Maruti Suzuki Share Quarterly Results

Maruti Suzuki reported marginal -0.93% tapering of sales for the Dec-21 quarter at Rs.23,253 crore on a YoY basis. Let us now turn to volumes. During the December 2021 quarter, sales volumes of Maruti Suzuki stood at 430,668 units compared to 495,897 units in the Dec-20 quarter. This sharp fall in volumes is largely on account of plant shutdowns for prolonged periods of time.

The plant shutdowns were forced on the company due to a shortage of microchips and other key electronic components. However, volumes have shown positive traction on sequential basis. On a sequential basis, the revenues were up by 13.15% with positive traction seen on volumes and also on sales due to better pricing. It would be April 2022 by the time Maruti returns to normal capacity volumes.

For Dec-21 quarter, operating profits were down -38.11%. The sharp fall in operating profits was on account of volume pressure and pressure on input costs. For instance, material costs were up as a share of sales in Q3. Price hikes only compensated partially for the higher input costs in the quarter. Operating margins contracted from 6.33% in Dec-20 quarter to 3.95% in Dec-21 quarter. Operating margins were however higher on a sequential basis.

Net Profits for the Dec-21 quarter were sharply lower by -47.82% YoY at Rs.1,042 crore due to the transmission of the operating profit pressures on the bottom line. In addition, there was also the pressure from lower non-operating income in the latest quarter.  Net profit margins contracted from 8.51% in the Dec-20 quarter to 4.48% in the Dec-21 quarter. However, the net margins were 211 bps higher on a sequential basis.