Buoyed by a rising economy and positive consumer sentiments, Titan Industries has posted a 72 per cent year-on-year rise in net profit for the year ended March 31, 2011 at Rs 430 crore, while net sales rose 39 per cent to Rs 6,520 crore.
Income from the jewellery segment grew 43 per cent, crossing the Rs 5,000-crore mark to Rs 5,027 crore, contributing to 76 per cent of the company's topline. The profit before tax from jewellery was Rs 429 crore.
Dividend, bonus
The board of directors of the company have recommended a dividend of 250 per cent – Rs 25 a share (previous year 150 per cent). It has also approved a bonus issue of one equity share for every (one) existing equity share held. The board has also approved the stock split of the equity share of the company of the face value of Rs 10 each into 10 equity shares of Re 1 each.
Mr Bhaskar Bhat, Managing Director, Titan Industries, said: “The company has moved on to a new platform of performance as well as future expectations. Given the high expectations of all our stakeholders and aspirations of our employees, we move confidently into the new financial year.”
Watches
The company's watches business grew 23 per cent to Rs 1,266 crore this year. Titan's annual watch volumes have touched 15 million. About one million of this has come from the company's new manufacturing plant in Pantnagar, Uttarakhand, in just nine months of operations, said Mr Harish Bhat, Chief Operating Officer, Watches, Titan Industries.
“The B2B business of precision engineering performed better than the previous year as the aerospace, automobile and automation industries showed signs of recovery from the impact of the global economic crisis,” said a company release.
More stores
Titan Industries added over 122 stores across its various retail formats, taking its total store count to 665, delivering a retail turnover of Rs 6,150 crore. The eyewear business ‘Titan Eye Plus', which is still a small proportion of overall revenues, rapidly expanded its retail network to touch 150 stores, across 48 towns.
Titan Industries is betting big on multi-brand watch retail chain Helios, premium watch Swiss brand Xylus and the Eye Plus chain to drive its growth story forward this year.
Meanwhile, the company informed the BSE that the board of directors has appointed Prof Das Narayan Das as an independent director on the board effective April 29, 2011.