Apollo Hospitals profit rises 42% to ~130 crore

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (AHEL) reported a 42 per cent growth in net profit during the quarter ended December 31 to ~130 crore, compared with ~92 crore during the same period last year.

Even though health care services saw a fall in revenue, profitability has grown due to growth in pharmacy as well as retail health care businesses and cost-control measures.

Krishnan Akhileswaran, group chief financial officer (CFO), Apollo Hospitals, said cost-saving measures helped save around ~200 crore during the nine-month period ended

Revenue from health care services fell, but profitability grew due to growth in pharmacy, retail health care businesses and cost-control measures

December. The hospital chain is planning to save around ~100-125 crore next year.

Revenues dropped to ~2,760 crore in the third quarter compared with ~2,911 crore in the same period a year ago. Akhileswaran said revenues are not comparable since demerger of the front-end of the pharmacy business came into effect from September 1, 2020.

AHEL continues to handle the back-end pharma distri- bution, within a vertical called pharmacy distribution. Due to the demerger, figures of the current quarter for the pharmacy business are not comparable to the previous quarters. If the front-end pharmacy business was considered, then growth in revenue would have been around 6 per cent. revenues health Standalone of care the services division decreased 4 per cent to ~1,240.7 crore in the third quarter compared to ~1296.9 crore during third quarter of 2019-20. Revenue of existing hospitals fell by 8 per cent while for new hospitals it grew by 7 per cent.