Maruti Suzuki India on Friday posted a lower-than-expected profit for the third quarter, sending its shares to a 21-month low.

The country’s top-selling car maker posted a 17.21 per cent fall in net profit at Rs 1,489.3 crore for the quarter ended December, way below analysts’ average forecast of Rs 1,744 crore quarterly profit.

This is the second successive decline in quarterly net profit for Maruti, which posted a Rs 1,799 crore profit in the same period of the previous fiscal.

Maruti had posted a 9.8 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 2,240.4 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2018. It was the first decline in quarterly profit for the company in over four years.

The decline witnessed in the third quarter is the biggest in nearly five years since the company reported a 35.46 per cent decline in net profit in the fourth quarter of 2013-14 at Rs 800.1 crore.

Shares of the company fell as much as 9 per cent to their lowest since April 2017 after the results. The Maruti scrip, however, recovered a bid at the fag end of trading and closed 7.4 per cent lower at Rs 6,516.35 on the BSE on Friday.

Maruti said its performance during the third quarter was impacted by lower-than-expected sales in the festive season and high commodity prices and unfavourable foreign exchange rates.

Total income during the October-December quarter stood at Rs 20,585.6 crore against Rs 19,528.1 crore in the year-ago period, a growth of 5.41 per cent.

The company sold 4,28,643 vehicles during the quarter, a marginal decline of 0.6 per cent over the same period of the previous year.

The quarter was marked by a combination of several adverse factors coming together that impacted profitability, Maruti said in a statement.

These included adverse commodity prices and foreign exchange rates, higher marketing and sales expenditure along with expenses incurred on expectations of a higher growth.

It further said these were partially offset by several steps, including cost reduction and suggestions from employees and supplier partners.

MSI said its third-quarter show has “to be viewed in the context of particularly weak market conditions”.

Passenger vehicle exports of the company declined 8.5 per cent owing to weakness in global markets.