Sobha's Q3 sales bookings fall 15% to Rs 427 crore

Realty firm Sobha Ltd's sales bookings declined by 15 per cent to Rs 427 crore during the third quarter of this fiscal due to slowdown in demand.

Bangalore-based Sobha had achieved sales bookings of Rs 502.3 crore in the year-ago period.

"Q3'15 was operationally a subdued quarter with the company achieving new sales of 6,61,451 sq ft valued at Rs 4.27 billion with an average realisation of Rs 6,456 per sq ft," Sobha said in its operational update.

In volume terms, Sobha sold 6.61 lakh sq ft of area during October-December against 7.4 lakh sq ft in the corresponding period of previous fiscal.

Sales realisation also dropped to Rs 6,456 per sq ft from Rs 6,786 per sq ft during the period under review.

"The real estate sector continues to be bogged down by inflexible interest rates, approval delays and slowing demand," Sobha said.

During the first nine months of this fiscal, Sobha's sales bookings have declined by 15 per cent to Rs 1,468.2 crore from Rs 1,737.4 crore in the year-ago period.

"The company had, at the beginning of this fiscal, set a guidance of new sales area of 4 million sq ft valued at Rs 27 billion for the current fiscal. At the close of 3 quarters of FY15, the company registered new sales area of 2.25 million sq ft valued at Rs 14.68 billion.

"With demand not showing any perceptible signs of improvement in near future, the company is cautious of achieving the guidance set for the current fiscal," Sobha said.

During the entire 2013-14 fiscal, Sobha sold properties worth Rs 2,342.5 crore.

The company added that demand remained muted with sluggish pace of project approvals in the southern markets of Kerala and Tamil Nadu affecting the saleability of projects for developers across the spectrum.

"Bangalore continued to hold ground, accounting for majority of new sales," Sobha said.

Apart from Bangalore, the company has realty projects in Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Thrissur, Pune, Coimbatore, Cochin, Calicut and Mysore.