Amara Raja Energy & Mobility Limited (BOM:500008)
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Q4 24/25

May 30, 2025

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Amara Raja Energy & Mobility Q4 FY 2025 earnings conference call hosted by Elara Securities India Pvt. Ltd. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference has been recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Jay Kale. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Jay Kale
Executive Vice President Equity Analyst, Elara Securities

Yeah, thank you. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of Elara Securities, I welcome you all to the Q4 FY 2025 post-earnings call of Amara Raja Energy & Mobility Limited. From the management side, we have with us today Mr. Harshavardhana Gourineni, Executive Director, Automotive & Industrial; Mr. Vikramaditya Gourineni, Executive Director, New Energy Business; Mr. Y. Dilli Babu, Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Dilli Babu for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Thank you, Jay. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for coming in. I will briefly discuss the Q4 performance as well as some brief about the full year numbers. Then I'll hand it over to Harshav for his remarks and then to Mr. Vikram. Then we will open up for Q&A. In Q4 FY 2025, the consolidated revenue is about INR 3,060 crores with a growth of about 5% over the previous year. 95% of this revenue still comes from the lead-acid business. The balance comes from the new energy business. Lead-acid battery business registered a revenue close to INR 2,900 crores during the current quarter with a growth of about 4% over the previous year. The major segments of the lead-acid business registered growth during the quarter except for telecom, and there is a bit of a slowdown in the overall exports business during the current quarter.

The standalone results include the PAC sales that is done to the telecom segment by about INR 100 crores. That is where you will see that the overall revenue growth is about 8%. The four-wheeler domestic aftermarket volumes grew by about 9% on a year-on-year basis during the current quarter, and the OEM volumes have shown a strong growth of about 15% during the current quarter. With respect to international volumes, we have experienced a muted demand in the current quarter, both from our western geographies as well as some bit of slowdown that is witnessed in the APAC region. The demand challenges in the export market have resulted in, on the current quarter, there is a reduction of about 10% over the previous year, while on a full-year basis, we have still grown our export business more than 12%-13%.

The two-wheeler volumes have registered a growth of about 13% during the current quarter, and this is driven both by the aftermarket as well as the OEM segments. Home inverter batteries have also seen a double-digit growth, close to 17%, both on tubular batteries as well as the HUPS that we sell through the automotive channel. For the first time, the loop business has also seen a INR 40 crore revenue for this current quarter. Industrial volumes, UPS business has shown a healthy growth, whereas telecom, we have clearly seen a degrowth in the lead-acid business by almost 15% on a year-on-year basis. That is where the overall industrial volume growth has been muted for the current quarter.

The new energy business has shown very good growth this year, owing to a higher supply of ESS batteries to the telecom segment, and also the EV batteries have continued to perform based on the last year numbers. When we look at the entire revenue growth of this business, including the chargers as well as battery packs to both EV and ESS segments, 35% kind of a revenue growth is what we have seen in this current quarter. While the three-wheeler EV battery volumes were kind of muted during the current quarter, considering the demand from the OEMs that we supply to. We expect that on the charger side, there could be some more traction in the coming quarters as some of the localization efforts and some of the DC Fast Charger products are getting ready. We will see some more traction on that in the coming quarters.

As far as the profitability and operating margins of the current quarter is concerned, they are affected negatively by material cost, predominantly some of the alloys like antimony alloys. Also, we had a challenge with respect to the power cost because there are certain fuel purchase cost adjustments that are being passed on by the government in the last couple of quarters, and it continued to hit us even in the current quarter. Apart from this, there is also a delay in settlement of power by the government for the power that we have generated in our ground-mounted solar plant because of certain regulatory changes. We hope this will get corrected during the current financial year.

Together, between the material cost as well as the power cost, and also considering the fact that the trading revenue is also higher during the current quarter, the overall margins got negatively impacted by roughly around 1.5%-2%. We have also made certain changes to the overall estimates regarding some of the provisions around the warranty and other employee cost, etc., which is where we also had to take some additional provisions during the current quarter that also had some impact on the overall margins. Now, as far as the full year 2025 is concerned, our overall revenue growth is about 10% on a consolidated basis, whereas the lead-acid business has posted a double-digit growth, and new energy business was kind of the same kind of revenue was seen as compared to the last year because of some of the OEM demand that is being lower.

