Maruti Suzuki has turned in a profit despite the double whammy of the second wave outbreak and shortage of spare parts hampering production.
The Gurgaon automaker made a net profit of Rs 440 crore over the three-month period of April to June, compared to the loss of Rs 249 crore during the same quarter last year.
“While all parameters this quarter were substantially better than Q1 of FY2020-21, a comparison is not meaningful because Q1 last year had a much higher degree of disruption due to the pandemic,” the company said in a statement released on Wednesday evening.
While sales have picked up compared to the peak days of COVID-19 phase one last year, they still remain far below the previous high in the first quarter of 2019.
During the period April-June 2021, the company sold 3.43 lakh cars. More than 3 lakhs of these were sold within India, with about 45,000 being exported.
However, the sales in the same period in 2019 were just short of 5 lakhs, highlighting the drop the auto industry has seen for the last few years of slowdown, a situation acerbated by the pandemic.