Maruti Suzuki Q3 PAT seen down 11% at Rs 610 cr

India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki is set to declare its results for the quarter ended December 2010. According to CNBC-TV18 estimates, its profit after tax is expected to go down by 11% to Rs 610 crore in third quarter of FY11 from Rs 687 crore in same period of last year.
 
Operating profit margin too is seen declining at 10.1% versus 15.1% (YoY). Revenues are seen going up by 27% to Rs 9,513 crore from Rs 7,502 crore.

What to watch for:
-Likely to report a YoY drop in PAT in Q3 due to margin compression
-EBITDA margin is estimated to decline to 10.1% (15.1% in Q3FY10 and 10.5% in Q2FY11) due to higher royalty, adverse forex movement and higher raw material costs.
-Volumes are expected to grow by 27.7% YoY (nearly 5% QoQ) in 3QFY11 to 329,462 units, driven by 36.2% YoY growth in domestic sales.
-Realizations are expected to decline by 0.7% YoY (nearly 0.9% QoQ), impacted by the appreciation of the rupee against the euro and the US dollar.
-Plans to increase its selling price in January 2011 by 1-1.5%. This should help to ease the margin pressure from 4QFY11.
-During CY2010, General Motors, Volkswagen, Nissan and Ford launched Beat, Polo, Micra and Figo, respectively, in the dominant A2 segment, thereby escalating competition for Maruti.
-Thus despite recording 28% volume growth in Q3FY11 and 27% YoY volume growth in 9MFY11, volume momentum will grow at a slower pace due to competitin Volumes
-Total up 28.2% at 3.30 lakh units versus 2.56 lakh units
-Domestic up 36.8% at 2.99 lakh units versus 2.18 lakh units
-Exports down 20.3% at 31130 versus 39116 units