Bengaluru: India's Ambuja Cements reported a lower-than-expected profit for the third quarter on Wednesday, as price hikes failed to outweigh lower volumes, sending its shares down 3.6 per cent.
The Adani Group-owned cement maker's profit after tax rose 39 per cent to Rs 514 crore ($61.9 million) in the three months ended December 31, falling short of average analysts' estimates of Rs 621 crore, as per LSEG data.
Cement prices on an average rose 2.5 per cent sequentially during the quarter across the country but were unable to outweigh a slowdown in demand, beleaguered by state elections and labour shortages, analysts noted.
Ambuja's consolidated volumes increased 2.9 per cent to 14.1 million metric tons in the October-December period, lower than the 5.5 per cent growth estimated by Jefferies.
Higher cement prices boosted the company's revenue by 7.5 per cent to Rs Rs 4440 crore.
The company's power and fuel costs fell 29 per cent on higher use of domestic coal.
Purchase of low-cost petcoke in the past few weeks would help to further optimise fuel costs in the coming quarters, Ambuja added.
However, rivals UltraTech Cement and ACC beat their respective profit estimates on price hikes and sustained infrastructure demand earlier this month.
($1 = 83.0425 Indian rupees)
Published 31 January 2024, 10:29 IST