Maruti Suzuki India, the country's largest carmaker, today announced its Q3 and April-December 2018 financial results. The company says the Q3 results have to be viewed in the context of particularly weak market conditions.

According to the carmaker, while SIAM had forecast a passenger vehicle domestic market growth of around eight to 10 percent for the year, the industry grew by 4.4 percent in the first 3 quarters of FY2019, and declined in the third quarter by 0.8 percent.

In Q3 FY2019, the company sold a total of 428,643 vehicles, down 0.6 percent YoY. The net revenue was Rs 18,926 crore, down by 0.1 percent, while net profit was Rs 1,489 crore, lower by 17.2 percent YoY.

In addition, the company says it helped dealers retail about 90,000 vehicles in excess of the wholesale to keep inventories lean as the festive season sales as growth was below expectation.

The company's exports also declined by 8.5 percent owing to weakness in global markets, protection in some markets and devaluation of most currencies with respect to the US dollar. The Q3 FY2019 period was also marked by a combination of several adverse factors coming together which impacted profitability that includes adverse commodity prices, foreign exchange rates, higher marketing and sales expenditure and higher costs in resources and capacities which were earlier planned to enable a higher estimated growth.

Maruti Suzuki was able to partially offset the impact because of its regular efforts in cost-reduction, VA-VE exercises, suggestions from employees and supplier partners.

In the April-December 2018 period, Maruti Suzki sold a total of 1,403,970 vehicles, a growth of 6.5 percent over the same period last year. While domestic sales comprised 1,324,837 units, exports totaled 79,133 units.

During the period, the company registered revenue of Rs 62,289 crore, up 8.3 percent YoY. The net profit was Rs 5,705 crore, down 2.3 percent compared to the same period previous year.

Also read: Maruti Suzuki registers 8.3% revenue growth, profit down 2.3% in Apr-Dec 2018