Varun Beverages profit jumps two-fold to Rs 81.5 crore, revenue up 27.9%

Varun Beverages Ltd, PepsiCo's largest franchise bottler, on Monday reported a more than twofold jump in its consolidated net profit to Rs 81.52 crore for the quarter that ended December 31, 2022, led by volume growth and improved net realizations.

The company, which follows the calendar year as its financial year, posted a net profit of Rs 32.59 crore during the October-December quarter a year ago.

Its revenue from operations during the quarter under review stood at Rs 2,257.20 crore, up 27.89 per cent as against Rs 1,764.93 crore of the corresponding period last fiscal, Varun Beverages Ltd (VBL) said in a regulatory filing.

VBL's "sales volumes grew by 17.8 per cent in Q4 CY2022 to 132.0 million cases," said the company in its earning statement.

Its PAT increased 150 per cent in the October-December period, which is a "seasonally weak quarter".

Its "net realization increased by 6 per cent to Rs 164 primarily due to price hike in select SKUs, rationalised discounts/incentives, and improvement in mix of smaller SKUs (250ml) especially the energy drink Sting, which has a higher net realization," its said.

Varun Beverages' total expenses were at Rs 2,176.83 crore, up 26.27 per cent in Q4 of 2022, as against Rs 1,723.93 crore.

For the year 2022, VBL's net profit was up twofold to Rs 1,550.11 crore as against Rs 746.05 crore of a year before.

"This was driven by high growth in revenue from operations, improvement in margins and transition to lower tax rate in India," said VBL.

Its revenue from operations was up 49.47 in 2022 to Rs 13,390.55 crore. It was at Rs 8,958.29 crore in 2021.

VBL Chairman Ravi Jaipuria said: "The strong recovery in demand post the pandemic and our continued efforts towards expanding the distribution network across markets resulted in a 41 per cent growth in consolidated sales volume. Additionally, we achieved growth in realization per unit through strategic measures such as selective price hikes, rationalized discounts and incentives, and improved product mix."

"This allowed us to deliver revenue growth of 49 per cent and PAT growth of 108 per cent YoY on a consolidated basis in CY 2022," he added.

In CY 2022, VBL's total sales volume grew by 40.9 per cent to 801.8 million cases supported by strong performance in India as well as International territories, the company said in its earning statement.

In a separate filing, VBL said its board in a meeting held on Monday has recommended a final dividend of Re 1 per equity share of the nominal value of Rs 10 each for FY22.

It has also approved the re-appointment of three independent directors - Sita Khosla, Ravi Gupta and Rashmi Dhariwal - for a second term of up to five consecutive years.

VBL accounts for 90 per cent of PepsiCo's beverage sales volume in India.

Shares of Varun Beverages Ltd were trading at Rs 1,233.60 on BSE, up 6.25 per cent from the previous close, on Monday.