58390In view of reduced inflation and expenses, will it be right to invest in IT stocks?

Asian Paints Ltd hit Rs 3 trillion market capitalization on Tuesday after its shares hit a fresh record high with gaining over 14% so far this year. The stock of Asian Paints hit an all time high of Rs 3,178 on the BSE after surging over 6.5% intraday. The stock price got a leg up after posting strong Q1 numbers.

Asian Paints’ net profit more than doubled to Rs 574.3 crore against Rs 219.6 crore year-on-year (YoY). The company posted a consolidated net profit at Rs 574 crore, up 161% year-on-year (YoY).

The profit figures saw a steep jump owing to the low base of last year.

However, the profit figure was below market expectations as a CNBC-TV18 poll of analysts had expected profit at Rs 721 crore for the quarter.

Revenue jumped 91.1% YoY to Rs 5,585.4 crore for the said quarter against Rs 2,922.7 crore in Q1FY21. EBITDA jumped 88.7% to Rs 913.6 crore against Rs 484.3 crore YoY while EBITDA margin came at 16.4% against 16.6% YoY.

“The domestic decorative business more than doubled its volume and delivered stellar revenues over the lower base of last year which had suffered from the first nationwide lockdown. The business registered strong compounded average growths in value and volume in comparison with Q1FY20 which was a normal quarter, indicative of a strong consistent trajectory,” said Amit Syngle, Managing Director & CEO of Asian Paints.

There has been a resilient performance across all businesses despite the challenges posed by the second Covid wave across markets, which disrupted business continuity from the second fortnight of April 2021 as per the management.

“We registered strong growths in April 2021 and a robust resounding rebound in June 2021, post May 2021 which was impacted in a big way. We are confident of our organization’s capability to maximise on the expected uptick in the business conditions as we move forward,” he said.