Bajaj Electricals reports Q1 net profit at Rs 5.6 crore

Bajaj Electricals today reported over 8-fold increase in net profit at Rs 5.63 crore for the quarter ended June 30 on good performance of engineering and projects division and higher sales, particularly in the consumer durables segment.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 66 lakh in the same quarter of the previous fiscal, Bajaj Electricals said in a statement.

Net sales during the period under review stood at Rs 885.96 crore as against Rs 787.19 crore in the same quarter last fiscal, it added.

"This quarter, our project division has shown very good performance. It has reduced its losses to Rs 5.93 crore this quarter from Rs 25.87 crore in the same quarter of last fiscal," Bajaj Electricals Managing Director Shekhar Bajaj told PTI.

He added that margins in lighting segment and consumer durables were under pressure during the quarter.

"In the lighting segment, sales of CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) is not showing growth. Moreover, in the consumer durables sector, new players have come up and margins were impacted due to tough competition," Bajaj added.

During the quarter, the lighting segment had a revenue of Rs 168.64 crore as compared to Rs 157.38 crore in the year-ago period.

However, its profit has declined to Rs 2.49 crore during the quarter under review as against Rs 7.67 crore in April-June quarter of FY14.

Consumer durables segment had a revenue of Rs 504.60 crore as against Rs 432.08 crore, while profit has declined to Rs 34.63 crore as against Rs 40.34 crore earlier.

The engineering and projects division had a revenue of Rs 214.23 crore during the first quarter of FY15 as against Rs 199.38 crore in the corresponding period.

On the company's outlook, Bajaj said, "Both consumer durables and lighting sector would have a growth of 15 per cent this fiscal and would earn around Rs 1,100 crore and Rs 2,200 crore, respectively. While, our engineering and project division would grow by 25 per cent and is expected to have a revenue of Rs 1,470 crore."

On exports, Bajaj said it was not growing as per expectation but would pick up in the third and fourth quarter of this fiscal.

Shares of Bajaj Electricals closed 14.04 per cent down at Rs 286.65 apiece on the BSE.