The share price of cement maker ACC rallied over 5 percent in the early trade on Tuesday after the company reported strong earnings for the quarter ended March 2021 with better-than-expected operating performance.

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ACC’s consolidated profit in the first quarter of CY21 rose 74.2 percent to Rs 563 crore from Rs 323 crore, YoY. Revenue during the quarter increased 22.7 percent to Rs 4,213 crore from to Rs 3,433 crore, YoY.

The company’s cement sales volume reported a growth of 21.5 percent at 7.97 million tonnes in Q1CY21 as compared to 6.56 million tonnes in Q1CY20.

Ready-mix concrete sales volume during the quarter declined to 0.83 million cubic metres from 0.93 million cubic metres, YoY.

On the operational front, consolidated EBITDA rose 46.8 percent to Rs 860 crore, while margin expanded by 330 bps to 20.4 percent, YoY.

ACC commissioned a new grinding unit at Sindri in a record time, adding a capacity of 1.4 MTPA, the company said.

Macquarie maintained an Outperform call with a target price of Rs 2,191 per share as it believes that the company’s growth and cost efficiency programme are on track.

It raised CY21 and CY22 earnings estimates by 4 percent and 5 percent respectively.

Citi said that ACC remains its top pick in the sector. It expects industry utilisation to trend up and price hikes to offset cost inflation.

ACC’s Q1CY21 EBITDA/t was higher than Citi’s estimate for CY21. It maintained a Buy rating with a target price of Rs 2,600 per share.

Jefferies maintained a Buy call on the stock and raised the target price to Rs 2,300 per share. It also raised EPS estimate by 8-9 percent.

However, CLSA maintained its Underperform rating on the stock but increased the target price to Rs 2,080 per share from Rs 2,050 earlier.

“With capacity utilisation at 90%, we expect ACC to grow slower than the industry till Ametha expansion is ramped up. While we expect ACC to react positively on earnings, in the current cycle of strong demand growth companies with strong volume growth outlooks are better placed,” CLSA said.

At 9:55 am, the shares of ACC were trading 1.64 percent higher at Rs 1,907.55 apiece on the BSE.

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