Country's one of the premier FMCG company, Dabur India, started the financial year with good quarter first results on Wednesday. In Q1 FY14, company's consolidated net sales grew by 13 per cent to Rs 1651.1 crore while net profit for April June quarter stood at Rs 187.04 crore, registered a jump of 25 per cent as compared to the same quarter previous financial year.
lalit Malik, Chief Financial Officer of the company in conversation with The Pioneer shed more light on the first quarter performance and also gave insights to what can be expected from Dabur India in the coming quarters.
lalit feels that the first quarter was filled with challenges in the shape of decline in global demand and increase in competition in the markets yet the company has managed to maintain a healthy growth figures. He added, “There has been a steady growth in the topline and total volumes also grew by 9 per cent. Domestic FMCG business also grew by 13.2 per cent.”
The FMCG giant has always been looking for new markets to maintain a steady growth and is now present in over 60 countries. In the pursuit of finding new markets, very recently the company expanded to Sri lanka and talking about further expansions to other neighboring markets, he said, “We are still working on our Sri lankan expansion and along with that we are also in process of capitalizing our facility in Bangladesh.”
Apart from expansion, the existing international operations have shown good performances. As compared to the same quarter in the previous financial year, he said “Our international business has also grown by 32 per cent and going forward feel this growth will continue.” As far as capacity expansion plans are concerned, he added, “We have a capex plan of worth Rs 150 crore which will be finished in this financial year.”
Another major trigger which he feels will drive the company's performance in the coming quarters will be the good monsoons. “Good monsoon has a major positive impact on our performance. It is beneficial to the company on both sales as well as cost front. We are expecting a good rise in sales figures going forward.”
Talking about the current debt burden on the company, the management feels there is no major concern. He further added, “We have a total debt of Rs 1,200 crore including our domestic and international businesses. This quarter we payed off loans worth Rs 13.5 million.” Due to these payments the company's total interest burden has come down nearly 45 per cent to Rs 13.3 crore in Q1 FY14 as compared to rs 24.26 crore in Q1 FY13.
Dabur has always been flooding the markets with new products every now and then and going forward the company's CFO feels this will continue. “We have recently launched many products in both domestic as well the international markets and have a few more products in the pipeline which will soon be hitting the markets.”