ABB Logs Higher Sales & Profits In March 2013 Quarter

Power and automation technologies biggie ABB has posted a decent set of numbers for the quarter ended March 2013. Considering the poor performance of the company for the past two quarters, not much was expected from it now. However, ably supported by its power systems and power products segments, the company has managed to put in a growth in its topline on a YoY basis. Process automation and two other segments put some pressure on the topline.

On the financial performance front, the topline stood at Rs 1970.02 crore for the March 2013 quarter as against Rs 1790.91 crore in March 2012. However, it was lower than that the December 2012 quarter figure of Rs 2082.28 core.

Though the topline has witnessed only a marginal increase, the bottomline performance came in strong at Rs 42.56 crore as compared to Rs 16.77 crore in the December 2012 quarter. This shows that the margin pressures are declining and one can expect a better performance on the margins front going ahead.

A good number of orders were received, worth around Rs 1531 crore in the March 2013 quarter, though there was a decline of around 8% YoY. In a difficult scenario it is good to see that orders are continuing to flow. The total order backlog now stands at Rs 8229 crore (Rs 9028 crore in the March 2012 quarter).

The management has commented on the results saying, “While there appears to be pause before the economy recovers, we continue to focus on cost and growth while addressing emerging opportunities such as renewables and energy efficiency by including technology and products to meet the changing market needs”.