Apollo Hospitals eyes better margins next year

Apollo Hospitals is planning to improve its margins to 23 per cent by 2018-19 through volume growth and cost control. 

The company’s margins had dipped to 20.1 per cent in the June quarter owing to caps on stent pricing and declining business in some of the company’s hospital clusters.

Apollo Hospitals’ earnings were stable during the September quarter but it faced an incremental cost of Rs 35 crore. The goods and services tax (GST) had a Rs 5 crore impact due to higher taxes on services and select consumables. The loss from Apollo Hospitals’ recently launched Navi Mumbai facility during the quarter