Latest news with #VarunBerry
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
3 hours ago
- Business
- Business Standard
FMCG firms kept Q1 ad spends tight, plan to ramp up in coming quarters
Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies kept their purse strings tight in the April–June quarter (Q1) and did not splurge on advertising spends. However, they told investors on earnings calls that spending will pick up in the coming quarter. Compared to last year, many FMCG companies focused on arresting margin erosion due to higher raw material costs in the quarter. Dabur India said it invested more in trade schemes and less in media spends in Q1, but indicated that advertising expenditure will increase going forward. 'We have redirected the money from ATL (above the line) into BTL (below the line). Depending on competitive intensity, the trade inputs are given — consumer schemes and trade schemes. We invested more in consumer and trade, that's why the netting is more, and less on media,' Mohit Malhotra, chief executive officer, Dabur India, told analysts. He added: 'Going forward, advertising investments will continue to be higher. We want to increase our gross margins and invest in advertising support… We will continuously endeavour to increase overall advertising and promotion expenditure, investing in brands and distribution.' The maker of Good Day biscuits, Britannia Industries, told investors that it rationalised its advertising spends in the quarter. 'We did rationalise our A&P (advertising and promotion) spends during this quarter. We focused on IPL, which was also on digital. Digital has been a pretty important agenda for us, and we just focused on IPL because this was the IPL quarter, and that gave us the right kind of dividends,' said Varun Berry, executive vice-chairman, managing director, and chief executive officer, Britannia Industries. Berry added that the company's strategy worked and it did not advertise across all brands. 'We just focused on our top four brands and advertised those brands,' he said. While Marico's advertising spends as a percentage of sales remained largely stable in Q1, Pavan Agarwal, chief financial officer, said: 'There has been some cut in India A&P, but we have not cut in the focus categories of premium, VAHO (value-added hair oils), foods, and PPC (premium personal care). These categories we have invested in adequately.' He said the company ensured its share of voice was higher than its share of market in focus categories. Agarwal added that Marico deferred some new film shoots, which were discretionary, and extracted inefficiencies out of media and non-media spends. 'But going ahead, we believe that A&P will trend upwards in the India business, and at a consolidated level, we will continue to invest behind all the focus categories and new parts of the business,' he said.
Economic Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Economic Times
Britannia Industries reports strong demand growth in rural and urban markets
Synopsis Britannia Industries witnessed a surge in demand across both rural and urban markets, with the Hindi belt showing exceptional growth, leading to market share gains. The company is restructuring its distribution network and focusing on rural markets, while also seeing significant contributions from quick commerce for innovative products. Biscuit major Britannia Industries' managing director Varun Berry said there has been an uptick in demand across both rural and urban markets. The company's growth rate in rural India was in double digits in the April-June quarter, while in urban it was 'very high single digits' including general trade, retail chains and e-commerce, he to analysts during the company's first quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Berry said the Hindi belt has been 'really good' this quarter with four states growing in very high double digits. He did not specify which four states. The Hindi belt typically includes markets like Bihar, Haryana, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and the National Capital Region.'The growth (in Hindi belt) is 2.7 times of what it was for our other states. This led to a market share gain of 65 basis points (bps) during Q1 in the Hindi states,' Berry said. A basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point. Britannia has improved its market share in the Hindi belt where it gained market share in some regions. The optimism in demand for daily necessities such as biscuits comes after more than 12-13 quarters with consumption impacted for a prolonged period due to high inflation in daily lives amidst marginal to little growth of earnings for the vast majority of the rural areas showed some early signs of demand recovery in the last 1-2 quarters, this is the first time there is definitive sign of urban demand per latest government data, India's food inflation in June is -1.06% as compared to last year's same period due to lower prices of vegetables, pulses, meat and fish, cereals, sugar, confectionery, milk and dairy products, and is restructuring