BENGALURU (Reuters) — Maruti Suzuki India, the nation’s high carmaker by gross sales, reported a bigger-than-expected bounce in third-quarter revenue on Wednesday, buoyed by sturdy demand for its sport utility automobiles (SUVs).

Indian shoppers typically make big-ticket purchases in the course of the festive season, which lasted for a big half for the third quarter. Increased gross sales of dearer SUVs, akin to ‘Grand Vitara’ and ‘Brezza’, helped increase Maruti’s complete gross sales volumes by 7.6% to about 501,000 items.

The firm’s revenue after tax for the three months to Dec. 31 rose 33% to 31.3 billion rupees ($377 million). Analysts, on common, anticipated a revenue of 29.25 billion rupees, per LSEG knowledge.

Still, that is the carmaker’s slowest revenue progress because it reported a drop in revenue within the December 2021 quarter, partly on account of a dip in gross sales of small vehicles, which additionally consists of hatchbacks akin to ‘Baleno’.

They had been down all through final yr and prolonged into the December quarter as excessive inflation curbed rural spending, the phase’s largest shopper demographic.

The ‘Swift’ hatchback-maker’s income from gross sales rose 14.4% to 318.6 billion rupees.

Its margins on earnings earlier than curiosity, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) expanded to 11.7% from 9.8% final yr, however declined from 12.9% within the September quarter, per analysts.

Maruti had supplied greater year-end and pageant reductions within the third quarter which, coupled with greater stock, led to the sequential margin decline.

Contribution of pricier and margin-boosting utility automobiles, largely SUVs, to complete passenger car gross sales rose from about 24% final yr to almost 39% within the December quarter.

Maruti shares, which had been up on the day, climbed about 3% to the day’s excessive after reporting outcomes.