Q4 Results: IndiGo Beats Estimates As Profit Jumps Fivefold
IndiGo’s profit in the March quarter rose over 400 percent due to a rise in yield, strong passenger growth and lower oil prices.
InterGlobe Aviation Ltd.’s quarterly profit jumped fivefold as the operator of budget carrier IndiGo earned higher fare per passenger at a time fuel prices were relatively lower.
Profit surged 401.2 percent over the last year to Rs 590 crore in the January-March period, according to its exchange filing. Analyst estimates compiled by BloombergQuint had pegged the profit at Rs 404 crore.
- Revenue rose 35.94 percent to Rs 7,883 crore.
- Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and rental costs rose 90 percent to Rs 2,056 crore.
- Ebitdar margin expanded 740 basis points to 26.08 percent.
- Yield—the average fare per passenger per kilometre—rose 12 percent to Rs 3.7 per km.
IndiGo has been the biggest beneficiary since Jet Airways (India) Ltd. shut operations due to a crippling cash crunch. During the March quarter, Jet Airways had been grounding flights due to shortage of cash that led to a spurt in airfares. In the last eight months, IndiGo improved its market share by eight percentage points at Jet Airways’ expense and now has over half of the domestic market.
IndiGo is also one of the few airlines in India’s battered aviation space with enough cash to aggressively expand, and it has been mapping out a way to build a long-haul, low-cost business. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the airline is in talks with Airbus SE for another large plan order.
“Looking ahead, it is difficult not to be bullish about the future,” chief executive officer Ronojoy Dutta said in the media statement. “We see plenty of opportunities for profitable growth in our growth in our network with a robust delivery stream of new aircraft, we are well position ed to capitalise on this growth.”
The company has also recommended a final dividend of Rs 5 apiece. Shares of the low-cost carrier closed 2.5 percent higher at Rs 1,662.15 apiece compared to a 0.68 percent gain in the benchmark Nifty 50 Index.
Analyst Call Highlights:
- International unit revenue increased 13.6 percent, while domestic rose 6 percent.
- Jet Airways issues improved unit revenue by 3-4 percent in Q4.
- April revenue has been stronger than March because of Jet shutdown.
- Expect positive impact of Jet issues to disappear by June.
- Expect 5 percent improvement in unit revenue for FY20.
- Have not placed any order for wide bodied aircraft so far and don’t expect to do it in near future.
- Half of the capacity addition in future will be towards international route.
- Have hired 285 Jet pilots who will come on board in the next 3-6 months
