Key Points from the discussion:

Apollo Tyres posted a 45% decline in its consolidated net profit at Rs 184.24 crore for the third quarter ended December 2014.

Net sales of the company declined to Rs 3,104.825 crore for the third quarter, as against Rs 3,559 crore during the same period of previous fiscal, lower by 13%.

Q3 FY 14-15 were 7% lower in terms of volumes mainly due to weak winter in Europe. The drop was very less in India.

Raw material prices were 2% lower on qoq basis and natural rubber prices were down 8% ion qoq basis.

In terms of Q3 volumes, 79% were from replacement market and balance from OEMS. Categorywise, 46% was from truck segment and 37% from passenger cars.

On a 9 month basis, there was 9% drop in revenues and 2% drop in volumes.

Net debt currently stands at Rs4.6 billion.

Management expects raw material prices to be soft and little lower next quarter.

In India, the company took price reduction activities in Q3.

Current radialization in truck business stands at 35%

For the overall industry, there was overall some growth registered in Q3, mainlky from TBR segment. The truck segment tyres saw moderate growth. For passenger cars, the market growth was low single digit ie 3% in Q3 and 5% for 9 months.

In Indian business operations, 66% of revenues was from truck business and 17% from the passenger car business.

The management believes that its share in truck business tyres in India is close to 26%.

Regarding outlook, the company expects some pickup on heavy truck segment. The

LCV segment is seeing no recovery and lacks the truck segment recovery pace.

In Europe, there was 6% drop in volumes in Q3 and 5% drop in price mix in Q3. For 9m there was 4% drop in sales mainly due to weaker winter.

Regarding recovery in European region, management feels that 1-2% growth is expected this year.

Industry is pushing for anti-dumpingand is seeking to increase the same to 20%. This is mainly due to increase in imports, mainly from China. Imports did increase largely in Q3.

Bus & truck OEM demand witnessed pressure during past couple of years due to

sluggish macro economic scenario and regulatory pressure over mining industry. However, favourable policies of the new government and rising export from India could boost up the demand in segment.

Recently the company has shortlisted Hungary for setting up its proposed EUR500 million greenfield factory with capacity of 16,000 car tyres and 3,000 truck tyres per day.

The company has also announced to setup a new plant in Thailand with the initial investment of USD250 mil-lion, and INR15 billion for expansion of existing Chennai plant.