In the backdrop of a recovering economy and positive consumer sentiment, Titan Industries has come up with a record performance, tripling its profit after tax (PAT) to Rs78.35 crore in Q3 this year as against Rs23.52 crore last year. The net profit in the same quarter last year, however, was impacted to the tune of Rs19.44 crore: Rs12.78 crore due to reduction in the discount rate for actuarial valuation of gratuity and leave salary, and Rs6.66 crore towards interest on income tax of earlier years. Even after accounting  for these, PAT has shown a healthy increase of 82.4 per cent over the same quarter last year.

 

The company recorded a growth of 29.5 per cent in income, growing from Rs1034.88 crore last year to Rs1399.77 crore this year in Q3. The company's profit before tax (PBT) stands at Rs98.28 crore in Q3 as against Rs41.01 crore during the same period last year. For the nine-month period ended December 31, 2009, PBT crossed the Rs250 crore mark and stood at Rs259.37 crore as against Rs199.60 crore during the same period last year.

 

Both the mature businesses of the company, watches and jewellery, recorded good growth in Q3. Jewellery income in Q3 was Rs1054.52 crore, a growth of 34 per cent over last year's income of Rs788.69 crore. The watches business recorded an income of Rs240.94 crore as against Rs193.11 crore last year in Q3, a growth of 25 per cent. The company's other businesses declined by 6.8 per cent over last year to Rs40.25 crore in Q3, due to the postponement / cancellation of orders from overseas customers in the precision engineering division. The new eyewear business has grown its retail presence through Titan Eye+ stores to over 40 towns.

 

The company maintained the momentum of retail expansion across all its businesses and closed December 2009 with 518 stores nationally, with a total retail area of 6.6 lakh square feet in 143 towns.

 

Net profit of the company for the nine-month period ended December 2009 was Rs199.07 crore as against Rs133.09 crore last year, a growth of 50 per cent. During the nine months ended December 2009, the watches division sales grew by 11.5 per cent, from Rs668.45 crore last year to Rs745.03 crore this year. The jewellery division grew by 16.5 per cent to Rs2512.69 crore this year from Rs2156.59 crore during the corresponding period last year.

 

Bhaskar Bhat, managing director of the company, stated, “Quarter three has been a healthy quarter for us, marked by good growth in retail and all other channels on account of the good festival season. The growth in profits has also been driven by several cost control initiatives implemented across the company.”