Hero MotoCorp Q4 net down 14%; BS-III discounts take a toll

Two-wheeler major Hero MotoCorp today posted a 13.86 per cent decline in net profit at Rs 717.75 crore for the March quarter, impacted by lower sales and discounts to liquidate banned BS-III models.
The company had reported a net profit of Rs 833.29 crore in the same quarter of the previous fiscal.
Total income also fell by 7.55 per cent to Rs 7,606.31 crore for the fourth quarter as against Rs 8,227.93 crore a year earlier, Hero MotoCorp Ltd said in a regulatory filing.
The company sold 16,21,805 two-wheelers during the March quarter, down 5.77 per cent from 17,21,240 in the year-ago period.

During the quarter under review, it had an impact of Rs 193.28 crore on account of discounts offered to domestic customers in March 2017 for sale of BS-III compliant two- wheelers.
The company had to resort to heavy discounting to liquidate its BS-III inventory after the Supreme Court banned sales of all BS-III two-wheelers, three-wheelers and four- wheelers across India from April 1.

Hero MotoCorp said for 2016-17, the company posted a net profit of Rs 3,546.3 crore, up 13.94 per cent from Rs 3,112.29 crore in the previous fiscal.
Total income for the fiscal rose to Rs 31,480.14 crore compared to Rs 31,128.16 crore in 2015-16.

The two-wheeler major sold a total of 66,64,240 units in 2016-17 as against 66,32,322 units in the preceding year.
Hero MotoCorp Chairman, Managing Director and CEO Pawan Munjal said: "In the domestic market, we have maintained our leadership in a volatile and intensely competitive environment."
He further said: "In 2016-17, we made some key inroads into global markets, including the launch in Argentina and Nigeria. Our new manufacturing facility in Bangladesh will also commence operations in 2017-18."
The company will invest Rs 2,500 crore till 2018-19 in new product development, phase-wise capacity expansion in Gujarat and upcoming plants in Andhra Pradesh and Bangladesh along with digitisation, Munjal said.

The capex also includes upgradation and modernisation of plant machinery.
Hero MotoCorp further said it has lined up a dozen new launches for the ongoing fiscal.
The company's board, which met today, recommended a final dividend of Rs 30 per share of Rs 2 each for 2016-17.
This dividend together with interim dividend of Rs 55 per share of Rs 2 each already paid will aggregate 4,250 per cent for the full year, the company said.
The stock today ended 0.99 per cent up at Rs 3,322.40 on the BSE.