ITC released its annual report for FY22 the company highlighted that the recovery momentum, weakened in course of the year by new strains of the virus and an unprecedented spike in commodity prices due to global supply chain disruptions, container shortages and congestion in ports.
The company highlights that its consumer-centricity, agility in seizing market opportunities, focus on execution excellence and proactive strategic interventions enabled it to post robust growth in Revenues and Profits, surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
The management highlights that for the FMCG business inflation continues to remain a key monitorable for the Segment in the near term. The discretionary/Out-of-Home categories recorded strong growth surpassing pre-pandemic levels driven by progressive improvement in mobility.
The management further highlights that they remain focused on rapidly scaling up the FMCG biz anchored on strong growth platforms and a future-ready portfolio. The FMCG Businesses continue to expand their export footprint leveraging and the PLI Scheme is expected to provide further fillip to exports.
The company will Focus on fortifying the core, addressing adjacencies through world-class mother brands and building categories of the future to power growth.
While India is the world’s second-largest consumer of tobacco, legal cigarettes constitute only 8% of overall tobacco consumption in India, as against a global average of 90%. Also, the taxes on cigarettes are one of the highest in India.
While respite from a further increase in taxes has provided the legal cigarette industry with an opportunity to claw back volumes lost to illicit trade, the operating environment remains challenging due to elevated levels of taxation, a high share of illicit trade and disproportionate regulatory pressures.
Notwithstanding these challenges, your Company remains confident in responding with agility to the dynamic environment and fortifying its market standing in the legal cigarette industry leveraging its superior strategies, future-ready portfolio, robust innovation pipeline, cutting-edge manufacturing & digital technologies and best-in-class execution capabilities. Despite the challenges in FY22, the business surpassed the pre-pandemic levels in the latter half.
The company follows the ‘Asset-Right’ strategy of ITC Hotels, which is an important vector of the ITC Next strategy. The company focuses on sweating existing assets, increasing the footprint of management contracts; additional revenue streams. In agriculture, the company is ushering in NextGen Agriculture by enhancing its Value-added Agri Products portfolio.
The company’s strategy going forward is to scale up presence in the naturals and ayurvedic space, continue to evaluate value accretive and synergistic inorganic opportunities and scale up presence in the fast-growing D2C channel.
