Sao Paulo: Brazil’s Embraer, the world’s largest maker of regional jets, posted a decline in second-quarter profit due to higher taxes, but solid output and a more favourable exchange rate boosted the company’s profit margin forecast.

The company reported net income of 114.8 million reais ($56 million), according to a securities filing on Monday, missing an estimate of $74 million in a Reuters survey. Analysts gave their estimates in dollars, but Embraer’s initial earnings report was in Brazilian reais.

A currency swing increased tax obligations related to Embraer’s dollar-denominated inventories. Without that accounting impact, Embraer said it would have booked a jump in net income to 368.7 million reais, as it enjoyed the best quarter for commercial jet deliveries in three years.

Brazil’s currency, the real, lost 10 per cent against the US dollar in the second quarter, which analysts expect to boost Embraer’s long-term profitability, as a quarter of its costs and only a tenth of its sales are denominated in reais.

Rising aircraft deliveries more than doubled earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, a gauge of operating profit known as EBITDA, to 524.4 million reais ($258 million), above a forecast of $249 million in the Reuters poll.

The more favourable exchange rate and solid operating performance in the first half of the year led Embraer to raise its outlook for profit margins this year.

The company now expects EBITDA to equal between 12.5 per cent and 13.5 per cent of revenue in 2012. Embraer previously forecast a so-called EBITDA margin between 11.5 per cent and 12.5 per cent this year.

However, analysts said a scarcity of new jet sales and an order backlog at a six-year low have overshadowed the strong performance of Embraer’s assembly line, leading to the stock’s 20 per cent drop over the past three months.

A fragile global economy and Europe’s debt crisis have depressed new demand for E-Jets, which are facing stiffer competition from Canada’s Bombardier Inc and newer Japanese rival Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp, a unit of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

Investors are now watching for evidence of a stronger recovery in regional jet demand from US carriers or signs from management that commercial jet sales may not keep pace with output this year, as the company originally forecast.