Bajaj Auto is confident of going back to 20% margins by

 Q4-end Bajaj Auto reported 4.7 percent fall in profit in the third quarter to Rs 924.6 crore as against Rs 970.6 crore in the same period last year. Revenue for the quarter decline 4.1 percent to Rs 59,500 per unit. S Ravikumar (more) President, Bajaj Auto |   Bajaj Auto   reported a 4.7 percent fall in net profit in the third quarter to Rs 924.6 crore as against Rs 970.6 crore in the same period last year. Revenue for the quarter decline 4.1 percent to Rs 59,500 per unit. Speaking to  S Ravikumar, President – Business Development at Bajaj Auto said that the demonetisation impact is visible in shrinkage of numbers in last quarter. The company is now focusing on its products for growth. 

Product mix has helped improve realisations by 160-170 basis points year-on-year. Ravikumar is confident that the company will go back to its 20 percent plus margin growth by end of this fiscal. Below is the verbatim transcript of S Ravikumar's interview to Sonia Shenoy & Sumaira Abidi on  Sumaira: Can you take us through where the big bump up for you has actually come through? A: One, we were operating in external environment in November and December on the back of demonetisation impact. The numbers, for example, in the first half year when the domestic motorcycle industry grew by 13 percent, we grew by 18 percent. In October both industry and Bajaj grew by 7 percent. In November and December when the industry fell by minus 16 percent, Bajaj had a 10 percent fall. So taken together October, November and December the industry fell by 7 percent and we fell by 3 percent. So relatively we were doing much better on the back of good product portfolio but still the demonetisation impact has been there and it was very much there in November and December. Therefore, the shrinkage in numbers and relatively the three-wheelers domestically were very much affected because of demonetisation. However, what we concentrated on was we couldn\\'t do internally.

 We focused on the right products, V12 has come out, Dominar has come out and BS4 is behind us in terms of ramp up and technical. So, all has done very well. The forex realisations have been good at almost 67.7 as an average for Q3. On the back of all that we have returned solid EBITDA of 22 percent. So that\\'s the strength of Bajaj Auto. We focus on what we can do strongly; cost control, EBITDA and of course market share improvement. The market share in the wholesale has improved to 18.5 but in November and December the retail market share has been upwards of 20 percent. Sonia: I want to check on realisations because those have improved sequentially to almost Rs 59,500 per unit. What lead to that improvement? Is it only because there are more amount of premium motorcycles selling and do you think that there could be a continued improvement in realisations over the next couple of quarters as the Dominar starts to sell some more? A: Of course. If I look at Q3 of last year versus Q3 of this year, there has been improvement of almost about 160-170 bps in realisations - that has augur well for the company, the mix is certainly a story there and the export realisation has been good and going forward the Pulsar range and the Dominar and Avenger, all are going to add. So it's a healthy mix as far as average revenue per unit (ARPU) is concerned

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Opposition unimpressed as President refers to demonetisation 

The Opposition members looked unimpressed and did not thump the desks as Mukherjee referred to the government's efforts to check black money or spoke of 'garib kalyan yojna' under which unaccounted money could be declared under a new taxation law. | The reference to demonetisation and surgical strikes by President Pranab Mukherjee in his address to the joint sitting of Parliament today was welcomed with loud thumping of desks by NDA members led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Opposition members looked unimpressed and did not thump the desks as Mukherjee referred to the government's efforts to check black money or spoke of 'garib kalyan yojna' under which unaccounted money could be declared under a new taxation law. However, Opposition members joined the ruling coalition members in the applause when the President referred to 'nari shakti' and mentioned the performance of women atheletes at the Rio Olympics and induction of women fighter pilots by the Indian Air Force. Unlike on previous occasions, several benches in the Central Hall were empty.

 During the earlier Presidential addresses to the joint sitting of the two Houses, extra chairs used to be placed on the peripheries of the historic hall to accommodate the MPs, many of whom used to stand and listen to the speech. But this time the attendance was quite low. Among those missing were Trinamool Congress MPs who had announced they would attend the proceedings only from February two. During the nearly hour-long speech, several members were seen clicking pictures from their mobile phones while Anand Sharma (Cong), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), Sitaram Yechury (CPI-M) were seen busy in an animated discussion for some time. The Prime Minister was seated next to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad. Former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and H D Deve Gowda were seated with BJP veteran L K Advani and Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the front row. As soon as the President's address ended, Tiruchi Siva (DMK) was seen shouting about the suicides by farmers in Tamil Nadu. When Vice President Hamid Ansari was reading out the first and last paragraphs of the President's address in Hindi, SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav was seen leaving the hall. He continued to walk when the National Anthem started playing to mark the end of the programme. When members were leaving the Central Hall after the departure of the President, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi was seen talking to party leader Mallikarjun Kharge and Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs S S Ahluwalia

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India Economic Survey 2017:

As people return to cash, no major effect on digital payments The initiative invoked mixed reactions from different sectors. While companies in the fin-tech segment posted record transactions, segments such as e-commerce witnessed major blip in transactions volumes.  Digital transactions among new users increased sharply even as the transactions made by existing users grew in line with historical trend, post the government announced the demonetisation drive, said the Economic Survey 2016-17 tabled in the Parliament on Tuesday.

 It highlighted that once the cash was back in supply, some people returned to using cash as their primary mode of transaction. However, it stressed that the same did not have a major effect on the digital drive, which is expected to continue. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 announced the demonisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes in a drive to fight corruption, black money and make India a cashless economy. The initiative invoked mixed reactions from different sectors. While companies in the fin-tech segment posted record transactions, segments such as e-commerce witnessed major blip in transactions volumes. "Demonetisation has short term cost, long term benefits. However poor don't have much digital access. Thus faster remonetisation of the economy is needed," admitted India's CEA Arvind Subramanian in his speech on Tuesday

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