The revenue of Paras Defence and Space Technologies is expected to grow in between 30 to 40 percent in 2023-24, and the June quarter is no way an indicator as to how the company is going to perform in the coming year, said Amit Mahajan, Director-Technical and R&D at Paras Defence and Space Technologies.
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Speaking to CNBC-TV18 on Tuesday, Mahajan said, "I have always been maintaining that we are a company which cannot be judged on the basis of quarterly results. So I am not going to revise my guidance, it is between conservatively 30 to 40 percent and this quarter is no way an indicator as to how we're going to perform in the coming year."
This is because, as per the top official, the company has a very strong order book. "Our order book is improving our opportunities that is we call it as funnel that is going up and funnel is multi fold, it was 2 times earlier and now it is almost 3 times or more than 3 times."
Mahajan noted that the first quarter margin has been impacted because employee benefit costs have gone up in the last few months. "Margins we will sustain, yes, the quarter one shows a slight reduction in margins but that's probably because our employee benefit costs have gone up from here in the last few months. Because we have been investing into our own man power that's going to fuel our growth in the future."
The Mumbai-headquartered company will be able to sustain a margin of 28 to 30 percent or maybe slightly better than that in FY24, he noted.
On net profit, he said: "As far as PAT (profit after tax) is concerned, we would be in excess of 17 percent of what we did last year. So I have no issues in clocking that on a yearly basis. On quarterly basis, yes, it would look differently, Q2 will look different Q1 will look different, Q3 and Q4 will be different. But at the end of the year, we will be doing much better than last year."
Paras Defence's order book currently stands in excess of Rs 650 crore, and the company will grow by 30 to 40 percent this fiscal. "We have opportunities in front of us in excess of Rs 2,000 crore. So that's something which is increasing exponentially from year-on-year," he said.
The company's standalone order book is in excess of Rs 610 crore.
Drones is still less than 5 percent of the company's current order book, Mahajan stated. "So drone has yet to make positive influence, which is a good sign. Whatever comes in the drone area is going to only add up to what we are doing right now."
Paras Defence is also targeting Rs 100 crore in revenue and 25 percent of order book coming in from drones by FY25.
Shares of Paras Defence and Space Technologies Ltd settled 3.55 percent lower at Rs 607.80 apiece in Tuesday's trade. The stock rose 2.26 percent on a year-to-date basis, while it tumbled 6.50 percent in the last one year.