Eicher Motors on Friday reported a consolidated net profit of ₹545 crore during the fourth quarter ended Mach 31, down 16 per cent year-on-year (YoY) from ₹649 crore recorded in the corresponding period last year.
Total income grew marginally to around ₹2,643 crore during the period compared with ₹2,613 crore in January-March 2018. EBITDA was ₹685 crore — down by 14 per cent from to ₹797 crore in the same period last year, the company said.
Eicher Motors’two-wheeler arm, Royal Enfield, sold 1,97,567 motorcycles in the quarter, registering a decline of 13 per cent from 2,26,907 motorcycles sold in the same period last year.
Commenting on Royal Enfield’s performance, Siddhartha Lal, Managing Director, Eicher Motors, said, “The latter half of 2018 was a challenging period for the two-wheeler industry in India with factors such as revision in insurance cost, increase in prices on account of new safety norms, affected consumer sentiment. At Royal Enfield, we recorded flat sales volumes after several years of augmented sales growth.”
Expansion, overseas plans
As announced last month, Lal said, the company will stick to the plan of investment of ₹700 crore on developing phase-II of Vallam Vadagal plant in Tamil Nadu, and new products development. It also has a production plan of 9.50 lakh units in the current financial year.
“During the fourth quarter, the company tied-up with a local assembler to establish assembly operations in Thailand, its first outside of India, which is planned to commence operations by June,” Lal said.
For the year ended March 31, the company’s total revenue from operations was up by 9 per cent to ₹9,797 crore ( ₹8,965 crore). Net profit was at ₹2,203 crore (₹1,960 crore).
Dividend
The board has recommended dividend of ₹125 per equity share of face value of ₹10 each for the financial year ended March 31. It has also issued and allotted 5,479 equity shares of face value of ₹10 each of the company to persons exercising options pursuant to employees’ stock option plan of the company.