Britannia Industries today reported 5.96 per cent increase in consolidated net profit at Rs 210.91 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31.
The company had posted a net profit of Rs 199.03 crore in January-March period a year ago, Britannia Industries said in a BSE filing.
Its net sales was up 6.19 per cent to Rs 2,301.78 crore during the quarter under review as against Rs 2,167.41 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.
The company's total expenses was up 5.72 per cent to Rs 2,041.56 crore in the fourth quarter of financial year 2016-17 as against Rs 1,930.99 crore.
Britannia Industries' MD Varun Berry said: "It has been a good quarter in the face of challenging market environment and sluggish demand scenario post demonetisation."
However, the company is expecting that the situation would "slowly improve over the next 3 to 6 months" with the measures announced by the government in the budget and the prediction of an above average monsoon this year.
Britannia's International business continued to be under pressure "due to deteriorating geopolitical situation and currency fluctuations in geographies like Middle East and Africa."
Moreover growth in dairy business has also been subdued primarily "due to our focus on driving products with high profitability and reducing our play in the less profitable commoditised products."
He also said, on the commodity front, prices of key raw materials continued to remain high with inflation in the fourth quarter in excess of 10 per cent.
"Our accelerated cost efficiency program and endeavour to leverage fixed costs helped us mitigate it to a certain extent. We also rationalised advertising costs and focused our spends on ensuring competitiveness in the market place," Berry added.
For the entire 2016-17 fiscal, Britannia Industries' net profit stood at Rs 884.61 crore, up 7.28 per cent, from Rs 824.58 crore in the previous fiscal.
Its net sales for the fiscal stood at Rs 9,232.30 crore, up 7.92 per cent, compared to Rs 8,554.36 crore in the previous year.
On outlook, he said: "We are actively working on various opportunities in the biscuit business, adjacent macro snacking space and are also evaluating potential partnership opportunities."
Meanwhile, in a separate filing, Britannia Industries informed BSE that its board has recommended a 1100 per cent dividend for 2016-17, which is Rs 22 per equity share of Rs 2.
Shares of Britannia Industries today settled 0.53 per cent lower at Rs 3,514.60 apiece on BSE.
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