Britannia Industries posts 3% drop in fourth quarter profit at Rs 360 cr

The firm was impacted by a rise in commodity prices.

FMCG major Britannia Industries on Tuesday reported a 3 per cent decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 360.07 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 31, impacted by rise in commodity prices.

The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 372.35 crore in the same quarter a year ago, Britannia Industries said in a regulatory filing.

Consolidated total revenue from operations during the quarter under review stood at Rs 3,130.75 crore as against Rs 2,867.70 crore in the year-ago period, a growth of 9 per cent.

The company, however, said it incurred higher expenses in the fourth quarter at Rs 2,701.87 crore as compared to Rs 2,488.88 crore in the corresponding period previous year. The cost of materials consumed stood at Rs 1,532.35 crore during the fourth quarter as against Rs 1,307.97 crore in the corresponding period previous fiscal.

Commenting on the performance, Britannia Industries Managing Director Varun Berry said, "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."

During the quarter, he said, "We continued focussing on the basic building blocks of our business, direct reach, rural distribution and brand building. Our cost efficiency programme for the year delivered the targeted results giving us strong cost leadership."

Berry further said in the fourth quarter the company 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," he added.

However, Berry said, "We are confident that with all the core systems getting upgraded and integrated we are well poised to take our business efficiencies to the next level while leveraging the large amounts of data available to build business intelligence and analytics."

For the fiscal ended March 31, the company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 1,850.59 crore as against Rs 1,393.60 crore in the previous year, a growth of 33 per cent.

Consolidated total revenue for FY21 was at Rs 13,136.14 crore as against Rs 11,599.55 crore, the company said.

"The year has been difficult and challenging in every possible way. Despite the adverse conditions, we managed to deliver good results in terms of topline growth, profitability improvement and market share gains," Berry said.

As the country reels under the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Britannia Industries said, "In these unprecedented times, we have put the physical and emotional wellbeing of our employees and their families above everything else."

Employees who are working in the frontline are provided financial protection through insurance and other means in addition to special leaves and unstinted organizational support, it added.