Indian real estate developer Sobha Ltd on Monday reported a more-than-three-fold jump in fourth-quarter profit, helped by soaring housing demand. Consolidated profit rose to 486 million rupees ($5.88 million) in the quarter ended March 31 from 142 million rupees a year earlier. Consolidated revenue from operations rose 70.3% to 12.1 billion rupees in the reported quarter. For further results highlights, click here WHY IT MATTERS Post-pandemic demand for housing has witnessed a strong recovery, with apartment hunters willing to shell out more for larger homes with luxury facilities.

Other players in the sector such as Godrej Properties and Oberoi Realty also saw a strong profit surge. Sobha had reported earlier that its March-quarter sales were its "highest-ever" at 14.63 billion rupees, after its December-quarter profit nearly halved on surging land costs.

PEER COMPARISON Valuation (next 12 Estimates (next 12 Analysts' sentiment months) months) RIC PE EV/EBITDA Revenue Profit Mean # of Stock to Div growth growth rating* analysts price yield target** (%) Sobha Ltd 12.33 6.70 20.32 140.48 Strong 17 0.62 0.59 Buy Oberoi Realty Ltd 17.85 14.78 16.52 -7.46 Buy 23 0.95 0.32 DLF Ltd 40.12 50.88 20.39 32.26 Buy 17 0.99 0.63 Godrej Properties 45.74 68.22 18.37 40.12 Hold 19 0.96 -- Ltd * Mean of analysts' ratings standardised to a scale of Strong Buy, Buy, Hold, Sell, and Strong Sell

** Ratio of the stock's last close to analysts' mean price target; a ratio above 1 means the stock is trading above the PT JAN-MARCH STOCK PERFORMANCE -- All data from Refinitiv -- $1 = 82.6109 rupees (Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)