Nestle India Q4 net profit down by 20 pc YoY to Rs Rs 387 cr

Nestle India follows January to December as financial year.

Profit in the quarter under review dipped by 37.7 percent from Rs 617 crore reported in the previous quarter. This also includes contingency provisioning of Rs 38 crore.

The company's operating revenues stood at Rs 3,739 crore, 8.9 percent rise over the Rs 3,433 crore in the year-ago period.

However, the revenue declined 4 percent from Rs 3,883 crore reported in the previous quarter.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) for the period under review grew 11 percent on year at Rs 866 crore compared to Rs 777 crore last year.

This led to an improvement in EBITDA margin by 50 bps on year to 23.2 percent while there was a decline of 130 bps on quarterly basis.

The domestic sales for the quarter increased 9.2 percent but export sales reduced by 6.6 percent largely due to change in product mix.

Net margins came in at 10 percent with a reduction of 3.7 percent on year and 5.6 percent on quarterly basis.

Price outlook for key categories like edible oils, coffee, wheat, fuel remains firm to bullish while costs of packaging materials continue to increase amid supply constraints, rising fuel and transportation costs, the company said in its release.

Input prices are expected to be on bullish trend both globally and to some extent locally. Fresh milk prices are expected to remain firm with continued increase in demand and rise in feed costs to farmers.

“In an environment of raw and packaging material inflation, we continue to keenly look for opportunities for cost optimization and efficiencies”, the company said.

The company's board also cleared a final dividend of Rs 65 per share of face value of Rs 10 per share.

The total dividend for 2021 aggregates to Rs 200 per equity share as the company had earlier paid a dividend of Rs 25 per share in May 2021 and a dividend of Rs 110 per share was paid in November 2021.