BOMBAY, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Tata Motors Ltd , India's largest truck maker, said on Wednesday quarterly profit soared 251 percent as truck industry sales soared, powered by rising government investment to build a national highway network.
Tata Motors, part of India's second-largest business group, the Tatas, saw net profit rose to 2.07 billion rupees ($45.62 million) in the second quarter ended September 30, a company official told Reuters. That compared with a reported profit of 588.0 million rupees a year earlier.
The median of a Reuters poll of 10 brokerages earlier this month had forecast net profit to nearly triple to 1.73 billion rupees and revenue to rise 21.7 percent to 31.34 billion.
Tata Motors, also the country's largest maker of buses and the third-largest producer of both cars and utility vehicles, has also benefited from replacement demand for trucks and rising car demand, helped by tax cuts and low interest rates.
Tata Motors' shares have risen 85 percent since the beginning of the second quarter, outpacing a 31 percent rise in the benchmark Bombay index , on expectations of the good results and growing investor preference for automobile stocks. ($1 = 45.3 Indian rupees)