Tata Chemicals posted a 60.3% fall in net profit at ₹158 crore on a consolidated basis for the quarter ended December 31, missing street estimates of ₹283 crore, impacted by a tepid market demand.
The net profit fall is the highest for Tata Chemicals in the past three quarters. Tata Chemicals had posted a net profit of ₹398 crore for the comparable year-ago period.
For the reporting quarter, Tata Steel’s revenue fell 10.1% to ₹3,730 crore from ₹4,148 crore recorded during the comparable year-ago period as Ebitda also fell 41.2% to ₹542 crore from ₹922 crore, the company said in a regulatory update.
A consensus estimate of Bloomberg analysts was expecting the firm to post a consolidated net profit of ₹283 crore on revenues of ₹3,825 crore and Ebitda of ₹733 crore.
“The demand environment for soda ash in our domestic markets as well as international markets was challenging during the quarter. This was especially so in the container glass and flat glass sectors in Europe & Americas, which lead to a pressure on volumes and prices. Our endeavour is to continue to maintain our market share through customer engagement and have steady contribution margins with focus on costs and higher value-added products,” Tata Chemicals MD & CEO R Mukundan said.
The revenue for the quarter was down due to lower volumes in soda ash and pricing pressure in all regions, while EBITDA was impacted due to volume and price pressures across all regions, it said.
The market demand remains tepid across all key regions and segments, with container and flat glass sectors being significantly impacted in Europe.
“Our focus will also be to deliver capital investment projects on time, conserve cash and continue to deleverage. In the short term, current demand-supply situation is likely to persist but should improve and stabilise over the long term driven by growth sectors based on sustainability trends, Mukundan added.
As of December 31, 2023, the company had a gross debt of ₹5,912 crore down from ₹6,296 crore recorded in March quarter of 2023.