(Reuters) -India’s UltraTech Cement reported its first quarterly revenue drop in more than four years, hit by a slump in prices and demand in a seasonally weak quarter.
The country’s top cement maker’s consolidated revenue fell 2.4% on-year to 156.35 billion rupees ($1.86 billion), but was marginally higher than the analysts’ average estimate of 155.30 billion rupees.
This was the company’s first revenue decline since the quarter ended June 2020, when construction activities came to a standstill due to a nation-wide lockdown on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The top cement producer’s profit in the September quarter fell steeper-than-expected, with a 36% on-year decline to 8.2 billion rupees.
Analysts were expecting a profit of 10.53 billion rupees, according to data compiled by LSEG.
The company’s shares fell 2.5% after results.
($1 = 84.0400 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee and Manvi Pant in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K and Sumana Nandy)
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