The nation's largest aluminum producer was immensely helped by the painful cost-cutting and rising sales to automakers to resume to profitability for the first time in nine months.

Apart from this, Wednesday also witnessed Alcoa Inc. forecasting an 11 percent increase in worldwide aluminum demand in the second half of the year, the credit of which goes to impressive growth in China. The metal, which is quite light weighted, is used in everything from airplanes to cars to houses.

After three straight quarterly losses, the results come as a relief, although Alcoa reported a 71 percent drop in third-quarter profit from a year earlier.

Alcoa CEO Klaus Kleinfeld, said, “We do clearly see growth, substantial growth ... in China. (The) second half of the year is clearly better than the first half in many industries and many regions.”

As per the Pittsburgh-based company, the revenue soared due to said rising demand from several industries, especially automakers compared with the prior three months. The second quarter witnessed a jump by 21 percent in the sales to automakers.

Michael Robinet, a vice president at CSM Worldwide, an auto industry consulting firm near Detroit expressed, “Although North American auto production dropped 20 percent in the third quarter year-over-year; the aluminum content in vehicles may have risen as automakers move to meet higher federal fuel economy standards by making cars and trucks lighter.”

After the happy news was out, shares for Alcoa hiked 5.9 percent in after-hours trade.

A sum of $77 million, or 8 cents per share was earned by Alcoa for three months ended 30th September, compared with profit of $268 million, or 33 cents per share, a year earlier.

Thought the revenue shook 34% to $4.62 billion from the same period a year earlier; it was higher 9 percent from the second quarter of 2009.