Amara Raja Batteries Limited has posted a marginal dip in its net profit for the second quarter ended September 30, 2020 at ₹201.46 crore as against a profit of ₹218.85 for the corresponding quarter of last year on a standalone basis.

The batteries major’s revenue was, however, up at ₹1,935.82 crore in Q2 FY21 (₹1695.31 crore) and profit before tax was at ₹270.96 crore (₹231.83 crore). The earnings per share for Q2 FY 21 was at ₹11.79.

The company’s performance during the quarter was driven by the demand rebound across all key sectors. The operational guidelines to deal with pandemic risk have helped ramp up in manufacturing capacity utilisation and distribution operations.

Post-Covid recovery

In the automotive segment, both the OEM and after-market demand saw a sharp raise. Vehicle production saw a month-on-month rebound to refill the dealer inventories and gear up for the demand during upcoming festive season. Personal mobility preferences also saw increased purchase of two-wheelers and entry-level passenger vehicles. The after-market saw strong pent-up demand sustaining post the initial lockdown period, and with the easing of logistics, channel sales and distribution activities were streamlined to meet the demand.

Industrial business continued to see sustained demand from telecom and commercial UPS market segments on the back of enhanced priorities for keeping the data network near 100 per cent.

Exports of automotive batteries and industrial batteries also saw an upsurge as markets across the geographies opened up.

Jayadev Galla, V-C&MD, ARBL said: “The resurfacing of demand from all the key segments of our business helped us perform strongly during the quarter. While the economic activity has picked up in the country, the uncertainty of Covid impact continues to keep us on the watch. We are tracking the overall economic trends carefully both in domestic context as well as global context and are geared up to deal with both the opportunities and challenges in equal measure.”

S Vijayanand, CEO, ARBL, said: “We have been operating all our manufacturing facilities near 100 per cent capacity utilisation to keep pace with the demand ramp up. There have been some delays in the capacity expansion programmes in the last couple of quarters due to Covid restrictions and we are working in a focussed manner to complete these projects which should help us to debottleneck supply constraints in the coming months.”