The company had reported a net profit of Rs 405.37 crore in the same quarter a year ago. An ET Now poll had projected the company to report a net profit of Rs 498 crore.
Its consolidated revenue from operations grew 12.1 per cent to Rs 3,419.11 crore from 3,048.84 crore reported a year ago.
“Covid-19 has brought about a situation whereby we are witnessing tectonic shifts in economic growths and consumer behaviour across the world. While the government ended the lockdown, it appears that it will take a while for the situation to normalize,” said managing director Varun Berry.
“In this quarter, we got our full range of products to the market, focussed on efficiency in distribution, followed continuous replenishment system of distribution, improved the health of our distributors and inched closer to normalcy in advertisement and promotions,” Berry said in a release.
He pointed that the company delivered a resilient performance in these challenging times, and all the adjacent businesses too delivered a healthy profitable growth.
“On the cost front, we witnessed moderate inflation in the prices of key raw materials and expect the prices to be stable going forward given the positive outlook on monsoon and harvest. We sustained a large part of the efficiency gains that we witnessed in the previous quarter viz., supply chain efficiencies, reduction in wastages and fixed costs leverage,” said Berry.
He said these measures helped the company sequentially sustain the shape of its business and record 390 basis points (bps) increase in operating profit during the quarter, as compared to the last year.
Berry said the company is keeping a close watch on macro-economic factors, changes in laws, evolving consumer behaviour and is framing its medium-term strategy laying out scenarios to deal with this dynamic environment. “We are confident of performing well in these tough times with the agility in our action and passion of the team,” he added.
Ahead of the announcement, shares of Britannia closed 0.70 per cent higher at Rs 3,773.80, while the benchmark Sensex climbed 1.12 per cent to 40,431.60.