Tata Steel, India’s largest steel company, on Friday said it was expecting higher sales in the fourth quarter of the current financial year than in the same quarter of last year.
Tata Steel Managing Director B Muthuraman said the company’s sales in January were 26 per cent higher than December and in February it would be another 10 per cent higher than last month. This was despite a sluggish demand in the automobile, household goods and consumer durables segments.
The sales in this quarter would be higher both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year basis, Muthuraman said on the sidelines of the inauguration of IFEX ’09, a trade fair of the foundry industry.
“The demand in the construction sector is not bad,” he said. In fact, Tata Steel has registered the best-ever long-product (primarily used in construction) sales at 2.11 lakh tonnes in January against its previous best in November 2008.
However, the better performance expected this quarter was only in terms of volumes. Muthuraman said prices were down to the region of $500-$600 a tonne compared to $800-$1,000 a tonne.
On Tata Steel company Corus, he said like all other European companies, the UK steel maker had cut production by 35 per cent. He pointed out that Corus had taken short-term measures such as cost reduction, changing product-mix, conserving cash, working capital reduction, which would result in benefits of £600 million in the six months ending March.
The strategic and structural changes would also lead to an annual improvement in its operating profit to the tune of over £ 200 million. However, it would also put around 3,500 jobs at risk.
