(Reuters) – India’s KRBL reported its sixth straight quarterly profit fall on Thursday as a rise in expenses more than offset the impact of strong sales of its rice products.
KRBL, which makes the ‘India Gate’ brand of basmati rice, reported a 1% year-on-year fall in consolidated net profit to 1.33 billion rupees ($15.2 million) in the third quarter.
This was KRBL’s slowest profit drop in six quarters.
The company’s revenue from operations rose 17% to 16.82 billion rupees, led by a 17% jump in its agricultural business, which includes all types of rice apart from seed and bran.
Revenue from exports more than doubled to 5.63 billion rupees.
Total expenses also rose by 17%.
India eased almost all curbs on non-basmati and basmati rice exports late last year as part of its efforts to reduce surging inventories and to regain market share. India accounts for around 75% of global basmati production.
The government also removed the so-called floor price, or minimum export price, for basmati rice to help thousands of farmers who complained about a lack of access to lucrative overseas markets such as Europe, the Middle East and the U.S.
Basmati is not widely consumed in India, and the government does not buy the variety to build state reserves, leading to producers exporting a majority of their stock.
Rival LT Foods reported a lower quarterly profit on higher costs.
($1 = 87.5560 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Kashish Tandon in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
