Ranbaxy net zooms 168%

Foreign exchange gains and other income helped drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories to post a 168 per cent rise in third-quarter net profit at Rs312.8 crore, compared to Rs116.6 crore a year earlier. Consolidated sales for the three months through September rose 9.7 per cent to Rs1,887.2 crore from Rs1,720.5 crore.

"Our key markets continued to perform well attributable in large measure to balanced sales across geographies. This has also been aided by the favorable forex movement," said Arun Sawhney, managing director of Ranbaxy.

Analysts said the results were disappointing and the growth was flat. "Margins declined by 410 basis points from 11.3 per cent to 7.1 per cent," said Ranjit Kapadia, vice-president, HDFC Securities.

Ranbaxy's shares today fell 3.18 per cent on the Bombay stock exchange to close at Rs584.85, after touching a 52-week high of Rs624.90.

Ranbaxy received $5 million as export incentive and $2 million as non-compete fee from Daiichi Sankyo in July-September. It also received a $33-million mark-to-market gain on derivatives during the quarter, Ranbaxy executives said in a conference call.

Emerging markets contributed 59 per cent of sales, a rise of six per cent. While India sales grew 18 per cent to Rs493 crore, North America region recorded Rs491.2-crore sales, an increase of over 70 per cent. The company said the growth in the North America region was on account of good sales of anti-viral drug valacyclovir, which continued to enjoy a healthy market share of 36 per cent in the US, even after the loss of six-month exclusive sales opportunity.

While sales in Europe, Africa and the rest of the world were down by five per cent, six per cent and 12 per cent, respectively, the Commonwealth of Independent States region recorded 11 per cent growth.