* Q2 pretax profit 36.4 million DKK vs avg forecast 16.8 million
* Sales of car sound systems up nearly 90 percent yr/yr
* Company keeps full-year guidance intact
* Shares up 8 percent, hit nine-month high
(Adds details, quotes, byline; updates share price)
By John Acher
COPENHAGEN, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Danish luxury electronics maker Bang & Olufsen posted a forecast-beating swing back to second-quarter profits, driven largely by swift growth in its car sound systems business and boosting its shares.
Bang & Olufsen, which has grown as a supplier of audio systems for upmarket cars including Aston Martin, Audi and Mercedes, said its automotive business grew nearly 90 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier.
B&O's report provided more evidence of a recovery in the luxury goods market from its worst slump in a decade, following bumper results and upbeat comments from British raincoat and handbag maker Burberry, Swiss jeweller and watchmaker Richemont and others as the rich escape the gloom.
"It is clear we are on a very positive track in automotive," Chief Executive Kalle Hvidt Nielsen said in a conference call for analysts. He added that the company aims also to continue growing in its mainstay audio-video business.
The producer of sound systems and high-end televisions -- such as the top-of-the-line 103-inch BeoVision4 that costs roughly 100,000 euros ($134,700) -- struggled with falling demand for luxury goods during the economic crisis.
Sales in its main audio-video business grew 7 percent year-on-year in the quarter, which analysts said was modest.
"The automotive business is really what is contributing to growth," Sydbank analyst Jacob Pedersen said, adding that the traditional audio-video business was "not impressive."
Pretax profit reached 36.4 million Danish crowns ($6.6 million) in the three months to the end of November against a loss of 47.6 million a year earlier.
The result beat analysts' estimates which ranged from 12 million to 20 million crowns in a Reuters survey.
Shares in Bang & Olufsen, which lost 23 percent of their value in 2010, traded up 8.1 percent at 66.55 crowns at 1307 GMT, just off a new nine-month high of 67.50 crowns, against the trend of a weaker Copenhagen bourse.
"Overall, the result is better than expected," said Sydbank's Pedersen.
GROWING AUTOMOTIVE
Mercedes-Benz, a B&O client, reported this month a 15.3 percent rise in 2010 sales thanks to growth in the United States and China, and Audi, another client, sold 15 percent more cars last year than in 2009.
B&O's automotive segment generated about 17 percent of group turnover in the second quarter, up from about 10 percent in the same quarter a year earlier.
"The strong growth is owing to a combination of the increase in global car sales and Bang & Olufsen's launch of a number of new sound systems for Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Aston Martin in the previous year," the company said.
"We have a very positive development in automotive, and we think we can continue to grow in the time to come," Nielsen said, though he declined to forecast whether the second-quarter pace of growth would continue in the second half.
Nielsen added that a contract with BMW had so far only put B&O sound systems in a concept car, not in mass-produced models.
Alm. Brand analyst Michael Jorgensen said disappointing audio-video sales were offset by the performance in automotive.
The 85-year-old company, which is an international showcase of Danish design, said its main market Germany grew more than 7 percent in the first half of the year and Asian markets outperformed, but its Danish and UK markets declined.
Second-quarter sales grew to 775 million crowns from 669 million in the same quarter a year earlier, missing analysts' average forecast of 801 million in the Reuters survey.
For the current year it said it expects a "positive development" in turnover and "positive result before tax".
It slightly upgraded 2010/11 guidance for its gross margin, saying it now expected it "to increase marginally compared to the 2009/10 financial year", against an earlier forecast of no significant deviation from the previous year. (Additional reporting by Mette Fraende and Shida Chayesteh; Editing by Will Watermanand Hans Peters) ($1=5.560 Danish Crown) ($1=.7425 Euro)