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Food major Britannia Industries Ltd reported an over 7 per cent drop in standalone net profit to ₹353 crore for the quarter ending March 31, 2021. Standalone net profit in the year-ago-period stood at ₹381 crore.
During the quarter under review, revenue from operations rose by nearly 10 per cent to ₹2,953 crore against the ₹2,692 crore it has reported in the corresponding period last fiscal.
For the full fiscal (FY21), both standalone profit for the year and turnover rose by over 18 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively.
According to Varun Berry, Managing Director, Britannia Industries Ltd, the year has been difficult and challenging in every possible way.
Rural distribution
“During the last quarter of the year, we implemented three transformational digital projects namely S4 HANA, an Online Dealer Management System and an Integrated Vendor Management System. The delivery of these projects necessitated shutdown of operations for a few days in March which impacted primary billing for the quarter. We are confident that with all the core systems getting upgraded and integrated we are poised to take our business efficiencies to the next level while leveraging the large amounts of data available to build business intelligence and analytics,” he said.
Berry added that during the quarter, the company focussed on direct reach, rural distribution & brand building. The cost efficiency program “delivered the targeted results”.
Costs
On the commodity cost front, palm oil, packing material and dairy products witnessed sudden and steep increases while strategic buying helped the company manage the cost increases better. “We are evaluating the long term impact of these increases to action necessary price increases while ensuring competitiveness,” he said.
According to Abneesh Roy, Executive V-P, Research, Edelweiss Securities, margins disappointed as “other expenses” increased higher than expectation.
Staff cost was up 2.7 per cent YoY and other expenditure was up 13.3 per cent YoY.
The Board of Directors in their meeting held on April 2 had declared interim dividend of ₹62 per equity share each for the financial year ended 31 March 2021.
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