Sobha will launch new projects of around 14.50 MMSF in next four quarters: JC Sharma, VC & MD

JC Sharma, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, SOBHA Ltd, talks about Q2FY21 numbers, future outlook and growth expectations, realizations, strategy and geographies of focus among others during a candid chat with Swati Khandelwal, Zee Business. Edited Excerpts: 

Q: Q2FY21 has proved to be a strong quarter for you. Your sales volume has seen an uptick of 37%. What led to this strong performance and what is the future outlook? Can you now say that the challenges have ended to a great extent and now positive trends are visible?

A: The challenges are still there and I will not say that our economy is completely out of the woods. But as far as real estate residential space is concerned then an atmosphere of uncertainty was created that people will get out of their homes and take decisions to buy homes then will it be according to a pent-up demand or not. This kind of atmosphere of uncertainty that was present has definitely decreased a lot in the second quarter. And that is not something that you will not see only in our result but basically, there has been a volume increase in every city and every product in the second quarter of this financial year as compared to the previous quarter. Despite this, I believe that the coming the future is a period of uncertainty and under it, until some steps are not taken by the government then a secular demand growth is likely to be a challenging one. As far as Sobha is concerned, we believe that our second half and the third quarter will be better than the previous quarters respectively. We will also make new launches and are very hopeful that in this environment of uncertainty also we will be able to give a better performance and we believe in it. 

Q: On the realizations front you have been very strong and the company has posted the best realizations in the last five quarters. Where do you see growth coming in for and what strategy differentiates you from others?

A: Consistency has been our strategy so far whether it is in product quality, customer engagement and inventory management, where we have all kind of products, i.e. homes below Rs 1 crore, between Rs 1-2 crore and above Rs 2 crore. At the same time, we also have our presence in nine cities outside Bangalore and its good results were seen the last quarter. Going forward to maintain sufficient inventory we will be launching new projects of around 14-14.50 million square feet in the next 3-4 quarters. Launches start from this quarter, which gives us confidence that the coming future will be better than the previous month and the previous quarter. Some good time is coming and interest rates are coming down. Due to work from home, more customers are reaching to good developers and it is benefitting to the listed players, organized players and players with good track records.

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Q: Gurugram, Kochi, Thrissur and Chennai to name a few have seen robust sales performance for you in the second quarter. Going forward, name the geographies where you will focus and from where strong demand is expected?

A: Bangalore is a quite strong and concentrated centre for sales growth and we will keep doing better and better in this market. Apart from this, we have more focus on Gurugram and in coming to future Gurugram will become the second most important city in our portfolio, where maximum growth will be seen. We are also focusing a lot in Chennai and Kerala market and believe that we will be able to maintain our strength in the southern market and will continue to gain the market share in Gurugram.