Braving fears over economic slowdown, engineering giant Larsen & Toubro has registered a gross revenue of Rs 15,581 crore in the third quarter of current fiscal compared to Rs 14,140 crore in the same period in the previous year.
The profit after tax also witnessed a healthy growth to Rs 1121 crore as against Rs 991 crore in the same period during last year, a 13 per cent increase. The market gave a thumbs up to the stock.
Announcing the Q 3 results for current fiscal, L&T said that it was able to sustain the order flow in the just ended quarter recording a 14 per cent year on year growth in order flow at Rs 19,545 crore. Out of this, international order flow accounted for 22 per cent and the building and factories, infrastructure, power transmission & distribution sectors accounted for a major share of the orders.
Segment-wise, the Engineering & Construction segment, garnered lion’s share of the revenue at Rs 13,858 crore during the quarter ending Dec 2012, a y-o-y growth of 11 per cent, Electrical & Electronics segment accounted for Rs 830 crore revenue, machinery& industrial products segment made a contribution of Rs 563 crore to revenue and others registered a revenue of Rs 330 crore.
The total order book was Rs 1,62,334 crore as on Dec 31, 2012, of which international order book constituted 13 per cent.
Turning to the business outlook, L&T said that the country was beset with multiple challenges like continued inflation, volatile currency, tight liquidity etc. But it expected the recent policy measures to improve the economic outlook and revive investments in various sectors in which L&T operated.
On the global economic scenario, the company said that while the global conditions remained fragile, `green shoots of recovery’ were visible’. With strong order book, it was confident of sustaining its growth in the period ahead.
The stock reacted positively to the Q 3 numbers, gaining Rs 34.90 or 2.37 per cent to Rs 1598 in the NSE with a trading volume of 48.23 lakh shares.