Footwear major Bata India reported a 69.47 percent jump in standalone profit to Rs 88.26 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2019. It had posted a profit of Rs 52.08 crore in the January-March quarter of the preceding fiscal. The company's revenue from operations during the quarter under review stood at Rs 679.39 crore, up 7.44 percent from Rs 632.31 crore in the year-ago period, it said in a BSE filing.

Ram Kumar Gupta, director finance and chief financial officer of the company shared his views and outlook.

“There was some change in ecommerce regulation for some time and it impacted our ecommerce business adversely. However, now going forward, it is coming in line and we are expecting good growth in ecommerce business. Last year, in Q4, there was one institutional order which was very big – around Rs 210 million – which is not there in the current year. We are expecting that but maybe in the later part of this year. These two factors impacted our business. If you see our retail growth, it was 11 percent,” Gupta said.

In terms of same-store-sales-growth (SSSg) this quarter, he said, “It was more than 7 percent for the quarter. For the full year, it was around 7.5-8 percent. We are expecting the same growth in FY20. We are planning to open more stores and based on the market realities and with our new product, we are expecting a good growth.”

On ad spends, Gupta added, “In the last three years, we are increasing our budget - almost 50-60 percent every year. The same momentum will continue.”