Adani group-owned Ambuja Cements on Wednesday reported its fiscal first quarter earnings with a profit decline of 30.5 per cent on-year at Rs 789.63 crore, in comparison to Rs 1135.46 crore recorded during the corresponding quarter of FY24. It posted revenue from operations at Rs 8311.48 crore, down 4.6 per cent as against Rs 8,712.90 crore during the same period of previous financial year. “Higher volume along with improved operational parameters resulted in growth in all business parameters,” Ambuja Cements said in a statement.
The company’s net worth increased by Rs 8620 crore during the quarter and stands at Rs 59,465 crore, and the company remains debt free and continues to maintain Crisil AAA (stable) / Crisil A1+ ratings.
Further, in a regulatory filing, the company said that the Group synergies continue to facilitate cost reduction journey, complemented by increasing footprint and capacities. Green power share at 18.4 per cent, will improve to approximately 31 per cent by FY25 and 60 per cent by FY28, and this will contribute to reduction in overall cost of power by 33 per cent, giving booster to EBITDA, it added.
Ambuja Cements posted Q1 operating EBITDA at Rs 807 PMT and EBITDA margin of 15.4 per cent.
During the quarter, the company added 275 million MT limestone reserves. The company’s sales volume for clinker and cement grew by 3 per cent at 15.8 million T.
Ajay Kapur, Whole Time Director & CEO, Ambuja Cements, said, “We have delivered another sustainable performance and our focus on innovation, digitisation, customer satisfaction and ESG is at the heart of our success. Our persistent performance sets the tone for the rest of the financial year, as we expand our footprint and capacities across new geographies. Our continued improvement on cost brings visibility of achieving the targeted cost reduction of Rs. 530 PMT by FY’28. With Penna transaction expected to be closed by Q2 FY’25, our capacity will go to 89 MTPA and well on track to achieve our 140 MTPA plan by FY’28.”
With cement demand during FY24 up by 7-8 per cent at 422 MTPA and an estimated growth by 7-9 per cent inFY25 to around 451 MTPA driven by strong correlation with GDP growth and rising demand from housing and infrastructure sectors, will help the industry’s growth going forward. The Government aims to invest ~USD 3 trillion in infrastructure and housing development through the ongoing ‘Housing for All’ scheme, National Infrastructure plan, PM Gati Shakti National Master plan and others. An outlay of Rs 11.11 lakh crores for Capital Expenditure has been allotted in Budget FY25 which represents 3.4 per cent of GDP.