India’s Shrenuj Reports 20% Rise in Revenue And Profits

(IDEX Online News) – Indian diamond and jewelry manufacturer Shrenuj & Company Ltd. posted a 20-percent rise on the year in revenue to $775 million for its fiscal year ended on March 31, while profit surged 22 percent to $15 million.

The firm reported that its revenue from diamond sales jumped 26.5 percent on the year to $670 million, while sales of jewelry set with diamonds increased by 10 percent to almost $130 million.

“The rise in input prices and consolidation in retail space in US has led to margin pressures in jewelry segment in the last quarter,” the firm said in a statement. “This impact was somewhat negated by improving the operational efficiencies and offering differentiated product mix. The demand for the luxury segment, including diamonds and jewelry remains strong despite economic stagnation. The outlook for the present year is promising, especially with sustained rise in demand from China, CIS and India and stable demand from US and Euro zone.

“During the year, the company has started a new cutting and polishing unit in northern India for smaller sized diamonds. The company also augmented its manufacturing capacities in the existing units by further automating the manufacturing processes and installation of new equipment. As a result, during the current year the company expects to increase its production by about 25 percent in the diamond manufacturing process.

“During the year, the company has also increased its footprint in the south-east Asia by adding more retail markets of Forevermark diamonds. During the current year, the company is expected to launch its first jewelry retail outlet in southern Africa.”

Shreyas K. Doshi, the chairman and managing director of Shrenuj, said, "The year has been a year of consolidation for us. We have been able to present a more focused and integrated product mix to our customers. We have been able to leverage the best of efficiencies from our infrastructure in India and overseas and have been rated higher for our products and services by our customers.

"The diamond and jewelry market witnessed challenging times during the year with slightly subdued demand and consumer sentiment. This trend started to reverse during the second half of the year but by then, the input prices started climbing, putting pressures on margins. The rise of rupee against dollar and stability in prices of rough diamonds as well as gold has reversed this trend and we believe that this is the beginning of a good period for diamond and jewelry segment. The economic outlook for the current year is also very optimistic and we expect the demand from emerging as well as matured markets to rise by double-digits in the coming years," Doshi added.

The board of directors proposed a dividend of 30 percent, subject to the approval of the shareholders.