Suzuki Motor Corp, Japan's No 4 automaker, posted a 31 percent rise in quarterly profit on Monday on brisk sales in Asia, and stuck to its conservative forecasts as competition intensifies in the key Indian market.
Suzuki has enjoyed robust earnings growth compared with most domestic rivals thanks to its limited exposure to the stronger yen and heavy weighting in India, where majority-held unit Maruti Suzuki India Ltd sells every other car.
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But falling margins in India due to rising raw materials prices and slowing growth in the country's car market have weighed on Suzuki's shares, which have been the worst performer among Japanese auto stocks in the past three months. In the October-December third quarter, operating profit at the maker of the SX-4, Swift and other compact cars came to 23.64 billion yen ($287.7 million), up 31 percent from a year earlier and roughly in line with an average estimate of 24 billion yen in a survey of four analysts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
That brought its nine-month profit to 92.46 billion yen, just shy of its full-year forecast of 100 billion yen. A survey of 21 analysts put the profit at a much better 115.8 billion yen for the year to March 31, up 46 percent from last year. Third-quarter net profit quadrupled to 12.2 billion yen from 3.0 billion yen last year. Most other Japanese automakers are seen posting a drop in third-quarter profits, hit by a sharp drop in domestic sales after government subsidies to replace old cars ended.
At the same time, Maruti Suzuki is fighting back by moving into the higher end, where bigger brands do most of their business. Maruti last week launched the $36,000 Kizashi sedan to take on Toyota's Corolla, Volkswagen's Jetta, General Motors' Chevrolet Optra and others.