Question

Why product's contribution margin ratio and planning business operations beneficial for companies to know regarding the products being produced?

Answer 1

• The contribution margin ration shows the how the contribution changes with change in sales ratio
• It can also be state as Contribution margin can be defind as ona gross or per-unit basis. It represents the incremental money generated for each product/unit sold after deducting the variable portion of the firm's costs
• The formula for calculating contribution margin ratio= sales - variable expenses
• For an example sales is 200/- and variable expenses is 100/- and contribution margin is 100/- with assume that the fixed expenses are recovered
• Company's will use the contribution margin for following purpus
• company management select from among several possible products that compete to use the same set of manufacturing resource for example blw the different watches

• INVESTING  FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

  Contribution Margin Definition

  Contribution Margin Definition

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  Updated Apr 9, 2019

  What Is the Contribution Margin?

  Contribution margin can be stated on a gross or per-unit basis. It represents the incremental money generated for each product/unit sold after deducting the variable portion of the firm's costs.

  The contribution margin is computed as the selling price per unit, minus the variable cost per unit. Also known as dollar contribution per unit, the measure indicates how a particular product contributes to the overall profit of the company. It provides one way to show the profit potential of a particular product offered by a company and shows the portion of sales that helps to cover the company's fixed costs. Any remaining revenue left after covering fixed costs is the profit generated.

  The Formula for Contribution Margin Is

  The contribution margin is computed as the difference between the sale price of a product and the variable costs associated with its production and sales process.

  \text{Contribution margin}=\text{Sales revenue}-\text{Variable costs}Contribution margin=Sales revenue−Variable costs

  The above formula is also used as a ratio, to arrive at an answer in percentage terms, as follows:

  \text{Contribution margin ratio}=\frac{\text{Sales Revenue}-\text{Variable costs}}{\text{Sales revenue}}Contribution margin ratio=Sales revenueSales Revenue−Variable costs​

  What Does the Contribution Margin Tell You?

  The contribution margin is the foundation for break-even analysis used in the overall cost and sales price planning for products. The contribution margin helps to separate out the fixed cost and profit components coming from product sales and can be used to determine the selling price range of a product, the profit levels that can be expected from the sales, and structure sales commissions paid to sales team members, distributors or commission agents.

  Fixed Cost Versus Variable Cost

  One-time costs for items such as machinery are a typical example of a fixed cost, that stays the same regardless of the number of units sold, although it becomes a smaller percentage of each unit's cost as the number of units sold increases. Other examples include services and utilities that may come at a fixed cost and do not have an impact on the number of units produced or sold. For example, if the government offers unlimited electricity at a fixed monthly cost of $100, then manufacturing ten units or 10,000 units will have the same fixed cost towards electricity.

  Another example of fixed cost is a website hosting provider which offers unlimited hosting space to its clients at a fixed cost. Whether the client puts one or ten websites, and whether the client uses 100 MB or 2 GB of hosting space, the hosting cost remains the same. In these kinds of scenarios, electricity and web-hosting cost(s) will not be considered in the contribution margin formula at it represents a fixed cost. Fixed monthly rents or salaries paid to administrative staffs also fall in the fixed cost category.

  However, if the same electricity cost increases in proportion to the consumption, and the web-host charges increase on the basis of the number of sites hosted and the space consumed, then the costs will be considered as variable costs. Similarly, wages paid to employees who are getting paid based on the number of units they manufacture (or any of its variations) are variable costs. Each such item will be considered for contribution margin calculations.

  Fixed costs are often considered as sunk costs that once spent cannot be recovered. These cost components should not be considered while taking decisions about cost analysis or profitability measures.

  Key Takeaways

• The contribution margin represents the portion of a product's sales revenue that isn't used up by variable costs, and so contributes to covering the company's fixed costs.
• The concept of contribution margin is one of the fundamental keys in break-even analysis.
• Low contribution margins are present in labor-intensive companies with few fixed expenses, while capital-intensive, industrial companies have higher fixed costs and thus, higher contribution margins.

