Bakery products and biscuits maker Britannia Industries on February 5 registered better-than-expected 22.4 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated profit for the quarter ended December 2020, driven by strong operating income.
Profit increased to Rs 452.6 crore in Q3FY21, compared to Rs 368.9 crore in the corresponding period.
Revenue from operations grew by 6.1 percent year-on-year to Rs 3,165.6 crore in Q3FY21.
"General Trade, which is the largest channel for us, continues to grow at a healthy pace on the back of buoyancy in rural economy and recovery in urban markets. The other channels such as Modern Trade, Institutional Business etc continue to face challenges with lower footfalls in stores and offices, schools, railway services coming back to normalcy gradually," said Managing Director Varun Berry.
"Essentials were at elevated levels of demand at the beginning of the year due to pantry up-stocking which has started to normalise with diversification of purchase basket of the consumers," he added.
At the operating level, Britannia reported a 21.8 percent year-on-year growth in its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) at Rs 611.5 crore and 260 bps expansion in margin in Q3FY21, driven by cost efficiencies.
"On the cost front, we witnessed moderate inflation in the material prices except Palm oil where we witnessed a significant increase. We neutralised the inflation by accelerating cost efficiencies and sustained the new efficiencies that we witnessed during the COVID-19 induced lockdown. These measures helped us record a 260 bps increase in operating profit during the quarter versus last year," Berry said.
Numbers, barring revenue, were ahead of analysts' estimates. Profit was estimated at Rs 425 crore on revenue of Rs 3,225 crore, and EBITDA was expected at Rs 575 crore with margin at 17.8 percent for the December quarter, according to the average of estimates of analysts polled by CNBC-TV18.