India's Tata Motors posts loss after Tianjin disaster

India's largest car maker Tata Motors reported a quarterly loss of $65.4 million Friday due to a massive one-off hit from the Tianjin gas explosion and weak Jaguar sales in China.

The firm, part of Tata's sprawling tea-to-steel conglomerate, said it had suffered a 24.93 billion rupee ($378.89 million) charge following the chemical blast in August that killed 161 people.

"The process for finalising an insurance claim may take some months to conclude," the Mumbai-based firm added in a statement.

Tata said 5,800 cars had been lost in the explosion as it reported a 4.3 billion rupee loss for the three months to September, compared to a profit of 32.9 billion rupees in the same period last year.

The earnings report also showed that a 32 percent slump in sales of Tata's luxury British unit Jaguar Land Rover in China had contributed to the poor results.

"Weaker China sales and mix, foreign exchange revaluation and higher depreciation and amortisation expenses in the Jaguar Land Rover business," had been a factor, the statement said.

Revenue from JLR fell to 9.8 billion pounds ($14.85 billion) from 10.2 billion pounds.

Tata Motors is hugely reliant on revenues from JLR, which it bought for $2.3 billion from Ford in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis.

Consolidated revenue was at 613.18 billion rupees ($9.53 billion) up from 606.41 billion rupees.