Westlife Development which owns Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt. Ltd, that holds a Master franchisee of McDonald’s restaurants in West and South India reported a consolidated profit of Rs 20.82 crore in the third quarter ended December 2021.
The company had posted a net profit of 0.11 crore in the corresponding quarter last year..
Its sales during the third quarter jumped 46.7% to Rs 476.83 crore, compared with Rs 325.06 crore in the year-ago period.
This was driven by growth across both dine-in and convenience channels that grew by a solid 39% and 55% respectively. The Company’s Same Store Sales Growth for the quarter stood at 44% YoY.
The Company has now embarked on an aggressive expansion plan. This quarter, it added 8 new stores taking the total store count to 316 restaurants across 44 cities.
In October 2021, the Company announced that it will invest INR 800-1000 crores over the next 3-5 years to take its restaurant count to over 500, convert all its restaurants to EOTF, improve its digital prowess, and develop cutting-edge menus.
The Company’s omni-channel strategy helped it complement its strong menu relevance by making the brand ubiquitous – accessible however, whenever and wherever they like. The Company saw a strong growth in dine-in without any cannibalization from the convenience-led revenue. Even in this quarter, where most dine-in restrictions were eased, revenue from convenience channels saw a 55% jump YoY with McDelivery reporting its highest ever revenue so far.
With this new stronger baseline, the Company is now ready to accelerate its network, taking its overall footprint to over 500 restaurants over the next 3-5 years. Its expansion strategy will also be aligned to its omni-channel strategy with a robust portfolio of experience of the future stores, drive-thrus and stores with separate take-out windows.
Amit Jatia, Vice-Chairman of Westlife Development Limited commented on the financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2021, and said, “We are quite pleased with our performance in the quarter. What is especially noteworthy is that this has come in a quarter that continued to see certain COVID-led restrictions. This is a testimony to our robust strategy that is going to hold us in strong stead through the volatilities of the future. We believe that this quarter is a preamble to our next phase of growth. We are excited about accelerating our growth and reinforcing our leadership in the coming quarters.”
Westlife also launched the first local famous order with its brand ambassador – Rashmika Mandanna in South India this quarter. The company leveraged the superstar’s popularity to build brand relevance and led some disruptive interventions to build long term brand recall among consumers.