Also, the ESS battery, that is storage battery demand, has picked up towards the latter half of the year, and we expect next year both the sectors to do well. The full year margins are also impacted negatively by about 1.5%, owing to the factors that I have explained in the Q4 related margins. Similarly, similar kind of factors were also involved in impacting the margins. We have taken a price increase in the month of April to mitigate some of these cost numbers, but I think the issue of power and some of these antimony prices is still persisting even in the Q1 of the current year. We may have to see how to mitigate some of these cost pressures in order to, again, improve our margins back to 14% kind of target that we have set for ourselves.

During the current year, I think there has been significant efforts in terms of throughput enhancement that is going to give us more operating leverage going forward because we are able to add capacities without incurring additional CapEx. We expect that should improve our return ratios going forward. As far as the CapEx spent on a consolidated basis this year, it is close to about INR 100 crore, of that significant portion has gone into lead-acid business, including the tubular battery reinstatement. If I remove the tubular battery reinstatement, which took about INR 400 crore out of it, roughly about INR 400 crore of CapEx was spent on other capital investments in the lead-acid business. The balance, INR 300-400 crore, was spent on the new energy business in setting up our customer qualification plant and the research lab and also the land development for our first gigafactory.

The lead-acid recycling plant has commenced its commercial operations during Q4, and we expect that further ramp-up will happen during the current year. For FY 2026, we may have to spend a CapEx of a similar amount as what we have spent during the current year, but this year, the bulk of CapEx will go towards the new energy business in terms of completing the balance, the three projects that are currently under construction. With that brief on the Q4 numbers, I'll now give the call to Mr. Harshav to give an overview of the business.

Harshavardhana Gourineni
Executive Director, Automotive and Industrial, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

A very good evening to everyone. For the recently concluded financial year 2025, the lead-acid business witnessed a double-digit growth overall. This was strongly aided by the robust growth in the domestic aftermarket for both passenger vehicles and two-wheeler demand was strong, and we managed to also grow ahead of the market, helping us grow and consolidate market share. In the OEM business, we've seen a similar growth rate to the previous year, with a little bit of muting coming in in Q4, as our CFO had mentioned. In our international business exports, the Amara brand continues to be the number one brand in the markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, number two in the GCC. We have been able to establish two strong customers in North America through the largest retailers.

To add to our geographical expansion, we have also entered the U.K., Greece, and the Benelux region of Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg. We are happy to have expanded into Europe, and more European geographies will be coming online later going forward. We did experience some headwinds, some deferrals of transactions in Q4, but overall, for the year, experienced a double-digit growth. In industrial, the growth in the UPS and data center segment has compensated for the downturn in telecom. We will be growing this application and also growing it through exports going forward. In our allied businesses, while we are leveraging our strong distribution network of 500+ channel partners, the lubricants business has taken off in a significant and a good way, adding significantly to the bottom line. Our home energy business has also experienced 20% growth. Going forward, we will also be developing products for home solar solutions and lithium home UPS.

A recycling unit has come online in Q4. We have a starting capacity of about 50,000 metric tons per annum, scaling to 100,000. This is allowing us to, of course, maintain resource security, improve our ability to source in an efficient way, and we are also building capabilities around making our own alloys, allowing us to retain value. The tubular battery plant reinstatement is underway with commercial production starting in June, allowing us to put our own manufactured products into the market with less reliance on trading. Many of our digital initiatives have been paying off. We've been able to unlock significant capacity without investment, and we'll be looking to do much more of that through Industry 4.0 mechanisms going forward. Thank you.

