Arvind, the country’s one of the largest integrated textile, apparel and branded apparel players, has posted 35 per cent fall in net profit at Rs 4 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal year as compared to Rs 6 crore in the corresponding period last year.
Sales, however, grew marginally by 6 per cent to Rs 545 crore as compared to Rs 515 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.
The branded apparel and retail business of the company has returned yet another quarter of impressive performance through the company’s continuous effort to expand its value apparel retail format under the MegaMart.
Apart from the market led factors in the textile business, the company has been impacted by significant increase in power cost, dyes and chemical cost and rapidly rising cotton cost. While apart from denim all other textile and apparel products are running at optimum capacity utilisation, the same is not reflected in the earnings as cost pushes are hurting them. The lower earnings have been to a large extent offset by garments, shirting and the branded apparel business.
“We are passing through one of the most challenging periods of the recent past, as we are in an unique competitive landscape where the costs are escalating at an unprecedented pace and are at a historical high while our main consumer markets are battling recession. We are cautious but confident of implementing our transformation plan, which calls for a complete overhaul of the areas of business as well as the way we do business. At the same time, our MegaMart and branded apparel business continue to return better performance quarter after quarter,” said Jayesh Shah, director and CFO of the company.
