Asian Paints Q3 Results: Stock falls 5% after volume growth at lower end of projections

Shares of Asian Paints Ltd

., India's largest paints company, fell as much as 5% on Tuesday, January 27, after the company's domestic decorative volume growth fell short of analyst expectations.

For the December quarter, Asian Paints' decorative business India volume growth stood at 7.9% year-on-year. A CNBC-TV18 poll was working with a figure of 8% to 9% for the quarter.

During the September quarter, Asian Paints had reported a 10.2% volume growth compared to last year's quarter, which was the highest in the last seven quarters.

The management wrote in its post-earnings statement that while demand continues to remain subdued, a series of internal initiatives helped deliver resilient growth during the quarter.

For the December quarter, Asian Paints reported a 4.8% decline in its consolidated net profit to ₹1,074 crore from ₹1,128 crore last year. A CNBC-TV18 poll had projected the figure to be ₹1,219 crore.

Revenue for the quarter stood at ₹8,867 crore, a growth of 3.7% from last year, and marginally lower than the ₹9,067 crore projection from the CNBC-TV18 poll.

Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation grew by 8.8% year-on-year to ₹1,781 crore, in-line with the CNBC-TV18 poll estimate of ₹1,750 crore.

Margins expanded by 100 basis points to 20.1% and were 60 basis points above the CNBC-TV18 poll projection of 19.5%.

There was a one-time exceptional loss of ₹158 crore during the quarter, when dented the company's bottomline. The group recognized a one-time expense of ₹63.74 crore towards an increase in gratuity liability.

Shares of Asian Paints are now trading 4.8% lower after the earnings announcement at ₹2,573.4.