Hindustan Unilever and Nestle India Share Q2 Results

Two of India’s most promising FMCG companies declared their quarterly results for Sep-21 quarter. In both the cases, the theme was the same. Higher input costs evaporated some of the top line gains but price hikes could be passed on due to better bargaining power for both these companies. Here is a quick dekko.
 

Hindustan Unilever: Q2 Results Sep-21 quarter

Hindustan Unilever top line revenues were up 11.67% YoY at Rs.13,046 crore. Net profits for the quarter were up 10.49% at Rs.2,181 crore. Hindustan Unilever saw aggressive revenue growth across home care, beauty, personal care and food and refreshments.

In terms of top line revenues, the home care segment grew 15.7%, beauty & personal care business grew 10.5% and the foods & refreshments vertical grew 7.2% on a YoY basis. In terms of operating profit growth; home care grew 7.4%,  beauty & personal care grew 5.3% and the big boost to growth in profits came from foods & refreshments at 18.8%. 

Check - Hindustan Unilever Quarterly Results

HUL reported healthy EBITDA margins of 25% on the back of calibrated price increases as it managed to pass on some of the cost increases to the end customer. Hindustan Unilever also declared an interim dividend of Rs.15 per share. It reported Net margins at 16.72%.
 

Nestle India: Q3 Results Sep-21 quarter

Nestle India top line revenues grew by 9.62% in the Sep-21 quarter at Rs.3,882.57 crore. Net profits were up 5.16% at Rs.617.37 crore as higher input costs took a toll on operating margins. The growth for Nestle was driven by domestic business as the sales growth of 9.6% was driven by 10.1% growth in domestic sales and 1.3% growth in export sales.

For the third quarter ending Sep-21, Nestle saw growth across all the major categories including food, beverages and confectionary categories. While the ecommerce channel of sales is building market share, the OOH or out of home channel has also got a boost as life returns to normalcy.

Nestle did take a hit on account of input costs spike. That was evident in operating profit growing by just 7.57% and the operating margins tapering from 22.38% in the Sep-20 quarter to 21.96% in the Sep-21 quarter. But a good part of the cost spikes have been passed on to the end customer via price hikes across product categories.

Nestle declared a second interim dividend of Rs.110 per share. The net profit margins at 15.90% were lower than 16.58% in Sep-20 quarter.