Bata India tumbles after Q3 PAT slides 77% YoY

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Profit before tax tumbled 79.5% to Rs 36.13 crore in Q3 FY21 over Q3 FY20. The result was announced after market hours yesterday, 10 February 2021.

The company said it continued to double-down on its focus on cost-savings measures by working closely with landlords for store rentals optimization, controlling discretionary spends and looking for productivity-enhancing measures.

Owing to the various customer-centric measures adopted in the wake of COVID-19, Bata India has been successful in getting back on its recovery path, with improvement in sales through its retail outlets and e-commerce platforms, and hyperlocal digital channels. Sales through digitally-enabled platforms now make up 15% of the total sales, growing by 3 times in the last one year. In terms of portfolio-mix, the formals (incl. school business) & fashion categories continued to be subdued as expected due to prevailing market conditions, the casual, fitness & essentials categories bounced back leading to company’s overall volume reaching 88% of pre-COVID levels.

Bata said it also continued to strengthen its brick and mortar presence in tier 3 & 4 cities by opening new franchise stores across the country, with 221 Franchise stores at the end of Dec 2020.

Commenting on the company’s performance, Sandeep Kataria, CEO of Bata Brands said, Owing to a decline in Covid cases and vaccine rollout, the overall market sentiment is improving significantly. Backed by good festive sales and our targeted consumer outreach, our sales have recovered to 74% of pre-Covid levels. As a result of our focus on Omni-channel retailing and scaling up our digital presence via online marketplaces and our online store, 60% of our marketplaces’ orders today are fulfilled by Bata stores. As we witnessed a demand for footwear steadily grow over the last 3-6 months, we kept expanding our reach through new franchise & multi-brand outlet stores. While we focused on reviving sales, we also kept the focus on cost-savings measures across our network and enhancing productivity. Overall, we’re encouraged by the increasing momentum during the December quarter and we continue to launch new ways to serve our customers better, offering them greater convenience and flexibility. All these measures have enabled us to revitalize the business and soon we expect to get into the thrive phase of our recovery plan.

Bata India is the largest footwear retailer in India, offering footwear, accessories and bags across brands such as Bata, Hush Puppies, Naturalizer, Power, Marie Claire, etc.

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