BENGALURU (Reuters) – India’s Exide Industries missed first-quarter profit expectations on Tuesday, as higher raw material costs weighed on the battery maker.
The company’s standalone profit after tax rose 15.6% year-on-year to 2.80 billion rupees ($33.4 million) in the three-month period ended June 30. Analysts, on average, expected a profit of 3.31 billion rupees, as per LSEG data.
Expenses of raw materials, which include metals such as lead, rose 13.3% while revenue climbed 5.9%, the company said.
KEY CONTEXT
Prices of metals including aluminium and lead, used in the creation of automobile parts, were up during the reported quarter, analysts said.
Exide, which earns two-thirds of its revenue from the automotive market, benefited from a 16.1% increase in total automobile production, as per industry data.
Battery makers appeared set to benefit as sales of electric vehicles, which are powered by lithium-ion batteries, are expected to rise 66% this year in India after nearly doubling in 2023, according to research firm Counterpoint.
In April, South Korea’s Hyundai Motor and Kia Corp partnered with Exide Industries’ unit Exide Energy Solutions to supply batteries for their EVs.
PEER COMPARISON
Valuation Estimates (next 12 Analysts’ sentiment
(next 12 months)
months)
RIC PE EV/EBI Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div
TDA growth growth rating* analysts price yield
target** (%)
Exide Industries 33.43 20.01 9.96 22.16 Hold 14 1.21 0.36
Amara Raja Energy & 27.18 15.43 9.82 15.38 Hold 12 1.22 0.60
Mobility
Bosch 45.78 37.33 11.71 26.46 Hold 4 1.24 1.07
HBL Power Systems NULL NULL NULL NULL Null 0 NULL 0.07
* The mean of analyst ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell
** The ratio of the stock’s last close to analysts’ mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT
APRIL-JUNE STOCK PERFORMANCE
— All data from LSEG IBES
— $1 = 83.7300 Indian rupees
(Reporting by Varun Hebbalalu in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
