Varun Beverages (VBL) rose 0.94% to Rs 622.80 after consolidated net profit jumped 50% to Rs 60.06 crore on 23.34% increase in revenues to Rs 1,676.43 crore in Q1 March 2020 over Q1 March 2019.
Consolidated profit before tax for Q1 March 2020 tanked 87.53% to Rs 7.79 crore as compared to Rs 62.51 crore in Q1 March 2019. EBITDA increased 24.2% to Rs. 271.16 crore in Q1 March 2020 from Rs 218.38 crore in Q1 March 2019. VBL follows the calendar year as its financial year format. The result was declared during market hours today, 5 May 2020.
Total sales volumes were up 26.2% year-on-year (YoY) at 114 million-unit cases in Q1 March 2020 as against 90.3 million-unit cases in Q1 March 2019.
The company said its organic volumes got severely impacted in the last 10 days of March due to the spread of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown restrictions. As per the relaxations provided by the Government of India for essential services and particularly packaged food and beverages, VBL has got the permissions from respective state governments to operate its certain production facilities.
Commenting on the Q1 performance, Ravi Jaipuria, the chairman of Varun Beverages, has said that, "We started the new fiscal year on a strong note with healthy demand and robust volume growth across our domestic and International markets. This enabled us to deliver a topline growth of 23.3%, EBITDA growth of 24.2%, and PAT growth of 50.0% during the quarter. In the last 10 days of March, a country-wide lockdown and similar restrictions in many of our international geographies moderated our performance for the period which would have otherwise been even better."
"Worldwide economies are facing an unprecedented situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this environment, our primary focus is towards undertaking all necessary measures to shore up cash flows, ensure safety of our employees, business partners, communities, and to overall safeguard the interests of all our stakeholders. We are also very encouraged that VBL has a healthy balance sheet and strong financial status, which most certainly should see us through these disorderly times."
Also Read
"While we are currently witnessing curtailed demand both in India and in our international geographies as a result of the ongoing macro-situation, we believe, in the near-term there should be a gradual bounce back in volumes. This will be enabled by easing of lockdown restrictions and restoration of consumer sentiment as they will once again have normal access to beverage purchases. Given the increasing demand that we witnessed for all our products prior to the lockdown, we are confident that once things stabilize, we will once again see encouraging growth and we will further strengthen our position as the leading player in the beverage industry," he added.
Varun Beverages is one of the largest franchisee of PepsiCo in the world (outside USA). The company produces and distributes a wide range of carbonated soft drinks (CSDs), as well as a large selection of non-carbonated beverages (NCBs), including packaged drinking water sold under trade marks owned by PepsiCo.
Powered by Capital Market - Live News
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content