Hindustan Unilever’s personal products segment has been lauded by its Chairman Harish Manwani who said he was pleased with its “stepped up momentum” following the company’s latest financial results.
During the quarter ending 30 June 2015, domestic consumer business grew 5%, with 6% underlying volume growth. Net sales stood at Rs7,973.37 crore up from Rs7,570.78 crore in the same period in 2014. However net profit did remain largely flat at Rs 1,059.14 crore.
When looking at the personal products arm, segment revenue amounted to Rs2,405.57 crore, up from Rs2,159.56 crore in the prior year period. Personal products profit totalled Rs71,299 lakh, a healthy increase on the year before.
Analysing the results, the company revealed that in the skin cleansing category, sales were largely driven by the premium segment, with Dove and Lifebuoy Handwash delivering “strong growth”. Meanwhile, in the skin care segment, growth was fuelled by Fair and Lovely, Pond’s, Lakme and Vaseline.
Looking at the hair care segment, Dove was picked out as a strong performer, along with Clinic Plus, Sunsilk and TRESemmé. Colour cosmetics also put in a solid performance with Lakme range’s Absolute and 9 to 5 leading performance.
Manwani said: “In a subdued market environment, the business delivered another quarter of healthy volume led growth and strong improvement in operating margin. We are particularly pleased with the stepped up momentum in personal products and the sustained double digit performance in packaged foods. With the near term outlook largely dependent on pickup in Rural markets and commodity costs expected to remain benign with little or no price growth across select categories, our focus will be to drive market development and simultaneously deliver cost efficiencies to sustain profitable volume led growth.”
