Ambuja Cement Ltd, one of the big cement manufacturers in India, on October 21 reported a 94 percent decline in its consolidated net profit at Rs 51.3 crore for the quarter ended September 2022 as against Rs 891 crore it recorded a year back.
On a sequential basis also, the company's profit tanked 94 percent from Rs 865 crore earned in the April-June period.
The consolidated revenue for the quarter at Rs 7,143 crore was higher by 7 percent on-year from Rs 6,647 crore recorded during the same period last year. Compared to the previous quarter of the current fiscal, the revenue is lower by 11 percent from Rs 8,033 crore.
“Cement industry has been facing significant margin pressure resulting from steep rise in global energy prices, however, recent cooling off in energy prices and post-monsoon demand pick up appears like a silver lining for coming quarters”, said Ajay Kapur, CEO, Ambuja Cements.
Ambuja has embarked upon a transformational journey to gain both scale and market leadership, with focused efforts on ramping up capacity, and margin expansion, added Kapur.
The consolidated volumes for the quarter improved 5.6 percent from 11.9 to 12.6 million tonnes.
The raw material costs were marginally higher due to increase in fly ash and gypsum prices while the freight cost per ton declined at the back of increased synergy and efficiency gain. The other expenses were also marginally higher due to inflationary trends.
The earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the quarter pummelled 76 percent to Rs 334 crore from an EBITDA of Rs 1,416 crore achieved during the same period last year.
“The EBITDA was impacted by significant increase in fuel cost, partly mitigated by coal supply from captive coal block and reduction in logistics costs”, the company said in its earnings release.
Consequently, the EBITDA margin for the quarter slipped 17 percent to 4.7 percent from 21.7 percent last year.
Ambuja Cement was trading Rs 3.2 lower at Rs 514.5 at 2.25 pm on October 21 at the NSE. The stock has generated a 35 percent return over the past one year but is down 5 percent over the past one month.