SAIL shares slip 3% as PAT falls 31%; firm says cheaper imports, decrease in prices led to lower Q2 performance

However, the stock recovered later, and last seen, it was trading at ₹119.90 on the BSE, down 2.76%.

The public sector steel manufacturing corporation on Thursday reported a 31% fall in consolidated net profit to ₹897.15 crore in the September quarter, dragged by lower income.

It had posted a net profit of ₹1,305.59 crore in the September 2023 quarter, per the exchange filing.

The company's total income decreased to ₹24,842.18 crore from ₹29,858.19 crore registered in the second quarter of the preceding 2023-24 financial year. Its expenses stood at ₹23,824.07 crore as against ₹27,768.60 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Commenting on its Q2 performance, SAIL said, "The company's performance in the second quarter of the current financial year has shown improvement compared to the previous quarter. Revenue from operations, EBITDA, and sales volume all increased in Q2 FY'25 over Q1 FY'25. However, lower performance in Q2 FY'25 compared to the same period last year (Q2 FY'24) was influenced by factors like cheaper imports and a decrease in prices."

SAIL Chairman Shri Amarendu Prakash said, "We expect H2 FY'25 to bring more promising results compared to HI FY'25, which was impacted by various challenges. Moving forward, with an expected downtrend in steel imports and projected growth in GDP and capital expenditure, H2 FY'25 may yield better performance."

In a separate statement, SAIL said its crude steel output fell marginally to 4.76 million tonnes (MT) from 4.76 MT in July-September last fiscal. Sales also decreased to 4.10 MT from 4.77 MT in the same quarter a year ago.