NEW DELHI: Stock of Voltas turned cold on Friday and slipped to nearly 7-month low as its fourth quarterly numbers fell short of expectations.
The stock fell 7.71 per cent to hit a low of Rs 538.50 on the BSE.
The Tata Group firm reported 16.65 per cent annual rise in net profit at Rs 177.21 crore for the March quarter compared with Rs 151.91 crore last year. Sales dropped 2.03 per cent to Rs 1,844.61 crore, from Rs 1,882.87 crore earlier.
"We suspect that Voltas weak Q4 performance was owing to behind the curve ramp-up in inverter ACs (20 per cent mix in FY18 vs 28 per cent for industry) and higher channel inventory of 2017 models. With a weak ongoing season (impacted by pre-monsoon showers), the consumer offtake has been weak," said HDFC Institutional Equities in a note.
The management though is hopeful of a pick-up during the remaining 45 days of summer.
"We cut our EPS estimates by 3-4 per cent in FY19-20 to incorporate weak summer 2018. However, we advise investors to buy on dips and not evaluate the performance of a company based on one season," the brokerage said.
For the full year, net profit rose 3.09 per cent to Rs 501.23 crore against Rs 486.19 crore in FY17. Sales for the year rose 7.64 per cent to Rs 5,772.68 crore, from Rs 5,362.80 crore in 2016-17.
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