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Informist, Monday, