The nation's largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd recently announced that quarterly profit plunged by 54.3%, lagging forecasts in the midst of high raw material costs, lower volumes and adverse impact of currency changes.

On Thursday, New Delhi-based Maruti informed that its net profit plunged to 2.14 billion rupees ($43.8 million) in its fiscal Q3 ended December.

The company confirmed that there is a fall by 2.8% in the net sales to 46.26 billion rupees.

Chennai-based commercial vehicle manufacturer and Hinduja Group owned company, Ashok Leyland announced financial results for the third quarter of current financial year.

The company, under the impact of lower sales due to economic slowdown, posted decline of 82.64 per cent in net profit for the Q3 ended December, 2008. It stood at just Rs 21.09 crore in the reporting quarter as compared to Rs 121.49 crore during the same quarter last year.

In a bid to add power to its pr

Stockholm  - The Swedish government Thursday moved to help Volvo Cars, the troubled Swedish subsidiary of US carmaker Ford.

The government said it has given the Swedish National Debt Office the task of negotiating the terms for a 5-billion-kronor (525 million dollars) credit guarantee to Volvo Cars and Ford.

New York - US automotive concern Ford reported Thursday that it lost 5.9 billion dollars in the final quarter of 2008, boosting the full-year red ink to 14.6 billion dollars.

In 2007, Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford had lost 2.7 billion dollars.

The fourth quarter losses came as meanwhile sales plunged by one- third to 29.2 billion dollars, the company said. Full-year sales in
2008 came to 146.3 billion dollars, down 15 per cent.

The German luxury car manufacturer, BMW AG Germany is on the verge of launching its five more new models in the Indian market.

In India, BMW marks its existence as BMW India, the wholly owned arm of the world’s major luxury carmaker.

BMW India has already launched the all-new 7 series sedan and the new 3 Series sedan. The company would also launch two more versions of the 7 series in the coming months.

Moreover, it will also launch SUV X6 and X3 diesel and a new sports model in 2009.