(Reuters) -India’s Escorts Kubota reported a higher fourth-quarter profit on Thursday as strong demand for tractors helped offset a decline in construction vehicles.
Escorts Kubota, industry leader Mahindra & Mahindra and their peers have benefited from robust demand for tractors due to rising farm income in the country.
The company, majority-owned by Japan’s Kubota, reported its standalone profit from continuing operations rose to 2.51 billion rupees ($29.4 million) in the quarter from 2.48 billion rupees a year before.
Shares of Escorts Kubota swung to positive territory after the results and were last trading 0.2% higher. Its shares were down 2.6% ahead of the results.
Meanwhile, revenue increased 6% to 24.30 billion rupees as tractor sales rose 7.6%. Tractor sales contribute a little over 80% of total revenue, while the rest come from construction equipment sales.
The company previously said demand for its construction equipment took a hit from new emission norms that have made the equipment costlier. Sales declined 12% in the January-March quarter.
Earlier this week, Mahindra reported a 23% increase in tractor sales for the last quarter and said it expects industry-wide sales growth to be in the high-single-digit percentage range for the fiscal year to March 2026 due to strong farm incomes and prospects of a good monsoon.
($1 = 85.3900 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru;Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
