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Informist, Wednesday, Apr. 30, 2025

 

By Sunil Raghu

 

AHMEDABAD – Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. is expected to report better financial numbers for the March quarter, thanks to diversification across geographies as well as the cargo it handles at its ports. The ports and logistics major is expected to see a fair jump in volumes, which would boost its net profit.

 

The company's consolidated net profit for Jan-Mar is expected to jump almost 37% on the year to INR 27.9 billion, according to the average of the estimates of five brokerages. Sequentially, the net profit is expected to rise almost 11%. The company's revenue for the quarter is seen rising 19% on year and 3% on the quarter to INR 82 billion, as per estimates.

 

Adani Ports is India's  largest private sector port operator in terms of the cargo volumes it handles and has 14 operational ports. In Jan-Mar, Adani Ports handled 117.8 million tonnes of cargo, up 8.6% on year from 108.5 million tonnes in the year-ago quarter. In Oct-Dec, the company's ports had clocked volume of 112.5 million tonnes.

 

In 2024-25 (Apr-Mar), the 12 major ports in India handled freight traffic of 854.9 million tonnes, up 4.3% on year, data released by the Indian Ports Association showed. Adani Ports handled a total of 450.2 million tonnes of cargo in FY25, a rise of 7% on year. This was lower than the company's guidance of 460-480 million tonnes. The growth in cargo volume was primarily driven by containers, which rose 20% on year and liquids and gas, which rose 9% on year. Within the logistics segment, rail volumes in FY25 were 640,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, up 8% on year, and general purpose wagon investment scheme volumes were 21.97 million tonnes, up 9% on year.

 

Elara Securities (India) Pvt. Ltd. estimated the lowest net profit for Adani Ports in Jan-Mar at INR 25.1 billion, while Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. estimated it the highest at INR 30.9 billion. As for revenue, Nuvama Wealth Management Ltd. had the lowest estimate of INR 79.7 billion, while Motilal Oswal had the highest of INR 83.8 billion.

 

Adani Ports will detail its earnings for the March quarter on Thursday.

 

Elara expects Adani Ports' revenue to increase 19% on year to INR 82 billion. It also sees Adani Ports' logistics revenue growing 16% on year, led by market share gains, owing to continuing growth in rail volumes, with EBITDA margins stable at 24%.

 

Kotak Institutional Equities has pencilled in 8% on-year growth in the volumes, despite the lack of scale-up at the Gangavaram port, weakness in imported coal volumes, and weak macro growth. It sees 11% on-year growth in revenue, due to an uptick in logistics revenues. It also pegs the EBITDA margin for the March quarter at 60%, similar to Oct-Dec.

 

Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. expects revenue to jump 22% on year to INR 84 billion, driven by 8% growth in port volumes. It expects the EBITDA at INR 53 billion, with the EBITDA margin seen expanding by 500 basis points on year on the back of higher container volumes in the overall cargo mix. Improvement in utilisation at existing and recently acquired ports and growth in the logistics business remain the key monitorables.

 

The average of the estimates of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation by five brokerages was INR 49.8 billion, with a range of INR 48 billion to INR 53.3 billion.

 

For Oct-Dec, the company's consolidated net profit was INR 25.2 billion on revenue of INR 79.6 billion.

 

At 1046 IST, shares of Adani Ports were 0.1% higher at INR 1,218 on the National Stock Exchange. At the current price, the stock is up nearly 13.1% from the day the company announced its December quarter earnings on Jan. 30. On the day of its December quarter earnings, the stock closed at INR 1,077.05 per share on the National Stock Exchange.

 

Following are the Jan-Mar earnings estimates for Adani Ports based on reports from five brokerage firms in descending order of the estimate of net profit (in INR million):

 

Brokerage firm	Net sales (in INR million)	Net profit (in INR million)	EBITDA (in INR million)
Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd	83,819	30,926	53,303
Equirus Securities Pvt Ltd	82,782	30,169	50,399
Kotak Institutional Equities	81,517	27,528	48,378
Nuvama Wealth Management Ltd	79,706	25,643	48,034
Elara Securities (India) Pvt Ltd	82,324	25,601	48,657
Average	82,029.60	27,865.40	49,754.20

 

End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Edited by Avishek Dutta

 

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