Carrier Aircon

However, operating profit margins have marginally declined from 11.11 per cent in 1995-96 to 10.37 per cent. This may be due to the intense competition which resulted in severe discount based marketing push.

The bottomline would have been still better had not the interest burden and depreciation increased considerably. Interest burden of the company increased by 53.8 per cent to Rs 4.29 crore. The company may also have given a higher credit period to its customers in order to keep up sales.

Last year, the company increased its capacity from 24,000 to 45,000 units. Due to this, depreciation of the company increased by 39.98 per cent to Rs 3.49 crore.

However, lower tax liability by 29.47 per cent to Rs 3.55 crore cushioned the bottomline to some extent.

Carrier Aircons current performance is expected to further improve mainly because of the sops given in the Union budget. Excise duty on air-conditioners, compressors as well as some AC machinery have been reduced from 40 per cent to 30 per cent, which will certainly bring down the prices. This coupled with expectations of an improved off-take should see the company coming out with good results in the current year.

The scrip of Carrier witnessed heavy buying interest after the budget and is now hovering in the range of Rs 225.