India Cements, now a subsidiary of UltraTech Cement, put out its September-quarter numbers on Saturday, October 17, and profit came in at ₹38.8 crore against ₹8.8 crore a year ago. That’s roughly a 340% jump. The India Cements Q2 results look even better under the hood, because the gain came from the cement business itself while other income almost vanished.
In this article
India Cements Q2 results: what drove the profit
Revenue from operations rose just 2.2% to ₹1,142 crore from ₹1,117 crore, as per Moneycontrol’s report on the results. So the top line barely moved. What changed was cost and volume.
The company’s investor presentation filed with BSE shows domestic cement volume of 2.83 million tonnes for the quarter, up 16.2% year-on-year. EBITDA rose 34.3% to ₹148 crore from ₹110 crore. Strip out other income and the picture is sharper: operating EBITDA rose about 78%, from ₹81 crore to ₹144 crore, while other income shrank from ₹29 crore to ₹4 crore. Operating EBITDA per tonne was ₹510, up ₹177 a tonne from a year ago. The company credits operational efficiencies and higher capacity utilisation.
Profit before exceptional items went from ₹15 crore to ₹39 crore, a 160% rise. The headline jump is bigger because last year’s quarter also carried an exceptional charge, which this quarter didn’t have.
Power got cheaper, fuel didn’t
Power is where the efficiency story shows up most clearly. Power cost per tonne fell to ₹527 from ₹615, as the plants used 75.76 kWh per tonne of cement against 87.05 kWh a year earlier. Renewable energy now makes up 24.7% of the power mix, up from 7.1%, and the company wants green power (renewables plus waste heat recovery) to go from 6% to 80% by FY29.
Fuel was the drag. Fuel cost per tonne rose to ₹1,143, up 14% year-on-year and 9% from the June quarter. Pricing didn’t help either: net realisation for domestic cement, after logistics costs, was ₹3,798 a tonne, down 1.3% from the previous quarter’s ₹3,847 and only slightly above ₹3,761 a year ago.
Weaker than June, and debt is rising
We’d be careful reading this as a straight-line recovery. Compared with the June quarter, EBITDA actually slipped from ₹159 crore to ₹148 crore, about 7% lower, and profit before exceptional items fell from ₹52 crore to ₹39 crore. Higher fuel costs and softer prices did that.
The balance sheet is also carrying an expansion bill. Net debt rose to ₹1,591 crore at the end of September from ₹1,271 crore in March. The board has approved ₹2,000 crore of investment in plant upgrades, waste heat and renewable power, and new capacity, and about ₹1,728 crore of that had been committed by September. Cement capacity is planned to go from 14.45 million tonnes a year in FY25 to 17.55 million tonnes by FY28, with the additions at Dalavoi, Banswara and Chennai.
What to watch on Monday
The stock closed at ₹302.50 on BSE on Friday, up 1.78%, before the results came out, and Moneycontrol notes it is down 23% over the past year. Monday is the first session where the market can price in the quarter.
The year-on-year numbers are strong, and the operating improvement is real, not a one-off. The open questions are fuel prices, whether realisations firm up after a soft quarter, and how quickly the new capacity starts earning on the extra debt. If you want a framework for reading quarters like this, our explainer on operating leverage in results covers why a small revenue gain can turn into a big profit jump. For another Saturday result, see our take on ixigo’s Q2 numbers, and our guide on how to analyse quarterly results.
Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Figures are from the company’s exchange filing and the news report linked above. Consult a SEBI-registered investment adviser before making investment decisions.
Leave a Reply
Join the conversation
Commenting is open to registered readers. Sign up with just your email — no password needed, and it takes under a minute.
Sign up to comment Log in