The third quarter of 2012-13 has turned out to be the best ever for Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL) with the company achieving several new milestones in terms of sales, profit etc.

The company said that the launch of "new exciting and differentiated products" enabled it to beat the slowdown in the domestic market, registering a growth higher than the industry growth.

In a release on the results of the third quarter for 2012-13 FY, BAL said that it recorded a turnover of Rs 5,616 crore, a 9 per cent improvement over the corresponding quarter in the previous fiscal (Rs 5,154 crore). Export earnings constituted Rs 1,748 crore (Rs 1,708 crore), a 2 per cent increase.

The operating EBITDA was Rs 1,105 crore against Rs 1,061 crore in the same quarter in the previous year. Profit after tax was Rs 819 crore (Rs 795 crore).

BAL said that its EBITDA margin at 20.1 per cent was the best in the industry but was marginally down from 21 per cent in the Q 3 of 2011-12.

It said the company reached new milestones on several fronts in the Q3 of this year. The turnover of Rs 5,616 crore was the highest ever turnover and the operating EBITDA at Rs 1,105 crore was too the highest ever. The profit before tax at Rs 1,174 crore and the after tax profit of Rs 819 crore were also the highest ever it had made.

The company said that the launch of new vehicles and differentiated products enabled it to tackle the slowdown in the domestic market making it possible to achieve a 7 per cent growth in domestic market, bettering the industry growth of 4 per cent. In the international sales, it was Africa calling with Nigeria registering its highest ever retail in December 2012.

Overall, in the domestic and export markets, the market share of BAL was close to 32 per cent.

In the commercial vehicles (three wheelers) sales too, BAL was able to record its highest ever sales of more than 1.41 lakh units. In the domestic market, in this segment the growth was 23 per cent against the industry growth of 13 per cent made possible by diesel passenger carrier segment.

The operating EBITDA margins had sequentially improved from 19.7 per cent in Q2 of this year to 20.1 per cent in Q3 of this year which was because of "richer product mix and better realisation on exports". The cash and equivalents on December 31, 2012, was at Rs 5,374 crore against Rs 4,521 crore at the end of September 2012.

Shares of Bajaj Auto pared some of the gains post result announcement. While on the BSE, the share lost Rs 39.35 to trade at Rs 2,075, on the NSE the share was quoting at Rs 2,083, a loss of Rs 31.55, at about 2.20 p.m.

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