Tata Motors' Q2 profit surges 71 pct, beats estimates

Nov 8 (Reuters) - Tata Motors Ltd, India's biggest automaker by revenue, beat analyst estimates by posting a 71 percent jump in profit, its first quarterly gain in a year, as buoyant sales at luxury unit Jaguar Land Rover Ltd received a lift from new models.

Tata Motors, part of the $100 billion Tata conglomerate, has become dependent on its U.K. unit to prop up profits. At home, passenger and commercial vehicle sales have suffered from an environment of high interest rates and fuel prices in an economy growing at its slowest pace in a decade.

Net (Berlin: NETK.BE - news) profit was 35.42 billion rupees ($566 million) for the fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with 20.75 billion rupees a year earlier, Tata Motors said in a statement on Friday.

Net sales rose 30 percent to 557.01 billion rupees.

The mean estimate of 10 analysts was a profit of 25.49 billion rupees and revenue of 539.8 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Shares of Tata, worth $18.23 billion, closed up 1.1 percent before the earnings release whereas the benchmark index ended down 0.8 percent.