Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC), the tourism and ticketing arm of Indian Railways, is all set to report its March quarter results today. Prabhudas Lilladher expects adjusted profit to grow 19.4 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 258.60 crore compared with Rs 216.60 crore in the quarter last year. Revenue is seen rising 36.6 per cent YoY to Rs 944.20 crore from Rs 691 crore YoY, thanks to base effect and continued traction in non-convenience income & catering business. Online booking is expected to be at 10.4 crore tickets for the quarter. Overall, Prabhudas Lilladher expects Ebitda margin of 36 per cent against 40.1 per cent YoY due to falling contribution of high margin ticketing business. Prabhudas Lilladher said excluding the last 11 days of March, cumulative non-suburban passenger reservation system (PRS) traffic stood at 16.5 crore. Assuming in the 3rd bucket period of March, passenger traffic settles down at 2.2 crore (similar to bucket-2), collective passenger traffic for the quarter would stand at 18.7 crore. IRCTC is the only entity authorised by Indian Railways to provide catering services to railways, online railway tickets and packaged drinking water at railway stations and trains in India.
Watch: Stocks buzzing in trade on May 29, 2023: IndusInd Bank, Greaves Cotton, PFC, HDFC & Balkrishna Industries "Given 1.7-1.8 times passengers travel per e-ticket, we expect online bookings of 10.4 crore in Q4FY23. Overall, we expect IRCTC’s revenues to increase 36.6 per cent YoY to Rs 904 crore with an Ebitda margin of 36 per cent," it said. Shares of IRCTC are down 14 per cent in the last six month and were largely flat in the last one month. To recall, IRCTC reported a 22 per cent jump in net profit at Rs 256 crore for the December quarter against Rs 209 crore in the year-ago period. Revenue for the third quarter was up 70 per cent at Rs 918 crore compared with Rs 540 crore in the year-ao quarter. The company had announced an interim dividend of Rs 3.50 per share. Along with its quarterly results, IRCTC will also consider paying final dividend for FY23.
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