MUMBAI: The AV Birla group flagship UltraTech Cement on Monday reported a 35.2 percent on-year growth in net profit at Rs 2,258 crore for the March quarter driven by robust demand for building materials and lower operating costs.
The country’s largest cement maker, which had logged in Rs 1670.10 crore in the same period last fiscal, in an exchange filing said its board has recommended a dividend of Rs 70 or 700 percent over the face value of the share for FY24.
Revenue jumped at a much lower pace of 9.4 percent to Rs 20,419 crore on annualised basis but sequentially top line rose 21 percent.
For the full year, the company recorded a consolidated net sale of Rs 69,810 crore, up 12 percent on-year from Rs 62,338 crore from which it earned Rs 7,005 crore, more than 38 percent compared to Rs 5,064 crore in FY23.
The company recorded a growth of 13 percent in volume for the full year, of which 11 percent was contributed by Q4. It also achieved a full-year operating profit per metric tonne of Rs 1,101.
UltraTech added 13.27 mtpa grey cement capacity during the year, while also commissioning greenfield cement capacities at Karur in Tamil Nadu and Kukurdih in Chhattisgarh of 2.7 mtpa each.
UltraTech expects demand to continue to be robust, despite the sector seeing a slow start to the quarter due to harsh winters in the North and festivities in the South, while the East struggled with fiscal challenges but showed signs of recovery towards the end of the quarter.
The robust bottom line growth came despite cement prices being under pressure in the reporting quarter due to the rollback of price hikes amid subdued demand. Price hikes announced in the September-October period were mostly reversed in recent months.
Volume growth recovered to a robust 7-8 percent on annualized basis, after growing around 15 percent on-year in the first half which got whittled down with a moderate slowdown in the third quarter due to regional hindrances, according to a Crisil report.
