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Informist, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025

 

--HUL: Implemented pricing, grammage changes in Q2 in 1,200 SKUs post GST cut

--CONTEXT: Comments by HUL management in post-earnings press conference

--HUL: Expect prices to increase after fall in homecare business going ahead

--HUL: Expect volume-driven growth in H2 in all business verticals

--HUL: Product categories benefiting from GST cuts to see no price hike

--HUL: See low single-digit rate hike in pdt segments not gaining from GST cut

--HUL: May hike prices across 60% of portfolio if commodity costs increase

 

MUMBAI - Fast-moving consumer goods major Hindustan Unilever Ltd. Thursday said it may hike prices across 60% of its product portfolio if commodity prices go up, but the increase will be in low single-digit. The rest 40% of the portfolio, which benefitted from the recent cuts in goods and services tax rates, will be kept out of the ambit of any price hikes.

 

"Going forward, with all the GST changes, there is no price change we are planning for all the GST-impacted categories. Because we have done all the price changes, the focus now will be to stabilise this price in the market," Ritesh Tiwari, executive director - finance & IT, and chief financial officer at HUL, told mediapersons in an online press conference while answering to a question from Informist post the company's September quarter results.

 

However, for the 60% of the business which did not see any benefit from the GST cuts, HUL will monitor commodity price movements in these categories and take a call on price increases based on procurement costs going up. For instance, palm oil costs have been on the rise. This crucial oil is used both in edible and personal care products by the consumer goods companies. 

 

After reducing prices in its homecare portfolio due to higher competitive intensity in the September quarter, the country's largest fast moving consumer goods company is planning to increase prices of products housed under this business segment. The homecare segment is the single-largest business vertical for HUL accounting for over 37% of the top line and 33% of the bottom line.

 

While HUL is eyeing the price increase to improve its revenues in the second half of the current financial year and expects Oct-Mar period to fare better than Apr-Sept, the company is hopeful of posting volume growth in the second half of the current fiscal despite the planned price increases.

 

"We do expect our volume growth to be better in the second half of the financial year, compared to the first half financial year," Tiwari said.

 

He said that in the first half of the current year, HUL registered a 2% underlying volume growth. "We expect this volume growth to accelerate in second half. And there are multiple reasons why we believe this should happen." He reasoned that the overall macroeconomic environment in the country is conducive to improve consumer demand and the monetary policy and GST cuts will improve the macroeconomic environment further by boosting consumer demand. The monsoon was also good which is expected to improve rural demand.

 

After the government cut GST rates, HUL had reduced prices or increased grammage across 1,200 stock keeping units to pass on the taxation benefits to consumers.

 

At 1339 IST, shares of HUL traded 0.8% higher at INR 2,613.30 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

 

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Reported by Avishek Rakshit & Shakshi Jain

Edited by Vandana Hingorani

 

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