Apollo Tyres Q1 net dips 44 pc at Rs 142 cr

Apollo Tyres on Wednesday reported 43.77 per cent dip in consolidated net profit at Rs 141.6 crore for the June quarter of 2019-20.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 251.84 crore for the same period of previous fiscal.

Total income rose marginally to Rs 4,358.78 crore during April-June 2019 as compared with Rs 4,328.6 crore in the year-ago period, Apollo Tyres said in a statement.

"While the demand from automakers remained subdued, there was growth in the replacement market segment," Apollo Tyres Chairman Onkar S Kanwar said.

"Moving ahead, I am hopeful of the markets recovering and the sales bouncing back around the festive season in India. In Europe, we are performing better than the industry, which is likely to continue going forward as well," he added.

Speaking at the company's annual general meeting (AGM), Kanwar said the company has invested close to Rs 4,000 crore in a new facility in Hungary and has also earmarked Rs 3,800 crore for a greenfield project in Andhra Pradesh.

The company is also committed to upgrading its existing manufacturing plant in Chennai, expanding truck tyre radial production to 12,000 units a day from earlier 6,000 units, he added.

"While in India, we are achieving leadership position in multiple segments, we are confident of gaining traction in Europe in the coming years as we start catering to the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) from the Hungary plant," Kanwar said.

Apollo is the only Indian company which supplies to various OEMs in Europe like Volkswagen, Ford and Audi, he said adding that the strategy of replicating the company's success with OEMs in India will go hand in hand with increasing its market share in the replacement markets.

Apollo shares were trading 3.74 per cent up at Rs 155.25 apiece on the BSE.