• Lower sales at Rs 2236.87 crore was down by 18% with mobility business sector declined by 23.7% and business beyond mobility solutions also declined by 18.2%. The domestic sales for Q4FY20 declined by 23.1%.
• OPM down by 380 bps and that is largely due to higher staff and other expenses. Material cost (including cost of traded goods) as % of sales was lower by 2170 bps to 37.6%. But the staff cost and OE was up by 570 bps (to 16.7%) and 1240 bps (to 25%) respectively there by more than offset the fall in material cost. Lower material cost as% of sales was mainly contributed by cost reduction measures with suppliers, favourable product mix and optimization of freight rates as also higher service income during the quarter.
• Other income was down by 14% to Rs 140.41 crore. The other income mainly consisting of income from marketable securities and interest have decreased by Rs 22.2 crore mainly due to higher profit on sale of investments in Q4 of 2019 to fund the buyback and also the reduced MTM gain, which is partly offset by the higher interest earnings on fixed deposits.

Yearly Performance

Sales was down by 20% to Rs 5068.12 crore. Lower sales with 270 bps contraction in operating profit margin resulted in 31% fall in operating profit to Rs 1483.32 crore. Further with 8% fall in other income to Rs 546.56 crore, the fall at PBIDT was 26% to Rs 2029.88 crore. After accounting for lower interest and depreciation, the PBT was down by 30% to Rs 1636.44 crore. The EO Expense for the period was Rs 716.75 crore compared to nil in the corresponding previous period and thus the PBT after EO was down by 61% to Rs 919.69 crore. With taxation standing lower by 55% to Rs 334.89 crore, the PAT was down by 63% to Rs 584.80 crore. After accounting for share of loss from associates of Rs 0.29 crore (against a profit of Rs 0.25 crore) the net profit from continuing business was down by 63% to Rs 584.51 crore.

Other developments

To pay a dividend of Rs 105/- (Indian Rupee One hundred and Five only) per equity share of Rs 10 each, for the financial year ended March 31, 2020.

Management discussion & Outlook

Speaking about the outlook for the upcoming fiscal year, Bhattacharya commented: "As a leading automotive technology company with 80 percent of our revenues driven through mobility business, we have been affected severly. We welcome the Prime Minister's announcement of INR 20 lakh crore economic package and hope to see some light towards economic growth. We are still awaiting to receive further guidance on industry-specific stimulus package that will support the auto sector."

Bosch has a long term strategy to shape the market in key technologies with innovative products and solutions. Bosch Limited thus continues its stance to be a technology agnostic partner to Customers, Government and Stakeholders at large. Since 2017, Bosch has executed 79 BS-VI projects in Passenger Cars and Commercial Vehicles segments with major OEMs. Amidst the crisis, Bosch in India will continue with critical investments in competence development as well as for solutions designed and developed in India and for India. For all Bosch businesses beyond Mobility Solutions, the company has a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, Bosch continues to bring-in ‘Fit for market' products and solutions while on the other, the company will increase its ‘Go to Market' footprint using both offline and digital platforms.

Bosch Group: Outlook for 2020 and long-term strategic course In view of the coronavirus pandemic, Bosch anticipates considerable challenges for the global economy in the current business year. To achieve at least a balanced result, will take a supreme effort, the board of management of the Bosch Group announced during the recent Annual Press Conference in Germany. Despite thechallenges of the current situation, Bosch is maintaining its long-term strategic course: the supplier of technology and services is continuing with its systematic pursuit of ambitious climate goals and is developing the activities required to support an expansion of sustainable mobility. "Although other issues are currently in the spotlight, we must not lose sight of the future of our planet," said Bosch CEO VolkmarDenner. Bosch will reach its global climate action targets for 2020 and make all its 400 locations worldwide climate-neutral. In addition, Bosch set itself the goal to make upstream and downstream activities along the value chain as climate neutral as possible – by 2030, the associated emissions (Scope 3) are expected to fall by 15 percent. Moreover, the company plans to pool the experience from more than 1,000 energy-efficiency projects of its own in a new advisory company, called Bosch Climate Solutions. As climate action is accelerating structural change in many sectors, hydrogen is becoming increasingly important, both in the automotive industry and in building technology. Bosch is therefore working with partners on mobile and stationary fuel cells. When it comes to mobility, what is important according to Denner, is a broad technology offensive that not only sets out a battery-electric path to sustainable mobility, but also takes into consideration efficient combustion engines and especially renewable synthetic fuels and fuel cells. Wherever possible, Bosch wants to contribute to efforts to contain the pandemic, for instance through the newly developed rapid Covid-19 test and the Vivalytic analysis device. Bosch intends to produce more than a million rapid tests in 2020, and to increase this to three million next year. Furthermore, Bosch produces facemasks and disinfectants in some regions, mainly used for the protection of its associates.