India's Siemens posts Q1 profit surge as infrastructure spending rebounds
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Siemens Ltd, the Indian arm of German engineering company Siemens AG, reported an 85% rise in quarterly profit on Tuesday, driven by a rebound in infrastructure spending in the country.
Siemens said its consolidated net profit nearly doubled to 4.63 billion rupees ($55.98 million) in the quarter ended Dec. 31, from 2.50 billion rupees a year earlier.
The company, like many of its peers, has been reaping the benefits of renewed government spending on infrastructure, especially metros and highways, after a pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Indian government had laid out a 7.5 trillion rupees capital expenditure plan for 2022 and earlier this month raised the outlay by 35% to 10 trillion rupees for the financial year ending March 2024.
"The substantial increase in the outlay for capex in infrastructure, including in the railways, made in the recent budget announcements will give a continued boost to the Indian economy and consequently to all our businesses," said Sunil Mathur, managing director and chief executive of Siemens, in a statement.
Revenue in the company's smart infrastructure segment, which accounts for about 38% of the total, rose 18% to 15.20 billion rupees in the quarter. This helped total revenue from operations grow 17.4% to 40.15 billion rupees.
The infrastructure developer said in December it would sign a contract worth 260 billion rupees with India's railway ministry for an electric locomotive project in the western state of Gujarat.
Still, the company continued to battle higher costs of importing machine components.
Its input cost went up nearly 37% to 10.16 billion rupees in the quarter, pushing total expenses up 11%.
