One of Bangladesh’s most widely known footwear brands, Bata Shoe Company (Bangladesh), plunged to its worst ever losses since the company entered the Bangladesh market before independence, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to media reports, the multinational company, which launched operations here in 1962 in the then East Pakistan, had to shut outlets during the main sales seasons amidst the coronavirus outbreak even as the country went into a lockdown to prevent the spread of the disease. The company saw its sales dip 41 per cent, or Taka 350 crore, year-on-year to Taka 508 crore in 2020 from Taka 857 crore, thereby suffering losses for the first time in 59 years of operations in Bangladesh.
It may be mentioned here that on account of the pandemic and the countrywide lockdown, earnings took a drastic fall due to the loss of retail business during 2020’s major festivals of Pohela Boishakh, Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Azha and Puja — the festival sales cover 25 to 30 per cent of the company’s yearly business — even as Bata, which is a subsidiary of Bafin (Nederland) BV in the Netherlands that holds a 70 per cent share, incurred losses of Taka 132 crore in 2020 after logging Taka 49 crore in profits the previous year.
Bata Bangladesh has been going through a crisis in overall business in 2020, which has pushed the company’s earnings down, reportedly, underlined the company in its disclosure adding the company’s business went down by 41 per cent in 2020, while speaking to the media on the steps being taken to return to profits, Iftekhar Mallick (head of marketing at Bata Bangladesh) maintained, “We could hardly export anything in 2020 as all our export markets were closed due to coronavirus,” even as he went on to state further, “If there’s no coronavirus restriction in the coming quarters, we are hoping to turnaround by the end of this year… We are noticing a rise in demand lately, especially post Ramadan and the trend is expected to continue as consumer confidence improves.”