Kolkata, July 25 (IANS) Battery-to-lighting major Eveready Industries on Monday said its net profit rose 10.36 per cent to Rs 22.36 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2016 and it plans to spend Rs 100 crore as capital expenditure (capex) this fiscal for setting up a new manufacturing plant in Assam.
The company had posted Rs 20.26 crore in the corresponding period last year.
According to company's latest annual report, it is coming up with a new manufacturing plant at Goalpara in Assam, spanning across 17 acres approximately. "This facility is expected to come on stream by March 2017. This project will provide tax relief applicable to the area," the report said.
The capex plan for this year (2016-17) is Rs 100 crore as we are coming up with the new manufacturing plant. The capacity will be 400 million battery in the new facility," said company Managing Director Amritanshu Khaitan at the sidelines of the 81st annual general meeting.
The company's income from operations in the quarter under review stood at Rs 371.35 crore as compared to Rs 366.99 crore in the year ago period.
The company is vying for 5-10 percent of the LED market share. During 2015-16, it bagged its first LED order from the Union Government, which is worth Rs 48.31 crore. "Under the project, 40 percent of the work has already been completed and rest of the project is expected to be completed this quarter (July-September)."
The report said that company's battery business remained marginally subdued due to dumping of cheap Chinese batteries in the last fiscal and its flashlight volumes also declined owing to stress on the rural sector and proliferation of cheap flashlights.
Diversification into LED based flashlights helped sustain this temporary challenge, it said.
Presently, battery segment contributes 59 percent to company's revenue while overall lighting segment adds 21 percent. Flashlight share is 15 percent and packet tea adds 5 percent. "Total lighting share will be expected to be 25 percent by end of this fiscal," Khaitan said.
"Association of Indian Dry Cell Manufacturers has approached the government to impose an anti-dumping duty for this segment. If the anti-dumping comes, it will be beneficial for battery industry," he said.
Khaitan said rolling out of Goods and Services Tax (GST) will have positive impact on the flashlight segment of the company. About 50 per cent of the flashlight industry is captured by unorganised players. Several estimates show that unorganised segment will get impacted negatively with the implementation of GST.
The company forayed into home appliances sector in the last fiscal aiming at four to five per cent market share (small appliances) by 2020.
