NEW DELHI: Country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki’s (MSIL) quarterly profit plummeted from Rs 1,166 crore in the quarter ending March 2021 to Rs 441 crore in the quarter ending June 2021.
MSIL had reported loss of Rs 249.4 crore in the first quarter of last financial year as India was under strict lockdown during most part of the period.
MSIL’s revenue during the June quarter jumped more than four times to Rs 17,770.7 crore against Rs 4,106.5 crore in Q1FY21. Sequentially, however, it fell by 27%. Maruti’s number for Q1FY22 is also lower than street expectation. Most analysts had expected the company to report a net profit of Rs 700-800 crore for the June 2021 quarter.
“The second wave of the pandemic adversely impacted on the Q1 production and sales. While all parameters this quarter were substantially better than Q1 of FY2020-21, a comparison is not meaningful because Q1 last year had a much higher degree of disruption due to the pandemic,” said MSIL in a regulatory filing.
The company sold a total of 353,614 units during Q1FY22. Sales in the domestic market stood at 308,095 units while exports were at 45,519 units. During the same period previous year, MSIL had sold a total of 76,599 units while in Q4FY21 total sales stood at 492,235 units.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA, during the quarter was at Rs 821 crore as against an EBITDA loss of Rs 863.4 crore last year. Operating margin in the quarter stood at 4.8% as against 8.6% reported in the previous quarter on account of steep rise in raw material prices.
“The EBITDA came in lower than our expectations on account of higher employee expenses while gross margins fared marginally better than expectations,” said Milan Desai, Lead Equity Analyst, Angel Broking.