ITC Q3 profit rises 16.75% to ₹3,090.2 cr on one-time gain
KOLKATA: Cigarette and consumer goods maker ITC Ltd on Friday said its fiscal-third quarter profit rose 16.8% from a year earlier, boosted by a one-time reversal of a provision of ₹412 crore.
Net profit rose to ₹3,090.20 crore in the three months ended December 31 from ₹2,646.73 crore in the year earlier.
Adjusted for the one-time exceptional income, the company’s net profit in the December quarter grew 1.1% year-onyear (y-o-y), Edelweiss Securities Ltd said in a note.
The company’s operating profit grew 10.1% to ₹3,904.5 crore from a year earlier, slightly lower than the expectations of HDFC Securities Ltd, its analysts Naveen Trivedi and Siddhant Chhabria said in a report.
Adjusted for a change in the tax regime, ITC’S gross sales value, or comparable gross revenue, grew 6.3% over last year to ₹16,746.2 crore, the company said in a statement. ITC’S performance was in line with Edelweiss’s estimates, its senior vice-president Abneesh Roy said in his report.
On Friday,the company’s shares rose 0.37% to close at ₹273.85 on the BSE, while the Sensex gained 0.71% to close at 35,511.58 points.
Though ITC’S pre-tax profit from cigarettes at ₹3,269.25 crore was up 7.7% year-on-year—a “healthy growth”, according to HDFC Securities—edelweiss estimates cigarette sales by volume to have declined by around 5% in the December quarter. The tobacco industry faced “severe pressure due to sharp increase in taxes”, ITC said in its statement. All combined, taxes on cigarettes have tripled since 2011-12, claimed ITC.
Other consumer goods sold by the company, such as packaged food and personal care products, registered robust growth and turned in a pre-tax profit of ₹47 crore in the December quarter as against a loss of ₹19.66 crore in the same period a year ago.
Adjusted for a change in accounting norms due to the introduction of the goods and services tax, the company said its gross sales value, or revenue, from the segment rose 16.2% over the same period last year to ₹2,871.78 crore.
The company’s pre-tax profit from the hotels segment grew 30% over last year to ₹54.77 crore while segment revenue grew 10% to ₹404.44 crore. Room tariff firmed up while sales of food and beverage also shot up, ITC said in its statement.
The paper and paperboards segment turned in a pre-tax profit of ₹268.26 crore, 9% higher than the same period last year, even as revenue from the segment contracted 4.2% to ₹1,279.6 crore.
Sales of farm commodities also slowed due to a shortage of leaf tobacco, the company said, but its profit margin from the segment expanded.
Revenue from the segment fell 8.4% y-o-y to ₹1,530.86 crore, while pre-tax profit fell marginally to ₹233.34 crore from ₹236.61 crore a year ago. NEW DELHI: Jubilant Foodworks Ltd, which operates Domino’s Pizza and Dunkin’ Donuts outlets in India, on Friday said fiscal-third quarter profit more than tripled on higher sales and better cost management. Net profit rose to ₹66 crore in the quarter ended December 31 from ₹19.97 crore a year ago. Operating revenue rose 20.7% to ₹795.16 crore from ₹658.83 crore.
The growth in revenue was backed by a 17.8% increase in Domino’s Pizza same-store sales, a measure of sales at outlets that have been open for at least a year, the company said in a statement.
“Our emphasis on driving the key strategic pillars is translating into healthy same-store sales growth year-on-year, while setting the base for consistent growth in line with the potential of the QSR (quick service restaurants) space. The lowering in rate of applicable GST (goods and services tax) to 5% has allowed us to demonstrate our commitment to deliver the best value proposition as we passed on the benefits of lower tax rate to the customers,” Shyam S Bhartia, chairman, and Hari S Bhartia, co-chairman, Jubilant Foodworks, said in a joint statement.
The promoters of HT Media Ltd, which publishes the Hindustan Times, and Jubilant Foodworks are closely related. There are, however, no promoter crossholdings.