Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd, the Chennai-based healthcare entity, announced impressive performance during the year ended March 2004. Its net profit went up by 37 per cent to Rs 37 crore from Rs 27 crore in the previous year. The turnover increased by 11.4 per cent to Rs 499 crore from Rs 448 crore. The company declared equity dividend of 35 per cent to its shareholders. The return on capital employed worked out to 19.3 per cent as against 17.25 per cent.

Dr Prathap C Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group, said, "The strong improvement across all business segments reflects the success of our strategy, which is to focus on high value added services and investments in growth areas in healthcare services. Apollo Hospitals is committed to provide quality clinical care that will continuously add value to healthcare consumers from all parts of the world. Our advanced medical services and significant strides in the healthcare segment enable us to truly showcase India as the healthcare destination."

Reviewing the performance, the sources said the Apollo Hospitals Group has experienced a surge of international patients during the last year, with over 5000 international patients being treated from Oman, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Africa, Maldives and other South Asian countries, besides Europe. The Telemedicine initiative of Apollo Hospitals has treated over 10,000 patients since its inception. Patients have availed consultancy from doctors in various specialties like oncology, cardiology, neurology, orthopedics, to name a few. Over 75 international patients have availed the service.