Vikramaditya Gourineni
Executive Director, New Energy Business, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yes. Good evening, everybody. I'll just take a few minutes to talk about our new energy business. For the year, the new energy business remained pretty flat in terms of revenue, but I can say that we're working hard. We're adding new accounts. There were some areas where existing customers had some loss in market share. We decided to leave some business in some lower margin segments. The pack development, especially for the light electric mobility, especially the electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers, we believe Amara Raja still remains a strong number one in the market. We continue to engage with passenger OEMs along with our partners to localize cells and packs, and we'll hopefully have some updates in the coming quarters. For the offboard charger that we launched this past year, this is an offboard DC localized charger.

We did face some teething issues, some field performance issues, but largely with the new testing and validation design lab setup and the processes in place, we believe that a lot of these field issues have been resolved, and this year, we should see more robust growth in this segment. For the DC fast charger, this is a segment that's slowly growing across the country. We have a full range of products all the way up to 240 kW, and these are fully certified and ready to go into the market. Recently, we have two sizable orders from private charge point operators that are under execution right now. Mostly, this year has been about continuing our infrastructure roll-up. Just to recap, as has been shared in the past, we currently operate two pack facilities that will have a cumulative capacity of 7 GWh combined.

In these two facilities, between Tirupati and Hyderabad, we are manufacturing packs for telecom, UPS, and light electric mobility applications. As we enter into new segments like battery energy storage, data center, high-voltage packs for passenger vehicles and buses, our existing facilities will continue to expand and reach our cumulative capacity. The R&D facility that we are building in the city of Hyderabad should be up and running by the end of this calendar year, as well as the customer qualification plant. Both facilities are on target, as per what we've earlier shared with you. Once online, both of these facilities will help to vastly upgrade our internal development capabilities and help to ensure that, in addition to technology partnerships and alliances that we're entering into, the in-house development capabilities of Amara Raja will also be on a fast track.

We broke ground earlier this year on our first gigafactory that should see capacity coming online around in the first half of 2027. We believe that the market demand remains robust. This factory should be up as per the timelines that we've earlier communicated. Further capacity additions and new facilities will be directly tied to firm offtake, which we're actively working on. One additional area that we're bringing a little bit of additional more focus to is ESS at various levels. Harshav mentioned that while we are aggressively ramping our home energy business, that there's also a need to bring new advanced chemistry like lithium into the home energy business. We have multiple models under development at the moment, and within the next quarter or two, we'll be entering for field testing and validation and should be ready for the full-scale launch for next season.

For the grid battery energy storage system, as a group, we run several businesses, one being as a design and development agency for renewable energy. We've won a couple of orders for a good scale battery energy storage, and now we have the opportunity to bring our in-house solutions and locally made solutions into the market. This year, we should be getting some more valuable experience. Up till now, we've done proof of concepts and containerized solutions for our in-house requirements, and for the first time, we'll be having external orders as well. I'll hand it over to Delucchi.

Emanuela Delucchi
Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yeah, I think those are the initial remarks. I now request the operator to open for Q&A.

Operator

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Kapil Singh from Nomura. Please proceed.

Kapil Singh
Analyst, Nomura

Yeah, hi. Good afternoon, sir. This is Kapil from Nomura. My first question is on the margins. You mentioned that the target is 14%. Could you give us some details in terms of how those margin reversals work, how much price hike you have taken, and are you facing any further cost pressures in the coming quarters? Just some thoughts around it. Also, I think our tubular battery plant is about to start, as well as the apart from the tubular battery plant, we have the lead recycling plant also starting, I think, in the next three months or so. So what will be the positive contribution to margins from these?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yeah, thanks, Kapil. As I have mentioned already, the cost of some of the alloys, as well as power-related costs, will continue into the next quarter as well, and we'll have to see how they will play out in the subsequent quarters. Clearly, once the tubular factory is up and running, the trading mix part of it will get solved because we'll be able to use our own manufactured batteries as well. I think considering these one-off issues and also the additional margin fixed cost leverage that's going to come up with the tubular battery being operational, while I have mentioned earlier also that at this lead level, we should, I mean, while 13% kind of a margin is what we have seen earlier, our internal target is definitely to reach our original stated position of 14% margin.

