Maruti Suzuki FY17 net zooms 36.8% to Rs7,511 crore
28 Apr 2017
Maruti Suzuki India (MSI), India's top carmaker, has reported a 15.8 per cent jump in net profit for fiscal fourth quarter ended 31 March 2017 and a 36.8 per cent jump in net profit for the full 2016-17 fiscal.
Helped by its high-end models, MSI's net profit zoomed to Rs7,511 crore in 2016-17 against Rs5,497.2 crore in 2015-16.
The company's board has recommended a dividend of Rs75 per share of face value Rs5 for 2016-17 against a dividend of Rs35 per share paid in 2015-16. This will result in a total payout of Rs2,726 crore, including taxes.
MSI's net sales during the fourth quarter of the 2016-17 financial year grew 20.3 per cent year-on-year to Rs18,005.2 crore. Sales volumes were up 15 per cent at 4,14,439 units during the quarter that included 31,771 units exported during the quarter.
Sales during the financial year ended 31 March 2017 soared 18.5 per cent year-on-year to Rs66,909.4 crore. Sales volume during 2016-17 grew 9.8 per cent to 15,68,603 units. This includes exports of 124,062 units during the period.
Maruti chairman R.C. Bhargava said the year was in some respect challenging because of demonetisation as "everybody expected all bad things to happen but it did not". There were also environmental issues that created difficulties for automobile companies, he said.
Maruti said growth in volumes, increase in share of the company's higher segment models, benefits from full capacity utilisation and cost reduction efforts helped the company offset the impact of a rise in commodity prices and adverse forex movement.
The company's chief financial officer Ajay Seth said the company had a total adverse foreign exchange impact of Rs700 crore during the year.
Maruti Suzuki is likely to pay royalty to its Japanese parent Suzuki Motor Corp for all its models in rupee terms by 2025, which could lower the annual outgo. Maruti, which sells 15 models, pays royalty to Suzuki in yen except for compact SUV Vitara Brezza.
"If you take a period of 7 to 8 years, most of our models would have changed... Let us say, by 2025, I would imagine that the royalty of all the models of Maruti would be in rupee terms," Bhargava said.
