Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Monday reported a 42 per cent increase in its net profit for the second quarter of current fiscal at Rs 1,137 crore, thanks to improved margins in key sectors like engineering and construction.

Sales grew 17 per cent to Rs 13,328 crore in the three months through September 30 year-on-year. Quarter-on-quarter, sales jumped 21 per cent.

The growth was mainly driven by the infrastructure segment, which accounted for half of the new orders. But weak industrial demand kept weighing on the company's capital goods business. L&T has booked orders worth more than Rs 40,000 crore in the first six months of fiscal year 2012-13, thanks to a great improvement in orders registered by the transport-related infrastructure segment such as roads.

The segment of engineering and construction accounted for 87.6 per cent of sales, while electrical and electronics accounted for 5.8 per cent. Machinery & industrial products segment account for 3.9 per cent.

Speaking about potential business shift to new geographies, L&T CEO K. Venkataramanan said, "Our major overseas order booking is with the Middle East. However, in the next few years, we are building a similar structure in Africa and CIS countries and by 2016; we will have more business from these."

Profits in the most recent quarter got a big boost from a one-time gain of Rs 222 crore from the sale of the company's plastic machinery business plus reversal of provisioning in the account books. Excluding that one-time gain, the net profit stood at Rs 915 crore.