Between these two initiatives of the tubular battery, as well as the lead being recycled by ourselves, while recycling may take some more time because the battery breaking operations are going to come into operation only during the second quarter of this financial year, second or third quarter. The refining operations have commenced at this point of time. We hope that with these new manufacturing facilities coming up, and also, as Harshav was mentioning, some of the throughput enhancement, for example, you would have seen in the presentation that we have placed in the domain as well, that we are almost able to add 6 million battery capacity over and above our existing capacities without adding much of a CapEx.

All this should give us, in the coming period, we'll be able to meet higher demand requirements without much of a CapEx getting invested in some of these areas. This should help us in the coming quarters to improve our margins, while some of these headwinds on costs may persist for at least a couple of quarters.

Kapil Singh
Analyst, Nomura

Sir, on the pricing, can you also mention how much increase we have done?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

2%.

Kapil Singh
Analyst, Nomura

Okay. All right. The second question is on new energy business, and particularly the cell business. Is there a shift in the timelines of the commencement of operations? If you could just let us know what is the reason for that. Also, in terms of the imported battery price, is there any change that you observed in the market from last time, or they are operating around the same levels?

Vikramaditya Gourineni
Executive Director, New Energy Business, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

The first gigafactory, which I shared about earlier, that we broke ground on, I think, barring a plus or minus a few quarters, it's largely in line with what we've been sharing up till now. That capacity should be coming online more or less as planned, largely catering to our light electric mobility business. Further capacity, while the ultimate goal of this facility of a 20 GWh+ is still we are still fully committed to it, it will really go as per firm customer contracts that we sign. While those are in the works, I think they don't want to commit on any specific date. As for pricing, definitely, I think everybody would have observed that the pricing coming out of China right now is quite aggressive: the cell pricing, the ESS pricing. Definitely, that's been on a downward trend.

We're waiting to see if that's stabilizing anytime soon. Obviously, our investment decisions will also be much hinged, further investment decisions will be much hinged on our confidence in being able to meet these prices.

Kapil Singh
Analyst, Nomura

Sure, sir. What is the price for LFP and NMC batteries currently that you're observing?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

I think LFP, we have seen the best price in some cases has seen around $50 per kWh, but it is still around that $55. We have also seen, based on the import data, one-off case where there was even sub-$50 level as well. NMC, I think, considering the lower quantity that we are buying, it is still around $60 or so. Both are on a downward trajectory, at least in the last two, three quarters.

Harshavardhana Gourineni
Executive Director, Automotive and Industrial, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

I think I would just add to that while we observe a certain range of, let's say, LFP prices, the ranges could drastically vary. It depends what cell you're buying, what quality. It can vary quite drastically. I think we can only comment based on the cells that we purchase and for the applications that we are in the market today.

Kapil Singh
Analyst, Nomura

Sure, sir. Thanks. Thank you. That's all from my side.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Raghunandan Eelore from Nuvama Research. Please proceed.

Raghunandan Eelore
Analyst, Nuvama Research

Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Sir, firstly, in terms of the lithium cell project, what has been the investment so far, and what is the plan for FY 2026 and 2027?

Harshavardhana Gourineni
Executive Director, Automotive and Industrial, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Raghu, so far, about INR 850 crore is invested into AR Act. Of that, during the current year, almost INR 350 crore has been spent on the facilities that are coming up. Next year, the overall plan for the new energy business in terms of CapEx will be around close to INR 1,000 crore, considering all three facilities are going to go full steam. There could be some delays in terms of equipment arrival, and then how vendors are going to give timelines. It may change by maybe about 15-20% in terms of cash flow. I think new energy business would require at least INR 1,000 crore CapEx for the financial year 2026.

Raghunandan Eelore
Analyst, Nuvama Research

Got it, sir. Thank you for that. EV launches have become a focus area for several OEMs. How are the discussions progressing with OEMs for becoming one of the suppliers? Any progress, or how are they looking at local sourcing versus imports? Your thoughts on that?

