Aditya Birla Group’s UltraTech Cement on Monday missed Street estimates on all the key fronts during the July-September quarter, primarily because of slowdown in demand due to monsoon and project delays which hit price realisations.
The company’s net profit fell 36% year on year to Rs 820 crore, while revenue from operations was down 2.4% to Rs 15,635 crore. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation at Rs 2,018 crore was down 20.9% YoY.
Domestic sales revenue was down 4% annually at Rs 14, 575 crore on the back of subdued infrastructure pan-India and reduced housing demand due to heavier than usual long period of monsoons. Overseas sales revenue grew 39% annually.
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The company’s grey cement (domestic) revenues were down 6% and white cement were down 10%. Consolidated revenue from sales was down 3% annually at Rs 15,308 crore.
The company’s sales realisation per million tonne was Rs 4,901 per million tonnes down 8.4% annually, and 2.9% quarter on quarter.
“Demand should start rising in the second half and we expect to register double digit growth going forward (in H2)” the management said in the post earnings call.
The company management also said that it is on track to deploy capex for capacity expansion as planned. As the integration of Kesoram Cement draws near, the company has earmarked a corpus of Rs 400-500 crore to be spent on bringing the Kesoram facilities on par with UltraTech’s. This corpus will be spent over 2 years once Kesoram is integrated into UltraTech’s operations.
UltraTech’s cement manufacturing capacity grew to 150.7 million tonnes per annum at the end of September 2024 with the addition of 9.9 MTPA since March 2024. The management said it is on track to add another 6.3 MTPA capacity in the remaining half of the fiscal to end FY25 with a manufacturing capacity of 157 MTPA.
“With the completion of the ongoing expansion projects across India by FY27, and receipt of statutory approvals for the acquisitions of Kesoram Cement (10.75 MTPA) and The India Cements (14.45 MTPA), UltraTech’s total cement capacity will surpass 200 MTPA,” the company said.
UltraTech achieved capacity utilisation of 68% during the quarter.
Consolidated sales volumes grew 4% year on year at 27.84 million tonnes on the back of healthy overseas performance. Domestic sales volume was up 3% annually. The company’s retail outlet under the UltraTech Building Solutions umbrella increased to 4,236 contributing 19.4% of domestic grey sales volume. Sequentially, consolidated sales volume was down 13% and annually, down 15%.
Raw material costs rose 1% on account of an increase in the cost of flyash and slag. Blended manufacturing cost per tonne reduced 4% annually, the company said in its earnings presentation.
On Monday, UltraTech Cement’s shares closed down 2.1% at Rs 10,839 on the NSE.
From: financialexpress
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