Expect BS-VI transition costs to hit demand; outlook for April-June quarter weak, says Rakesh Sharma, Bajaj Auto
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Expect BS-VI transition costs to hit demand; outlook for April-June quarter weak, says Rakesh Sharma, Bajaj Auto
Combination of a weak economic backdrop combined with added costs due to transition to BS-VI from BS-IV makes the outlook for April-June quarter quite weak for domestic business, is the word coming in from Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director, Bajaj Auto.
Edited excerpts of an interview with Mr. Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director, Bajaj Auto; dated 2nd March 2020:
When asked about the outlook for the next 2 months, Mr. Sharma stated that the underlying economic situation remains the same, which is a high single-digit decline in the retail industry and there are issues of transition from BS-IV to BS-VI, which will add costs April onwards. So, the combination of a weak economic backdrop combined with added costs makes the outlook for April-June quarter quite weak for domestic business.
He commented that exports have had an outstanding run. Bajaj Auto had the highest ever quarter in Q3. It had the highest ever sales in January with strong growth of 15% in February. He also informed that there is an Egypt issue, which is going to be finally brought to rest in April because last year it was in April when Egypt went down. So, without Egypt there has been good strong single-digit growth in the commercial vehicle (CV) business.
Speaking about Coronavirus he said that they are watchful about the impact of coronavirus as yet there is no impact in their markets. However, some disruption in Chinese supply chains of motorcycles will definitely be an area of opportunity for a company like Bajaj Auto, who commands 35% market share in Africa. Therefore, he expects the export performance to continue January and February the way it has been doing in Q3.
When asked about the auto component supply disruption due to coronavirus hitting the production of their peers like TVS and Hero Motocorp by 10% he said that they are impacted by less than 5%. They have taken steps of airlifting critical components although slightly expensive.
He informed that electric scooter had some sourcing from Wuhan itself, so that has got affected but other than that it’s a manageable situation for Bajaj Auto. If the trajectory of supply chain improvement continues as it is occurring in China, then he doesn’t see a disruption of production in April-May also.
He commented on BSIV to BSVI evolution and said that BS-IV stocks are under control. In fact, for motorcycles, there is about 20 days of sale taking February as sale and in others like commercial vehicles they are 11-12 days of sales. The company is going through an odd period where the company is running down the BS-IV and not yet being able to fully ramp-up the BS-VI. The ramp-up is expected to start to occur in March.
When asked about the price increase on account of BS-VI he said that the price increase is between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000 depending on the model. The 150cc plus model, fuel injection system is used the price increase is up to Rs 10,000. So the cost increase is between 6-10%.
He stated that when there was BS-III to BS-IV transition, the economic backdrop was that of growth. The major difference this time is that the economic backdrop is not very supportive and the demand will get impacted due to the price increase. He expects it will be 10-15% decline in April to August period and hopefully, when festivities kick in, they will serve as a trigger to reverse the down cycle.
When asked about the outlook for FY21E volume, he said that the second half will not be able to compensate for the double-digit decline of the first half and might end up even-stevens or slightly negative for the industry in the whole year.
Consensus Estimate: (Source: market screener, investing.com website)
The closing price of Bajaj Auto was ₹ 2,792/- as of 3-March-20. It traded at 16x/ 15x/ 14x the consensus EPS for FY20E/ FY21E/ FY22E of ₹ 173/184/205 respectively.
Consensus target price of ₹ 3,280/- implies a PE multiple of 16x on FY22E EPS of ₹ 205/-.