Hindustan Unilever Reports 11% Growth In Profit In June

Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) has clocked an 11% growth in profit in the June quarter.

Revenue for the quarter rose 19.7% from a year ago to Rs 14,272 crore as the company continued to take “calibrated" price hikes during the quarter to counter high raw material prices, the company’s financial report said.

It reported a standalone Q1 profit of Rs 2,289 crore against Rs 2,207 crore, estimated in a Bloomberg survey.

The company’s an advertising and promotion expenses grew by 29.7% year-on-year during the quarter. It spent Rs 1,334 crore on advertising and promotion in the quarter, compared to Rs 1,029 in Q1 of 2021.

“The operating environment remains challenging, marked by unprecedented inflation, which has hit consumption. Markets, especially from the lens of volume (growth), still remain soft," says Sanjiv Mehta, CEO and Managing Director after the earnings announcement, adding inflation is still very much a concern.

Inflation is likely to hurt both margins and consumer demand in the next quarter too and margins will remain under pressure and may improve sequentially only from the December quarter, HUL officials said, adding that they would continue to extensively boost savings and take calibrated pricing actions.