New Delhi, Feb. 17 -- Hindalco Industries Ltd managed to sail through in the December quarter (Q3FY25). While its India business did well, the company's US subsidiary Novelis remained under pressure, thanks to significantly higher aluminium scrap prices and an adverse product mix, which led to an 18% year-on-year drop in Ebitda. Note that about two-thirds of Novelis production capacity uses aluminium scrap as raw material, thus higher prices hurt profitability.

Nevertheless, Hindalco's consolidated Ebitda, excluding other income, was up nearly 26% to Rs.7,601 crore in Q3. Profitability was led by the company's domestic upstream aluminium business where Ebitda jumped sharply by 73% to Rs.4,200 crore aided by a substantial increase in real...