Colgate-Palmolive's India unit posts Q4 profit rise on price hikes, healthy demand

Colgate-Palmolive (India)

14/05/2024 15:22

BENGALURU, May 14 (Reuters) - Colgate Palmolive (India)  COLG.NS 
reported a 20% rise in fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, helped by price hikes
and higher demand for its personal care products, mainly toothpastes.
    Net profit rose to 3.80 billion rupees ($45.5 million) for the January-March
period, from 3.16 billion rupees a year earlier.
    Consumer product makers like Colgate Palmolive are seeing a rise in demand
for premium oral hygiene products among urban consumers, who have higher
disposable incomes, analysts said.    
    The toothpaste maker's sales rose 10.4% to 14.81 billion rupees. 
    Marketing expenses, which rose 18% on the back of new product launches and
advertising campaigns, resulted in a 6.2% increase in total expenses.
    "Rural markets continued to exhibit positive signs of demand recovery,
growing ahead of urban," the company said.
    Analysts, however, expect rural demand to show improvement by the December
quarter as the monsoon typically boosts farm income.
    Rival Hindustan Unilever  HLL.NS  missed quarterly earnings estimates but
also said that a recovery in rural demand is underway. 
    Meanwhile, Dabur India  DABU.NS  posted better-than-expected results for the
March quarter, buoyed by demand for its food products.
    Parent Colgate-Palmolive  CL.N  raised the forecast for annual organic sales
growth last month, banking on resilient demand for its highly-priced self-care
and pet nutrition products.
    Shares of Colgate-Palmolive (India) closed down 1.4% on Tuesday ahead of its
results. 
    The stock has risen 13.5% this year compared to a 3% decline in the Nifty
FMCG index  .NIFTYFMCG .


($1 = 83.4953 Indian rupees)

 (Reporting by Navamya Ganesh Acharya and Ashna Teresa Britto in Bengaluru;
Editing by Eileen Soreng)