Maruti's Q2 FY27 sales rose 26%, yet profit fell 27%

Companies No. 102 29 October 2026 · 2 min read · By Pranami Hayaran

Maruti Suzuki sold a record 696,654 vehicles from July to September 2026 (Q2 FY27), 26.5% more than a year earlier, when buyers were holding off for a GST cut, its results of 27 October show. Yet net profit fell 27%, from ₹3,303 crore to ₹2,415 crore. So is Maruti earning less on each car? Yes, but that is only half of it.

Maruti sells about 40.8% of India's passenger vehicles. Its biggest cost is the materials and parts it buys to build them. These took 79.9% of net sales (what it got for its vehicles), against 75.7% a year ago, and Maruti blames commodity prices after the West Asia conflict.

So operating profit, what the car business earns before interest, tax and other income, fell 17% to ₹2,804 crore while net sales rose 26%. Per vehicle, it dropped from about ₹61,400 to ₹40,200, a third less.

That is about half of the fall in profit before tax. The other half is other income, earned outside the business. It fell from ₹966 crore to ₹430 crore, and Maruti blames mark-to-market losses on its invested surplus (it holds ₹69,877 crore of investments): their value fell by the quarter's end, and that fall counts against income.

It is the second such quarter. In April to June, Maruti said material costs were "seriously aggravated during the war", and operating profit also fell 17.4%. But other income held up then, so net profit fell only 10.8%.

So demand is not the problem: about 200,000 orders were still waiting at the end of September. Each vehicle now earns a third less, and the investment income that cushioned that in the June quarter swung the other way.

A waterfall from profit before tax of ₹4,291 crore, down ₹578 crore of operating profit, down ₹536 crore of other income and down ₹11 crore of interest, to ₹3,166 crore.

6 bars by quarter: ₹25.5, ₹24.3, ₹23.8 and ₹23.3 left of every ₹100 of sales from April 2025 to March 2026, then ₹19.5 and ₹20.1 in the 2 quarters to September 2026.

6 bars by quarter: operating profit per vehicle of ₹58,063, ₹61,393, ₹57,466 and ₹65,205 from April 2025 to March 2026, then ₹37,074 and ₹40,245 in the 2 quarters to September 2026.

Sources