Castrol India reported strong operational performance in Q3CY20 as gross margin expanded sharply due to inventory destocking and lower purchases of traded goods. Sandeep Sangwan, Managing Director at Castrol India, shared his views and outlook on the business going forward.

“There is a general pent-up demand coming back,” he said in an interview with CNBC-TV18. “We have also had good traction on new product launches that we had this quarter,” he added.

He believes lower input costs have been one of the reasons for strong margins. “However, there is a tightness developing in the market, so going forward the input cost may not be as good as they have been in Q3,” he said.

Sangwan sees volume growth coming through all the automotive spaces. “Industrial business is still recovering. We have seen improvement month-on-month. Automotive is seeing good volume progress. On a whole our volumes are up versus Q3 last year, which is a good sign,” he said.

First Published:Oct 28, 2020 2:47 PM IST