Bajaj Auto is on course to achieve its target of four million vehicles this year. The second quarter of 2011 saw the company crossing sales of one million units.

In the second quarter of this year, the company?s net profit grew 69% to a record high of Rs 682 crore compared to Rs 403 crore last year same quarter.

The company saw a 46% growth in sales volumes to 10,00,570 units. Bajaj Auto?s turnover increased by 52% to Rs 4,426 crore for the second quarter compared to Rs 2,909 crore in Q2 of FY?10.

The company also continues to grab market share in the motorcycles market. Bajaj?s market share in the motorcycles market grew from 29% in the second quarter of last year to 34% in the quarter ended September 30, 2010. The company is chipping away market share bit by bit from competition. It had a 1% market share gain in the second quarter of this year. Bajaj?s market share in the first quarter of this year was at 33% and is now at 34%.

The company?s managing director, Rajiv Bajaj, stressed that the company does not plan to upset its margins and wants to maintain it at the current level of 20%. Further, he said that the company does not plan price reductions or excessive promotions. Bajaj has undertaken a marginal increase in prices in October and feels that offsetting the entire input cost pressures could not be possible.

The Bajaj Auto stock hit a high of Rs 1,554.50 on the NSE on Tuesday before closing at Rs 1,514.45 and the stock volume was 8,20,662 shares. On the BSE, the share fell 9.4% to close at Rs 1,512.55.

The dominance of Pulsar and Discover brands in the product mix and record volumes enabled the company to improve its EBITDA margins from 20% in Q1/FY11 to 20.7 % in Q2/FY 11, it said. The company was confident of achieving the four million vehicles target at an EBITDA margin of 20%.

The quarter witnessed the highest ever motorcycle sales with domestic motorcycle sales rising 53% as against the industry growth of 21%. Bajaj?s domestic motorcycle sales was at 6.32 lakh units while exports were at 2,50,822 units. Pulsar recorded its highest sales of 2,46,000 units while Discover sold 3.92 lakh units. Sales was restricted due to production constraints, the company said.

But with plant II at Pantnagar commencing production from October 8, the annual motorcycle capacity here has gone up to 15 lakh units. S Ravikumar,vice-president, business development, Bajaj Auto, said, ?The capacity constraint is more on the three-wheeler side and we had to rationalise the production and compromise on our exports for it.? The quarter also saw the highest ever commercial vehicle sales at 1.17 lakh units which was a 37% growth over last year’s second quarter’s 85,246 units.