Asian Paints Q4: Analysts see 17.3% PAT growth at Rs 304 cr

Asian Paints will announce its fourth quarter (January-March) results today. Analysts on an average expect the country's largest paint company to report a 17.3 percent growth in profit after tax at Rs 304 crore as against Rs 259 crore year-on-year, according to CNBC-TV18 poll.

Total income from operations is seen going up by 14.2 percent Y-o-Y to Rs 2,907 crore during the quarter.

Also Read - Asian Paints to consider sub-division of shares on May 09

Earnings before interest, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) are likely to rise 22.4 percent year-on-year to Rs 469 crore in March quarter.
 
After a good festive quarter, analysts expect discretionary company like Asian Paints to witness sharp moderation in volume growth. They expect 8-10 percent volume growth and price hike / mix change effect of 4-5 percent in March quarter.

Key raw material: TiO2 (Titanium Di-Oxide - accounting for 20 percent of company's raw material cost) prices fell 20 percent year-on-year. Hence, analysts feel Asian Paints like other paint companies is expected to benefit from gross margin expansion.

Asian Paints will also benefit from pemiumisation of product portfolio (mix change). Following which, EBITDA margin is seen improving 110 bps to 16.1 percent in fourth quarter.

Analysts feel the tax rate could surprise by showing an increase on a low base of Q4FY12.