BENGALURU: Titan Company Limited reported nine per cent increase in Total Income from Operations (TIO, revenue) in FY-2015 to Rs 11913.41 crore as compared to the Rs 10927.39 crore in FY-2014. The company’s profit after tax (PAT) for the year increased 11.1 per cent to Rs 816.26 crore from Rs 734.94 crore in the previous year.

The company spent 5.5 per cent lower amount at Rs 382.13 crore (3.21 per cent of TIO) towards advertising in FY-2015 as compared to the Rs 404.43 crore in FY-2014.

Note: 100,00,000 = 100 lakh = 10 million = 1 crore

Businesses and Brands

Titan has three revenue segments – watches comprising brands namely Titan, Xylus, Nebula, Sonata and Fastrack and Zoop; Jewellery with Tanishq, Zoya, Gold Plus from Tata, Mia and Fq teen diamonds; and ‘Other’ such as eyewear under the Titan EYE+ brand, apparel and eyewear also under Fastrack brand and precision engineering among others.

During the current quarter, sales value of World of Titan grew 11 per cent; Tansihq sales value declined 21 per cent, Goldplus declined 4 per cent, Helios declined 3 per cent, Fastrack grew 1 per cent, LFS and Titan Eye+ grew 10 and 14 per cent respectively.

Watches

The watch segment saw an increment of two per cent in volumes in FY-2015 as compared to FY-2014. Net sales for the segment grew 7.3 per cent to Rs 1921 crore in the current year from Rs 1791 crore in FY-2014.

Though Q4-2015 saw a fall of six per cent in volume as compared to Q4-2014, revenue increased 1.8 per cent to Rs 511 crore from Rs 502 crore in the corresponding year ago quarter on the back of increment of prices.

Jewellery

Titan’s jewellery distribution brands are Tanishq and Goldplus from Tata. Jewellery contributes about 80 per cent to Titan’s TIO. The segment’s sales grew eight per cent (excluding coins) in volumes in FY-2015 as compared to FY-2014. Sales revenue grew 9.2 per cent to Rs 9240 crore in FY-2015 from Rs 8632 crore in FY-2014. During the year the company witnessed a grammage growth of eight per cent, (including coins) and six per cent excluding coins. Also, the share of studded jewellery increased to 32 per cent from 30 per cent in FY-2015. The company says that it saw a customer growth of 13 per cent in the jewellery segment during the year.

Q4-2014 was a quarter of falls for Titan’s jewellery segment. For Q4-2015, volumes witnessed a fall of 16 per cent as compared to Q4-2014, while sales of jewellery fell 15.3 per cent to RS 1828 crore from Rs 2157 crore in Q4-2014. Customers declined seven per cent in the quarter. While studded jewellery witnessed an 18 per cent decline during the quarter, it retained the same share of 37 per cent as last year.

Others

The ‘Others’ segment reported 12.9 per cent revenue growth to Rs 565 crore in FY-2015 from Rs 500 crore in Q4-2014. Eyeware witnessed a growth of 24 per cent and returned an operating profit of Rs 4 crore. For Q4-2015, the segment reported 12.8 per cent increase in revenue to Rs 165 crore from Rs 146 crore in Q4-2014.

Trends

Titan’s ASP declined 8.1 per cent in Q4-2015 to Rs 80.30 crore (3.22 per cent of TIO) from Rs 87.37 crore (3.12 per cent of TIO) in Q4-2014 and was 17 per cent lower than the Rs 96.75 crore (3.31 per cent of TIO) in Q3-2015. Please refer Fig A below. During a 13 quarter period starting Q4-2012, Titan’s ASP was highest in terms of absolute rupees in Q3-2014 at Rs 118.04 crore (4.41 per cent of TIO). It was highest in terms of per centage of TIO in Q1-2013 at 4.69 per cent of TIO (Rs 103.44 crore).

Though ASP shows a declining trend both in terms absolute rupees and in terms of per centage of TIO, on calculation, the brown trend line actually indicates ASP as 3.15 per cent of TIO, while the actual amount spent by the company was 0.07 per cent more as mentioned above for Q4-2015. On calculation, the blue trend line indicates ASP in absolute rupees as Rs 96.48 crore as opposed to the actual Rs 80.30 crore spent by the company in Q4-2015.

TIO and PAT

Please refer to Figure B below. The company’s TIO in Q4-2015 fell 11 per cent to Rs 2496.19 crore from Rs 2803.38 crore in Q4-2014 and was 14.6 per cent lower than the Rs 2922.51 crore in the immediate trailing quarter. During the thirteen quarter period under consideration in this report, TIO shows a linear increasing trend.

PAT in Q4-2015 at Rs 215.09 crore (9.6 per cent of TIO) was 4.3 per cent more than the Rs 190.73 crore (7.4 per cent of TIO) in Q4-2014 and was 12.8 per cent more than the Rs 190.73 crore (7.1 per cent of TIO) in Q3-2015. PAT shows a linear increasing trend during the 13 month period under consideration.

Company speak

Titan managing director Bhaskar Bhat said, “The economic outlook for the year 2014-15 was quite good but improvement in consumer demand has been quite lukewarm. Our jewellery business was also adversely impacted due to regulatory changes and termination of the consumer friendly Golden Harvest Scheme. All our brands witnessed good growth during the first half but post Diwali season we have seen tapering of growths. The Company will however continue to invest in strategic initiatives taking into account our long term and sustainable growth plans.”