its distribution by creating larger distributors which impacted the performance in the East where several regional players ate into its market share.'We are focussing on our rural markets by focussing on our distributors, where we are planning to take our distributors to full scale distributors, as when they become full scale distributors, it becomes even better,' said Berry. He said the local players in East benefitted a bit from the company stumbling chief commercial officer Vipin Kataria said out of the total digital commerce business, almost 75% is from quick commerce. Total digital commerce is 4% of its overall business.'The category is very salient in quick comm, so that is how the entire ratio is changing… Our innovative products, like for croissants almost 35% of the sales is coming from ecommerce, the Pure Magic star that we recently launched, almost half of that sale is coming from quick commerce, and similarly for brownie and other innovations,' said said the adjacency business for the company is doing well -- rusk grew double digit with improvement in profits, wafers grew 2.7 times of biscuits, and 40% growth in general trade for on Tuesday reported a marginal 0.8% year-on-year (yoy) drop in standalone net profit at Rs 498.27 crore for the first quarter ending June 30th, while standalone revenue from operations grew 8.8% yoy at Rs 4,452.74 crore.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Britannia Q1 profit up 3 pc to Rs 520 cr
Bakery food company Britannia Industries Ltd on Tuesday reported 3 per cent rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 520.13 crore for the June quarter of FY26, helped by moderation in inflation and uptick in consumption. The company had logged a net profit of Rs 504.88 crore in the June quarter a year ago, according to a regulatory filing from Britannia Industries. Revenue from the sale of products was up 9.8 per cent to Rs 4,534.86 crore in the June quarter. Revenue from operations was higher by 8.75 per cent to Rs 4,622.22 crore. "Our the effectiveness of our focused execution strategy, which entailed maximizing value from existing outlets, enabling more agile servicing to key stores, and driving operational efficiencies across our extensive distribution network, leading to a growth of 10 per cent in sales along with robust double-digit growth across our four focus states and in adjacent bakery categories such as rusk, wafers, and croissant," Vice Chairman & Managing Director Varun Berry said. Marginal uptick in consumption across both urban and rural markets - underpinned by moderating inflation, helped the company go back to double-digit growth after the last few periods, he said. Total expenses were up 10.38 per cent to Rs 3,973.36 crore in the June quarter. Total income, which includes other income, was up 8.6 per cet to Rs 4,679.23 crore. Over the outlook, Berry said Britannia's focus will remain on sustaining a healthy growth trajectory while protecting margins amid a heightened competitive landscape across product categories. "We aim to further reinforce our market leadership through continued investments in brand building and innovations," he said. Shares of Britannia Industries Ltd on Tuesday settled at Rs 5,631.35 on BSE, down 2.66 per cent from the previous close.
Mint
5 days ago
- Business
- Mint
After a turbulent FY25, Britannia expects commodity prices to stabilise going forward
New Delhi: Packaged foods company Britannia Industries does not anticipate "wide fluctuations" in commodity prices going forward. Executive vice chairman, managing director, and chief executive officer Varun Berry said the price outlook for commodities should be "quite stable". The outlook is driving consumption in core categories and remains one of the primary agendas for the company, Berry said during the company's earnings call on Wednesday. 'We are closely monitoring policy interventions and the harvest output, which impact commodity prices and also will be a very critical thing for us.' "But having said that, I think from hereon we do not see the kind of wide fluctuations that we've seen on commodity, and we always perform much better in stable conditions during the turbulence in commodity prices, like what we've seen in the last two years…we have covered most of our inflation in through our price increases. We are done with that, and we are in a good position today On Tuesday, the maker of Marie Gold and Tiger biscuits reported a consolidated net profit of ₹ 520 crore for the June quarter, up 3.17% year-on-year. It was, however, lower than analysts' estimates of ₹ 570 crore. Consolidated revenue from operations during the quarter grew 8.75% to ₹ 4,622 crore. Operating margins for the company fell 135 basis points year-on-year due to inflation in key raw materials and higher employee benefit expenses. Britannia's shares dropped 4.5% on the National Stock Exchange to ₹ 5,385.00 on Wednesday following the results. On the commodity front, Berry said that the company saw a "stable quarter" after a very turbulent FY25. While flour prices are still up 8% year-on-year, they are trending downwards sequentially. Sugar prices were up 3% year-on-year. 