Harshavardhana Gourineni
Executive Director, Automotive and Industrial, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

I think there's definitely some challenge. There's several OEMs that are quite keen to get localized cells in India. Obviously, the challenge comes from setting up a brand new ecosystem in India of cell manufacturing, but while also expecting some of the prevailing prices that are coming out of China and other more mature cell markets. We continue to discuss with them. We still maintain that, at least in the initial period that manufacturing takes off in India, and probably this delta would be even higher in some other parts of the world. We believe that we're going to definitely be paying anywhere from 15%-20% penalty to make cells in India on day one.

Over a period of five to ten years, that needs to, we see that gradually coming down with several other developments coming into place, like the local supply chain, local vendors coming up for the cell ecosystem. Obviously, our own, as cell makers, our capacity is ramping up and getting the right efficiency and yield as well.

Raghunandan Eelore
Analyst, Nuvama Research

Thanks for that. At what level of capacity and utilization can you achieve, say, EBITDA of $5 per kW? How are you looking at profitability?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Raghu, as I mentioned earlier also, I think, however, if we are able to get over and above the material cost, if we are able to get $20-$25 per kWh, then I'm sure an EBITDA of $4-$5 is possible. That is something much will depend on the scale efficiency. At this point of time, we believe, as I mentioned earlier as well, considering the current CapEx costs that are coming in and the line capacities that are coming in, it may still need about 8-10 GWh of capacity for us to achieve those kind of numbers. A significant part is also going to be coming in how do we get the right supply chain in place because that is going to play a very vital role in determining what kind of margins we will accomplish.

There is no as such big change in terms of the cost equation like what we have discussed in our earlier calls as well.

Raghunandan Eelore
Analyst, Nuvama Research

Thank you for that, sir. Just a clarification for Q4, four-wheeler, you said OEM growth is 15%, aftermarket 8%, export minus 10%. Would that be right, sir? Just re-clarifying.

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yes.

Raghunandan Eelore
Analyst, Nuvama Research

Got it. How much would be the UPS growth?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Industrial UPS?

Raghunandan Eelore
Analyst, Nuvama Research

Yes, sir. Home inverter, you said 17%, UPS 15%, and overall industrial?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Overall, industrial is muted because the lead acid on the telecom side has shown a similar degrowth.

Raghunandan Eelore
Analyst, Nuvama Research

Got it, sir. Just a last question. In one of the slides in the presentation, for the Indian lead acid battery market to go from $4.6 billion to $5.8 billion over the next five years, that represents only a 5% CAGR in terms of growth. So would that be a conservative estimate, or are you looking at growth rates coming down to mid-single digits?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yeah, see, considering the higher base, that is on the overall lead-acid market. You know that we are already seeing migration of some of the storage segment batteries to other chemistries, right? If you take both storage as well as automotive segments put together, the growth rate could be what it is. Obviously, our estimates are a bit conservative at this point of time, but that is more to do with the Indian scheme of things alone. Our overall growth, and then the plans are not only looking at the Indian market alone, but it is also looking at what we can do elsewhere in the globe. That way, the business plans definitely will take into account what's happening in the Indian market.

Considering that being the overall market demand that has been projected, while the automotive will still have substantial growth headroom from here. That way, it may not be the complete reflection of how we are going to plan our business. Domestically, when you look at, when you put together all the segments, both storage as well as mobility, that is how the numbers have panned out. I am sure we have definitely been conservative with whatever numbers we put out there.

Raghunandan Eelore
Analyst, Nuvama Research

Got it, sir. Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Before I take the next question, ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to two per participant. I repeat, please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from the line of Rishab Shah from Bhugle Rock PMS. Please proceed.

Rishab Shah
Analyst, Bhugle Rock PMS

Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I just wanted to know how will your cash flow plan out in the next couple of years? What will be the payback period of the CapEx in the new business?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

The new energy business, at this point of time, to put a payback number around it would be difficult because it is a strategic move. The CapEx that we are currently incurring is not only for the immediate business, but it is for a long-term capability development. Both our customer qualification plant and our E-positive Research Lab, which is going to consume close to INR 1,000 crore of CapEx, are more of capability enablers for us to scale up the new energy business significantly going forward. At each cell project level, currently, the payback periods are definitely on a higher side, but I think we have to wait and see to get benchmark numbers around this until we reach minimum capacity levels of, like I was mentioning earlier, 8-10 GWh.

