KUALA LUMPUR (March 5): Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd (Dutch Lady Malaysia), which posted a 10% rise in net profit in its financial year 2018 (FY18) despite marginally lower revenue, said it will continue to improve operational efficiency to stay agile and adapt to macro-economic headwinds in 2019.

The group is expecting 2019 to bring with it global dairy cost and foreign exchange fluctuations, Dutch Lady Malaysia managing director Tarang Gupta said in a statement today.

While Gupta noted the group could not escape from extreme volatilities last year, he said adhering to its primary principle to offer affordability in its product pricing has helped grow its volume (in kilogrammes) by 3% year-on-year for its FY18 ended Dec 31, 2018.

Though full-year revenue retreated 1.5% to RM1.049 billion from RM1.064 billion, net profit grew 10% to RM129.45 million from RM117.72 million — thanks to better operational efficiencies, product innovations and improved marketing strategies. A favourable exchange rate and better dairy prices against the corresponding period also helped.

Going forward, Gupta said the group will continue to look at other venues and ventures to grow its business into untapped markets, such as its recent collaboration with Malaysia Specialty Coffee Association in Cafe Malaysia 2018 to introduce its products beyond mass market consumption, which in this case is the market for hotels, restaurants and caterings.

The group also recognises the importance of continuously investing to build its brands and offerings. "To this extent, we have introduced our latest product innovation, Dutch Lady +Protein, a low fat high calcium milk to meet changing consumer needs," he said.

He also said milk consumption in Malaysia remains low — at only 4.3 litres per capita per year compared with that of developed countries like the Netherlands, which consumes 41.1 litres of milk per capita a year.

“While Malaysia is doing slightly better than some peer countries, taking into consideration the country’s development status there is a huge opportunity to increase milk consumption. Hence, we will continue with our efforts to encourage more Malaysians to drink milk and move forward in our mission of providing our consumers with trusted dairy nutrition,” he added.

Dutch Lady Malaysia, he shared, remains the No 1 brand in the dairy segment in Malaysia, citing the Nielsen Retail Audit 2018 data.