Godrej Properties posted a good business update for Q2. The total area sold more than doubled year-on-year and bookings surged 140 percent. The company has also hiked prices across their portfolio to help mitigate the commodity cost pressures. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Mohit Malhotra, MD & CEO of Godrej Properties, shed light on the company’s outlook.

On demand, he said, “Things are looking bright, sector is finally turning. Most people have been expecting the cycle to turn. So, we are seeing strong demand from consumers and the trend continues to remain very positive. We are present across six cities and across the cities, we are seeing very strong demand. If you see our Q2 numbers, we had launches in Pune, NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore and all of these have done very well and we continue to see a strong traction.”

“Demand is very strong across segments today. Earlier, there was a concentration of demand only in the mid-income segment, now we are seeing demand even in the luxury space. Mid-income, of course, continues to remain very strong and as of now, I think all segments are pretty strong,” Malhotra mentioned.

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On price hikes, he said, “The commodity prices have been in a hyperinflation zone, so we took some price hikes to mitigate the cost inflation; we took some single-digit price hikes across projects and we expect this trend of price hikes to continue now and maybe even accelerate in the future.”

On new launches, Malhotra said, “We are looking at launches once we get approvals. The sales are almost certain for our projects. So, it all depends on whether we can get approvals on time. But otherwise, as I said earlier, the demand is very strong and we are very confident of being able to cross the large numbers and show a good growth.”

“We have two launches planned in Bangalore in Q3, Q4; we have almost three to four launches planned in Pune, two launches planned in NCR and a couple of launches planned in Mumbai and also in Kolkata. So, each market is going to see two to three launches over the next four or five months. That is giving us the confidence on growing rapidly over the last year, of course, launches depend on getting approvals on time and that is always a challenge in our sector. So, if we can get approvals on time, we should see a very strong, positive momentum,” Malhotra mentioned.

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On unsold inventories, Malhotra shared that they have a very low number. “Our current inventory is less than a year of sales for us, which is at a historical low and we are very comfortable with this level of inventory.”

For full management commentary, watch the video.

(Edited by : Dipikka Ghosh)

First Published:Nov 22, 2021 11:22 AM IST