CHENNAI, India — Apollo Tyres Ltd. suffered declines in operating profit for the quarter and nine months ended Dec. 31 despite higher sales revenue in both periods.
For the quarter, Apollo's operating profit fell nearly 28% to $98.6 million on a 9.9% increase in sales to $718 million, cutting the operating ratio nearly seven points to 13%. Net profit for the period halved to $29.7 million.
Operating profit for the first nine months fell 1.7% to $259 million on 24.3% higher sales of $2.04 billion.
Announcing the company's third quarter results, Chairman Onkar Kanwar said Apollo intends to take pricing actions and other cost-control measures as it expects cost inflation to continue in the near term.
In addition to those measures, Apollo will continue to expand its product range and footprint across key markets, to align with the "robust demand momentum," he added.
Apollo did not provide reasons for the decline in operating profit, but said both its Indian and European operations reported a growth of 11% in sales each during the third quarter.
"Despite the headwinds, we have seen a healthy growth in the third quarter, contributed by a strong performance in the European operations and exports out of India," Kanwar said.
Business in Apollo's "other" regions — which includes North America — grew 42% in the quarter to $151 million and 79.3% in the nine months to $393.1 million.
