Experts see scope for margin expansion in Q4, FY18 for Maruti

Maruti Suzuki's profits for the third quarter grew by 47.5 percent year-on-year to Rs 1,744.5 crore. It was largely driven by other income and partly by operational and revenue growth.

The EBITDA margins were a bit lower at 14.8 percent compared to CNBC-TV18 poll estimate of 15.5 percent.

However, both Pranoy Kurian of IDBI Capital Markets & Securities and Ashwin Patil, Research Analyst, LKP Securities are not worried about the slip in margins and expect the company to report higher margins going forward on back of new launches and commissioning of Gujarat plant.

Kurian said margins at 14.8 percent were higher than their estimate of 14.4 percent and that too in a tough quarter where there was pressure from higher commodity prices, lower utilisation and demonetisation.

Ashwin Patil

LKP Securities

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Realisations were higher at Rs 4.35 lakh/unit compared to Rs 4.26 lakh/unit in Q2. This was possible because of higher sales of Brezza and Baleno, said Patil.

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