Growth in the urban market for the electrical appliances industry is set to get back to the pre-pandemic levels from the third quarter onwards, according to Anuj Poddar, Executive Director, Bajaj Electricals.

While the rural market did better in Q1 and Q2 of this year for the sector, as against the urban segment that saw lower growth during this period, compared to last year, growth is expected across both markets from now onwards, he said.

“Rural has clearly been stronger but my guess is that this was true till Q2. I think from Q3 onwards, it should be back to normal where urban will also be almost normal compared to earlier (pre-Covid times),” Poddar told BusinessLine . This is owing to the pandemic situation in urban areas becoming better than before, he said.

Bajaj Electricals on Thursday posted a consolidated net profit of ₹53.11 crore in Q2 of the financial year. It had posted a consolidated net loss of ₹16.60 crore in Q1.

Total revenue from operations during the September quarter stood at ₹1217.71 crore, a 100.18 per cent increase compared to ₹608.29 crore in the first quarter.

Strong showing

When it comes to a year-on-year comparison, Bajaj Electricals had posted a consolidated net loss of ₹32.54 crore in the second quarter of last year. It had posted a total revenue from operations of ₹1095.65 crore in the year-ago quarter, marking a 11.1 per cent year-on-year increase this year.

“The consumer products business has shown signs of very strong recovery in this quarter and delivered our highest ever quarterly EBIT of ₹85 crore. Our engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) segment has also recovered strongly in this quarter after being adversely affected due to hold-up of project execution and billings,” said Shekhar Bajaj, Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Electricals.

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