Honda Atlas earns Rs3.2bln on rupee appreciation

KARACHI: Honda Atlas Cars (Pakistan) Limited recorded a net profit of Rs3.162 billion for the year ended March 31st, up staggering 194 percent over the last year, a bourse filing showed on Thursday.
“We attribute this improvement to the favorable exchange rate of Pak rupee against both US dollar and Japanese yen,” analyst Tahir Saeed at Topline Securities said. “This result was above the market consensual estimates.”
The auto assembler earned a net profit of Rs1.073 billion for the year ended March 31, 2014. Earnings per share stood at Rs22.15 as compared to Rs7.52 in the previous year.
The board of directors of the company announced cash dividend of Rs5/share for the year.
The company earned profit before taxation of Rs3.767 billion in 2015 versus Rs2.097 billion.
Honda Atlas, a joint venture of Japanese Honda and Pakistani Atlas Group, registered sales worth Rs37.764 billion for the year ending March 2015, while its sales amounted to Rs39.153 billion in the year to March 2014. However, the cost of sales was recorded at Rs32.991 billion as compared to Rs36.296 billion a year ago.
Saeed said the company sold 23,287 units during its fiscal year compared to 23,271 units last year. “Honda managed to maintain its volumes despite the launch of Toyota Corolla’s new model by Indus Motor,” he added.
Gross margins of the company improved 534 basis points to 12.6 percent in 2015.
Its earnings for the year’s 4th quarter rose massively 151 percent year on year (YoY) 343 percent quarter on quarter (QoQ). In the last quarter, revenue grew impressively by eight percent YoY and 112 percent QoQ.
Gross margins improved 423 basis points YoY and 95 basis points QoQ to 12.2 percent. Pak rupee appreciated 16 percent against Japanese yen and two percent against US dollar in the fourth quarter of 2015 over the same quarter last year.
Bottom-line earnings of the company in 4Q2015 surged 151 percent YoY and 343 percent QoQ to Rs1.6 billion mainly due to volumetric growth of 15 percent YoY and 112 percent QoQ in the wake of favorable exchange rates and one-time tax reversal for previous tax losses.