India’s largest passenger vehicle manufacturer Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) reported its quarterly earnings results for the March 2022 ending quarter on Friday, at a time when commodity prices and input costs are at record high levels due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis, adding to inflationary pressures as well as the shortage of semiconductor chips globally.
The company has undertaken price hikes across segments in the March quarter to compensate for the rising input costs.
This factor along with lower promotional expenses have led the domestic carmaker to post a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,838.9 crore in the quarter, up 57.7% on a YoY basis.
Maruti Suzuki’s Financial Results in Q4 FY22
For the quarter ending March 2022, the company’s consolidated net profit surged nearly 58% YoY at Rs 1,838.9 crore, beating the estimates set by analysts at Bloomberg of Rs 1,428.13 crore.
The company’s total revenue climbed 11.3% YoY to Rs 26,740 crore in the period, beating Street’s estimates of Rs 26,607.91 crore.
Lower costs of advertising and market, along with better efficiencies have helped the company control its costs to some extent.
“The prices of commodities such as steel, aluminium, and precious metals witnessed an unprecedented increase during this year, which forced the company to increase prices of vehicles to partially offset this impact,” said Maruti Suzuki.
Also, the semiconductor chip supply slump going on since multiple quarters now, have also played a role in reducing the output of the company in the last quarter (Q4 FY22).
The March quarter saw vehicle production falling by 2.7 lakh units, impacting domestic models the most. It had pending bookings of 2.68 lakh units at the end of FY22.
The quarter under focus witnessed sales volume declining by 0.7% YoY as over 4.88 lakh units were sold in the period, and domestic sales fell by 8% to over 4.2 lakh units.
Export sales for Maruti Suzuki India in Q4 FY22, turned out to be the highest in any quarter at 68,454 units.
“The year started with Covid hurting us in the first quarter. But as the year progressed, we learnt to live with it, and it is unlikely to be any significant part of our game plan in the future.
The chips have been a major factor affecting the production of not only Maruti, but all the car companies in the world,” said the company’s chairman RC Bhargava.