From our cash flow management point of view, we believe the first phase would require, in the new energy business, close to INR 2,000-2,500 crores, which we believe we can easily meet with our existing lead acid business cash flow generation, maybe some bit of leverage that we have to take on the balance sheet of the holding company. Thereafter, we have to see when the further capacities when they have to be added. That's when we will think about other means of raising finance because by that time, we would have stabilized at least our first giga lines very clearly, would have definitely added some of the customer accounts getting established.

We'll be in a better position to really go and then get the money at the right value, and then we are confident that we'll be able to source money for the expansion of the new energy business.

Rishab Shah
Analyst, Bhugle Rock PMS

Okay. Thank you so much. Next question is, in terms of gross margins, as compared, your competitor is a bit better than us. Just wanted to know the reasons why it is better. Is it because of the raw material procurement or the lead acid recycling? Just wanted your thoughts on that.

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

See, historically, our gross margins are better because of two major reasons. One definitely is the mix because our aftermarket mix is favorable as against the OEM mix. Secondly, considering our facilities being located at the same location, there is a huge amount of scale advantage we derive in terms of whether it is employee cost or whether it is through the other manufacturing expenses, etc. We also had the distribution model being pretty robust. That is where we had better realizations as well as lower manufacturing costs and the employee cost. That is where we had the advantage and then the gross margin being better. We hope we will be able to continue that going forward as well.

Rishab Shah
Analyst, Bhugle Rock PMS

Just a follow up on this one, is it the reason for the inventory days also? Because on average, your days for inventory for a five-year average is around 60 days. For a competitor, it goes up to 75 days. What could be the reason for that?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

No, I think I can only comment on our numbers. Our idea is that our DOH levels cannot go beyond 56 or 57 days. There could be some seasonal impact of it because of the tubular factory. Generally, we create higher inventories towards the end of the year to meet the upcoming season in the summer. That is where you will see on the balance sheet day, the inventory is being a little higher. Otherwise, we generally try to maintain a 55-day kind of an average and then run the business that way. That has been the required DOH days for the business.

Rishab Shah
Analyst, Bhugle Rock PMS

My last question is, in the new plant of lithium ion, which is just last one, just a small one. The new lithium ion plant. It's a small one. It's a small one. The new plant of lithium ion, which is going to come up, is it going to cater both auto and industrials?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yeah. The lithium, the packs we are currently supplying both to the auto segment as well as the storage segment. It goes the same way even for the cell facility.

Rishab Shah
Analyst, Bhugle Rock PMS

Okay. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mukesh Saraf from Advisors Spark. Please proceed.

Mukesh Saraf
Director, Advisors Spark

Yes, good evening, and thank you for the opportunity. My first question is, on the margins this quarter, the other expenses, I think last quarter you had mentioned that there was a INR 37 crore kind of an impact, kind of a one-off impact, which probably would be lower this quarter. We expected about 40 basis points impact because of the fuel cost going up. But we've seen that the numbers are probably flat, about INR 440 crores. Is there a higher than expected impact of the fuel cost that you had mentioned in the other expenses, the surcharge?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yes, Mukesh. In addition to these fuel purchase costs that got loaded, this quarter also, there is a regulation change that has happened in terms of how we transmit the power that is coming up from our ground-mounted solar plant. Some of the settlement that has to happen at a cheaper because the cost of power coming out of our ground-mounted solar plant is much lower than what we buy from the grid. Since those settlements got stopped, that's where I think we had to incur higher power costs during the current quarter. We are now working with the regulators to see how we can get back those needs in the coming quarter. Together, again, we created a similar impact even in this quarter as well.

