Westlife Development Q1 Results: Posts net loss of Rs 57.5 crore

Westlife Development Ltd on Thursday reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 57.56 crore for the quarter ended June 2020, hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Westlife Development owns Hardcastle Restaurants — the master franchisee of McDonald’s for west and south India.
The company had posted a net profit of Rs 6.44 crore in the April-June period a year ago, Westlife Development Ltd said in a BSE filing.
Sales dropped 75.38 percent to Rs 93.60 crore during the period under review as against Rs 380.26 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2019-20.
Operating costs and expenses were at Rs 133.98 crore, as against Rs 330.60 crore earlier.
During the quarter, the company said it undertook moves to mitigate the long-term impact of COVID-19. It activated its omnichannel strategy and launched contactless take-out service to facilitate contactless ordering and pick-up of orders.
It also launched the unique ‘on-the-go’ service enabling contactless ordering and collection of the order from customers’ vehicles. With this, it virtually converted all its restaurants into drive-through stores at minimal cost, the company added.
“As a result, the company started seeing green shoots in the business starting June 2020, as the lock-down started easing in select markets,” it said.
Take-out and drive-through channels showed great results, as sales from these platforms bounced back to pre-COVID levels for operational stores.
“Per day per store McDelivery sales bounced back to 70 percent of pre-COVID levels and daily take-out sales from operational stores surged 1.7 times vis-a-vis pre-COVID levels,” it said.
Despite the extraordinary challenges, the company completed ongoing projects, taking the total count of McDonald’s restaurants and McCafe to 320 and 224 respectively, it added.