Bajaj Auto Ltd.'s profit rose in the second quarter of FY24 on higher average selling prices.
The company's net profit rose 20% to Rs 1,836 crore in the quarter ended September, according to an exchange filing on Wednesday. That compares with the Rs 1,784.5-crore consensus forecast of analysts tracked by Bloomberg.
Bajaj Auto Q2 FY24 Key Highlights (Year-on-Year)
Revenue rose 5.6% to Rs 10,777 crore (Bloomberg estimate: Rs 10,931 crore).
Ebitda grew 21.3% to Rs 2,132.9 crore (Bloomberg estimate: Rs 2,127.5 crore).
Operating margin stood at 19.79% versus 17.23% (Bloomberg estimate: 19.5%).
The company's two-wheeler sales fell 13.5% year-on-year to 8.82 lakh units on a higher base. The commercial vehicle sales rose over 30% to 1.72 lakh units.
In Q2 FY23, the company's two-wheeler dispatches had risen significantly, as it built back the dealer inventory after it got depleted due to a shortage of semiconductors, which limited supply of two-wheelers.
The higher base effect has largely subsided and the domestic two-wheeler volume should grow in the ongoing quarter, Dinesh Thapar, chief financial officer at Bajaj Auto, told BQ Prime in a media call.
The margin expansion was driven by better realisation and a richer product mix, which more than covered the drag arising from investments on growing electric scooters, the company said in a press release.
In terms of electric vehicles, the company is working on expanding its network for Chetak scooters with work on more products going on to scale up the business further, the two-wheeler maker said.
Bajaj Auto had a market share of 11% in the electric two-wheeler market at the end of the September quarter, as compared with 5% last year.
Shares of Bajaj Auto ended 0.05% higher at Rs 5,143.7 apiece before the results were announced, as compared with a 0.7% fall in the benchmark NSE Nifty 50.
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