Mukesh Saraf
Director, Advisors Spark

Okay. Okay. I mean, one is this maybe solar thing that you need to get back from the regulator, but the other cost that we saw last quarter, that will come off from, say, Punky?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

No, I think now with the way we hope, I mean, based on the regulatory commission's decision in the next year is when we'll have the visibility. For now, we assume that may continue at a similar level, and then we are creating those provisions in the books. If at all next year regulatory commission decisions go the other way, then we'll be able to get some relief out of it. Otherwise, I think those costs are going to persist even in the next year.

Mukesh Saraf
Director, Advisors Spark

Okay. Okay. In light of this, the price hike that you've taken, and you mentioned that you might have to take more, you've taken this 2%. How much more would we have to take to offset some of these costs that are hitting us?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

No.

Mukesh Saraf
Director, Advisors Spark

Both, I think, the gross margin level as well because antimony as well has gone up. So how much more do we have to take?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

No, I don't think price hikes we will simply base it on all costs being passed down to the market because we also have to look at how the competitor dynamics are also. I don't think I can give you a number at this point of time. We may have to wait for another couple of months before we take a decision around whether there is a need for a further price rise or there are opportunities for us to save some of these costs and then still maintain the current prices.

Mukesh Saraf
Director, Advisors Spark

Okay. Okay. Got it. Just lastly, how much was the traded revenue this quarter?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

About 15% of the revenue is from trading.

Mukesh Saraf
Director, Advisors Spark

15%. Okay. All right. Thank you, Alvin. Bye.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Jain from Alpha Accurate Advisors Private Limited. Please proceed.

ABHISHEK JAIN
Senior Research Analyst, Alpha Accurate Advisors Private Limited

Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Sir, are you facing any supply issues on the critical materials of antimony from China, which can hurt the production in the coming quarter? Is there any supply constraint also because of some change in the regulation or anything?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

No, there is no supply constraint per se, but definitely the prices have gone up. We are able to source the material that is required for our production, but the prices have definitely gone up. I think partially because of some export restrictions that we heard that the Chinese government has put in. I think as of now, we do not have any supply constraint as such.

ABHISHEK JAIN
Senior Research Analyst, Alpha Accurate Advisors Private Limited

Okay. Sir, in this quarter, we have seen a sharp jump in the purchase of the traded goods items. What was the reason, or will it reduce going ahead?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yeah. As you know, Q4 generally is the time where we buy those batteries for the summer season for the inverter business. Going forward, obviously, once we start our manufacturing activity, the amount of trading that we do will come down, but we will still need some batteries through the vendors because our requirement will be higher than what the capacity that we are put up.

ABHISHEK JAIN
Senior Research Analyst, Alpha Accurate Advisors Private Limited

That means after this plant, most probably that Q1 and Q4 requirement will go down and that's where the margin will improve?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yes, that's the expectation. Yes.

Rishab Shah
Analyst, Bhugle Rock PMS

Thank you, sir. That's all from me.

Operator

Thank you. Before I take the next question, a reminder to the participants, please limit your questions to two per participant as there are several participants waiting for their turn. The next question is from the line of Nitin Shakdher from Green Capital Single Family Office. Please proceed.

Nitin Shakdher
Founder, CEO, and CIO, Green Capital Single Family Office

Hi, good afternoon to the management. This is Nithin Chagdel from the Green Capital Single Family Office. My question is more from as an investor in the company rather than an analyst. What are your conversations happening with your large automotive clients in terms of Tata, Mahindra, Suzuki, Ashok Leyland, Honda, Eicher? How do they see production pan out, demand for four-wheelers, two-wheelers, commercials, and how will that get impacted in terms of auto book versus vehicle production for the company? Just wanted to get a management perspective on the conversations happening with the clients for the sale.

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

From the overall, generally, OEMs do share with us what's their plans on a monthly or a quarterly basis. As of now, based on the production plans that are being shared with us, we see that the four-wheeler growth is kind of flattish. That is not going to because we are only our market share in the four-wheeler is about 35-36% on the OEM segment. We are seeing the volume projections to be a bit flattish, but we expect that during Q2, there could be some uptick in the volumes. As far as two-wheeler is concerned, yes, Q1 of this financial year has been a little the volumes are on a downward trajectory. We hope that there will be an uptick in the OEM demand in the next quarter. That's what we are seeing based on the supply that what we are doing today.

