TVS Motor did well in early trades today after the company unveiled strong Q3 results after trading hours on Monday.

The scrip of the Chennai-based two-wheeler major edged up 2.4% to Rs 509.90 on Tuesday. A total of 120 TVS Motor Company shares changed hands on BSE so far.

The stock has held firm in the market on the back of the company's strong performance in the current year. For Q3 eded 31 December 2002, TVS reported a 204% rise in net profit to Rs 32.48 crore on a 35% growth in net sales to Rs 706.79 crore (Rs 7.06 billion).

The results are in line with expecatations. As per a capitalmarket.com poll, analysts had forecast a jump of 164.5% to 230.5% in net profit to between Rs 28.25 crore to Rs 35.3 crore as against Rs 10.68 crore in DQ 2001. Analysts had projected a between 34.3% to 40% growth in sales to between Rs 699 crore (Rs 6.99 billion) and Rs 728 crore (Rs7.28 billion) as against sales of Rs 520.45 crore (Rs 5.2 billion) in DQ 2001.

The company said that effects of high sales turnover, cost reduction, significant savings in interest cost, value engineering and concerted efforts at setting up production to match the market's demands have been directly reflected in the improved profit after tax as well as earning per share.

Strong performance of its bike Victor and cost reduction has been driving the company's performance for some time now. Only recently TVS Motor Company announced that it had sold 3,00,000 motorcycles of the Victor model in just a little less than 16 months. The company says that it now has a 20% market share of the motorcycles market from 14% in 2001. The company is hoping to take a 24% market share by the end of 2002-03. TVS announces its Q3 results on 27 January 2003.

TVS' total motorcycle sales surged 38% to 56,619 units in December 2002 from 43,220 units last year. Overall sales of the Chennai-based two-wheeler major jumped 21% to 88,682 units in December 2002 from 73,529 units in the same month last year.

For the nine months ended 31 December 2002, the company's sales leaped up 36% to 8,44,941 units as against 6,20,051 units a year earlier. Motorcycle sales zoomed 79% to 5,40,366 units.

The company is expected to save nearly Rs 13 crore on royalty payment (the company had cut off its relations with Suzuki ) for FY 2002-03. Further, another Rs 96 crore is likely to be saved as a result of various cost-cutting initiatives in 2002-03. However, the entire savings will not be reflected in the bottom line of the company in FY 2002-03 due to the ongoing brand building exercise and the company's policy of passing on cost benefits to customers.