BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian jewellery and watch maker Titan Co Ltd reported a better-than-expected rise in second-quarter profit on Friday as demand for gold improved ahead of the festival and wedding seasons.
The company’s profit rose 33.7% to 8.57 billion Indian rupees ($103.95 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30 from 6.41 billion rupees in the previous year.
Analysts, on average, had expected a profit of 7.10 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
The Tata Group-owned company, which sells jewellery through its Tanishq chain of stores, said revenue for the quarter rose 17.5% to 81.34 billion rupees.
Income from the jewellery business, which usually accounts for 87-90% of Titan’s total quarterly income, grew 22% while staying within this range.
During the quarter, India’s demand for gold rose 14% to 191.7 tonnes from a year ago, the World Gold Council had said in a report published on Tuesday. Demand for jewellery was muted in the year-ago quarter as a second COVID wave had just subsided in country.
Two-thirds of India’s gold demand tends to come from rural areas.
Over the past 12 years, the share of Tanishq stores in rural and semi-urban areas, where gold is a traditional store of wealth, has grown to 54% currently from 27% in 2011, analysts at ICICI Securities noted.
“The current festive season, starting from end of September month and continuing till end of October, has been quite positive and consumer confidence remains upbeat,” Managing Director CK Venkataraman said.
The company, which also makes eyewear and perfumes besides watches under the Titan and Fastrack brands, said its income in the watches and wearables segment rose by 20.7%.
($1 = 82.4400 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)
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