Nitin Shakdher
Founder, CEO, and CIO, Green Capital Single Family Office

Okay. That's sort of helpful now. And follow up to that, I do understand that there's a bit of an export OEM structure which the company might interface with in terms of tariffs and specifically for export demand from the automobile manufacturers and then obviously putting demand to yourself. What are the conversations on tariffs and export demand from the company? I mean, any conversations on that?

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

No, see, our exports is predominantly to aftermarket. We don't supply to any OEMs per se in our export business. We only cater to the end consumer. At this point of time, there could be two impacts on account of these tariffs. Number one, the US customers are kind of in a wait-and-watch mode to see how to balance their supply chains in terms of ensuring that they are getting at the right cost. We are seeing some changes in the order flow from some of our US customers. The larger impact possibly could be if countries have differential duties. I mean, for example, if India were to have a lower duty structure as against, let's say, some country in Southeast Asia, then obviously their capacities in order to fill, they may start looking at elsewhere markets.

We may see some changes in the competitive intensity in some of our export markets, and we have to see how this whole thing is going to get settled. At this point of time, it is still a bit of a flux situation today. Maybe one month or maybe two months down the line, based on these trade agreement discussions, how they pan out might give us an idea which way this is going.

Okay. Sure. Thank you. That's very helpful. That's all from my end. All the best for this financial year. Thank you.

Harshavardhana Gourineni
Executive Director, Automotive and Industrial, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Before I take the next question, a reminder to the participants that you may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Ravinder, an individual investor. Please proceed.

Speaker 13

Yeah. Hello. Yeah, this is Ravinder. And I'm an individual investor. And yeah, I am a long-time investor in Amara Raja. And I started investing in this for the last 10 years, maybe 2015, 2016. Yeah, I comment the company's consistent operational performance. Yeah, but it is disappointing to see the stock price over the last 10 years. Yeah, I know that companies, I mean, management, I mean, the stock performance is not in the management hands. See, we are doing many investments. We are doing CapEx into the factories and partnerships with many new tech firms. If we see our revenue growth from 2015 to 2016, revenue growth has grown more than three to four times. And our bottom line has also grown in the similar lines. But the investors are not rewarded in the same line. Even if we take our competitors, right?

In every aspect, we are better than our competitors, but our competitors are valued more than us. I request the management, I mean, yeah, I mean, I do not know how to, I mean, how to provide some confidence to the investor community. Yeah, that is my concern. Thank you.

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Yeah, point taken. I think even our effort is to communicate and then engage with all the stakeholders with respect to what's happening in the business, how we are moving ahead with respect to the strategic direction that we have set up. Our communication has been now made streamlined, and then we are engaging with all investors as and when required. We are communicating in terms of how the company is doing. Only one submission is whenever you look at any competitor share price, please also have a look at their balance sheet because there are other assets sitting in their balance sheet which give substantial value why those shares are being valued at that level.

I understand your point from a PE point of view, but as you said, there is only so much that we as a company can do in terms of providing that comfort and confidence to the shareholders and the investor community at large. We are happy that some of the shareholders like you are with us for a longer duration. We thank you for that. I'm afraid we are trying our level best to create that confidence in the market. Then we'll see how it pans out from here.

Speaker 13

Yeah. Thank you, sir. My knowledge is clear.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, I take this as the last question and would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.

Delli Babu Yenduri
CFO, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Thank you, all of you, for your time.

Vikramaditya Gourineni
Executive Director, New Energy Business, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility

Thank you, everyone. Yeah, thanks, everyone, for your questions and the opportunity to interact. I hope we've been able to answer all the questions to the fullest. Looking forward to the next time. Thank you.

Operator

On behalf of Elara Securities India Pvt. Ltd., that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.

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