Magna International Q1 profit improves to $369M; revenue up at $8.36B

Magna International Inc. has reported an increase in first-quarter net earnings as the automobile parts manufacturer and vehicle assembly company increased sales despite a overall downturn in the industry.

The Ontario-company Magna said Friday that net profits attributable to shareholders rose to US$369 million or $1.57 per diluted share, up from US$343 million or $1.46 per share.

Revenue improved to US$8.36 billion, up from US$7.67 billion in the same 2012 period.

In its earnings release, Magna noted the nine per cent increase in revenue came amid a meagre one per cent increase in vehicle production in North America and a nine per cent decrease in Europe.

“Our North American, European and rest of world production sales, as well as tooling, engineering and other sales all increased in the first quarter of 2013 relative to the comparable quarter in 2012,” it said.

Complete vehicle assembly sales increased 33 per cent to US$798 million for the first quarter of 2013 compared with US$599 million for the first quarter of 2012, while complete vehicle assembly volumes increased 25 per cent to about 37,000 units.

Magna has 315 manufacturing operations and 87 product development, engineering and sales centres in 29 countries and employees some 121,000 workers.