier, it said.
Source Reuters
