Amara Raja Batteries' PAT falls 7.9% to Rs 201.3 crore in Sept quarter

Amara Raja Batteries Ltd on Tuesday reported a 7.93 per cent fall in consolidated profit after tax at Rs 201.27 in the second quarter ended on September 30.

The company had posted a consolidated profit after tax of Rs 218.61 crore in the July-September period a year ago, Amara Raja Batteries Ltd said in a regulatory filing.

However, its revenue from the operations was up 14.16 per cent to Rs 1,935.52 crore during the quarter under review, compared with Rs 1,695.31 crore in the year-ago period.

"The company's performance during the quarter was driven by the demand rebound across all key sectors of the business. The robust operational guidelines to deal with pandemic risk have helped ramp up in manufacturing capacity utilisation and distribution operations," said Amara Raja Batteries in a post earning statement.

 

Its total expenses stood at Rs 1,676.03 crore, 13.11 per cent higher as against Rs 1,481.67 crore in the year-ago period.

During the quarter, Amara Raja Batteries' profit before tax was up 16.91 per cent to Rs 270.77 crore, compared with Rs 231.59 crore in the corresponding period of the previous financial year.

Its tax expenses during the July-September 2020 quarter were at Rs 69.50 crore.

Amara Raja Batteries CEO S Vijayanand said, "We have been operating all our manufacturing facilities near 100 per cent capacity utilisation to keep pace with the demand ramp up."

He added that there have been some delays in the capacity expansion programmes in the past couple of quarters due to COVID restrictions. "We are working in a focused manner to complete these projects which should help us debottleneck supply constraints in the coming months."

Shares of Amara Raja Batteries Ltd on Tuesday settled at Rs 789.10 on BSE, up 4.03 per cent from the previous close.