'Palm oil while sequentially it's been negative but versus the same quarter last year we've had an inflation of 45%… Cocoa also sequentially has come down while there is a 35% inflation versus last year,' he said. Berry said the company has been able to sustain margins while remaining competitive. "We've been able to fight the regional players as well, and we've been able to make sure that we keep the momentum going, also investing behind key brands and scaling up innovations, we've been able to do that quite well and we are in the process of launching a lot more innovations during this year,' he said. Britannia implemented a 2% price increase in the third quarter of last fiscal year, which is expected to add approximately ₹ 100 crore to its revenue. Price hikes also continued in the following months. 'We've taken our price increases today. We are in a good place. We've also been able to create a war chest for ourselves to be able to spend if we need to, in specific territories, specific states, against specific players,' he told investors. "So we are going to fight many battles in, smaller territories and we are doing a specific analysis on each one of these competitors and I think we are in a very good place to be able to do so now with the inflation-deflation cycle behind us and having been able to mitigate inflation with all the measures including cost efficiency program,' he added. The company reported a marginal uptick in consumption in both urban and rural markets in the June quarter, along with moderating inflation. This helped the company return to double-digit growth. Britannia's rural growth in the June quarter was in double digits, and urban growth was in very high single digits. 'This urban growth includes the general trade, the modern trade as well as the e-commerce numbers. We are focusing on our rural markets where we are looking at taking our distributors to be full scale distributors,' Berry said. 'When we started this (distribution) program, we had appointed rural distributors, where the supervision was pretty good. But when they become full-scale distributors, the supervision becomes even better and the whole working style becomes more organized.' "…there is better extraction from the existing distribution infrastructure that we have created. The high potential outlets are being focused…We've also got the sales program for key urban accounts. We are revamping that program, and that's helping us as well,' he added.
Business Standard
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Britannia Inds Q1 PAT rises 3% YoY to Rs 521 cr
Britannia Industries' consolidated net profit increased 2.98% to Rs 520.72 crore on 8.75% jump in revenue from operations to Rs 4,622.22 crore in Q1 FY26 over Q1 FY25. Profit before tax (PBT) rose 2.92% year on year to Rs 701.02 crore in Q1 FY26. Total expenses increased 10.38% to Rs 3,973.36 crore in Q1 FY26, compared with Rs 3,599.51 crore in Q1 FY25. The cost of material consumed stood at Rs 2,550.87 crore (up 15.32% YoY), employee benefit expenses was at Rs 241.86 crore (up 19.76% YoY) and finance cost stood at 26.15 crore (down 9.76%YoY) during the period under review. Varun Berry, Executive Vice-Chairman, Managing Director & CEO, said: "Our performance this quarter reflects the strength of our focused execution strategy. We concentrated on maximizing value from existing outlets, improving agility in servicing key stores, and driving operational efficiencies across our extensive distribution network. These efforts resulted in approximately 10% sales growth, alongside robust double-digit growth in our four focus states and adjacent bakery categories such as rusk, wafers, and croissants. We observed a marginal uptick in consumption across both urban and rural markets, supported by easing inflation. This favourable environment enabled us to return to double-digit growth after a few challenging periods. Our journey of premiumization continues through innovation and exciting new product launches. Recent additions to our premium biscuit portfolio including the revamped Pure Magic range and Crafted Cookies under the Good Day brand have further enriched our offerings. At the same time, we remain committed to building our core brands through focused media and marketing efforts. Looking ahead, we are focused on sustaining a healthy growth trajectory while maintaining margins in an increasingly competitive landscape. We will continue investing in brand building and product innovation to reinforce our market leadership. Our ESG framework anchored in People, Growth, Governance, and Resources remains central to our strategy. We are committed to building a business that is not only profitable but also sustainable for the long term." Britannia Industries (BIL) is one of India's leading FMCG companies. The company's principal activity is the manufacture and sale of biscuits, bread, rusk, cakes and dairy products. Shares of Britannia Industries shed 1.78% to Rs 5,530.90 on the BSE.