• Contribution Margin Example

  Say a machine for manufacturing ink pens comes at a cost of $10,000. Manufacturing one ink pen requires $0.2 worth of raw materials like plastic, ink and nib, another $0.1 goes towards the electricity charges for running the machine to produce one ink pen, and $0.3 is the labor charge to manufacture one ink pen.

  These three components constitute the variable cost per unit. The total variable cost of manufacturing an ink pen comes to ($0.2 + $0.1 + $0.3) = $0.6 per unit. If a total of 100 ink pens are manufactures, the total variable cost will come to ($0.6 * 100 units) = $60, while manufacturing 10,000 ink pens will lead to a total variable cost of ($0.6 * 10,000 units) = $6,000. Such total variable cost increases in direct proportion to the number of units of the product getting manufactured.

  However, the ink pen production will be impossible without the manufacturing machine which comes at a fixed cost of $10,000. This cost of machine represents a fixed cost (and not a variable cost) as its charges do not increase based on the units produced. Such fixed costs are not considered in the contribution margin calculations.

  If a total of 10,000 ink pens are manufactured using the machine at a variable cost of $6,000 and at a fixed cost of $10,000, the total manufacturing cost comes to $16,000. The per-unit cost will then be computed as $16,000/10,000 = $1.6 per unit. If each ink pen is sold at a price of $2 per unit, the profit per unit comes to:

  \bullet \text{ (Sale Price} - \text{Total Costs}) = (\$2.0 - \$1.6) = \$0.4 \text{ per unit}∙ (Sale Price−Total Costs)=($2.0−$1.6)=$0.4 per unit

  However, contribution margin does not account for fixed cost components and considers only the variable cost components. The incremental profit earned for each unit sold as represented by contribution margin will be:

  \bullet \text{ (Sale Price} - \text{Total Variable Costs)} = (\$2.0 - \$0.6) = \$1.4 \text{ per unit}∙ (Sale Price−Total Variable Costs)=($2.0−$0.6)=$1.4 per unit

  A key characteristic of the contribution margin is that it remains fixed on a per unit basis irrespective of the number of units manufactured or sold. On the other hand, the net profit per unit may increase/decrease non-linearly with the number of units sold as it includes the fixed costs.

  In the above example, if the total number of ink pens manufactured and sold doubles to 20,000, the total cost (fixed + variable) will be ($10,000/20,000 + 0.6) = $1.1 per unit. The profit per unit will come to:

  \bullet \text{ (Sale Price} - \text{Total Costs)} = (\$2.0 - \$1.1) = \$0.9 \text{ per unit}∙ (Sale Price−Total Costs)=($2.0−$1.1)=$0.9 per unit

  Essentially, doubling the number of units sold from 10,000 to 20,000 (two times) has increased the net profit per unit from $0.4 to $0.9 (that is, 2.25 times).

  However, the contribution margin, which gets calculated with respect to only the variable cost, will be:

  \bullet \text{ (Sale Price} - \text{Total Variable Costs)} = (\$2.0 - \$0.6) = \$1.4 \text{ per unit}∙ (Sale Price−Total Variable Costs)=($2.0−$0.6)=$1.4 per unit

  The contribution margin remains the same, even when the number of units produced and sold has doubled. It provides another dimension to assess how much profits can be realized by scaling up sales.

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  Contribution Margin

  Uses of Contribution Margin

  The contribution margin can help company management select from among several possible products that compete to use the same set of manufacturing resources. Say that a company has a pen-manufacturing machine that is capable of producing both ink pens and ball-point pens, and management must make a choice to produce only one of them.

  If the contribution margin for an ink pen is higher than that of a ball pen, the former will be given production preference owing to its higher profitability potential. Such decision-making is common to companies that manufacture a diversified portfolio of products, and management must allocate available resources in the most efficient manner to products with the highest profit potential.

  Investors and analysts may also attempt to calculate the contribution margin figure for a company's more margin contribution products

• Thecompany steering its focus away from investing or expanding the manufacturing of the star product, or the emergence of a competitor product, may indicate that the profitability of the company and eventually its share price may get impacted.

• And also take decision on the if the product contribution margin is negative decision regarding shut down or closing manufacturer of specific product