Asian Paints net profit up 30% in Q1

Asian Paints on Tuesday reported a nearly 30 per cent increase in its consolidated net profit to Rs 571.31 crore in the quarter ended June 30, 2018 as compared to Rs 440.74 crore in the year-ago period.

Its consolidated revenue from operations during the quarter under review was at Rs 4,398.59 crore, up by 15.5 per cent from Rs 3,809.79 crore.

The decorative paint business in India registered good double digit volume growth in the current quarter helped to an extent by the low base of the previous year, said company's Managing Director and CEO K.B.S. Anand.

On the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates reduction, he said: "The GST rate reduction from 28 per cent to 18 per cent on paints is a welcome move and should help demand from the small consumers. The company is taking steps to pass on the benefit of this rate reduction to the consumers."

However, the company is seeing a continuous increase in raw material prices and expect an inflation of almost 10 per cent in the second quarter and the paint maker passed on only a part of this impact through the cumulative 3.3 per cent per cent price increases taken in March and May, 2018, he said.

"We should have ideally looked at a further price increase. However, we may need to defer it due to the GST rate reduction," Anand said.

On the first quarter performance, he said in the industrial business, good demand conditions in the general industrial and auto refinish segment helped performance of the automotive coatings JV (PPG-AP).

Overall, international operations faced challenging conditions with issues like forex unavailability, difficult weather conditions impacting business performance, he said.

Both the businesses in the Home Improvement category viz. the Kitchen (Sleek) and Bath (Ess Ess) business, registered strong growth in the quarter, Anand added.

--IANS

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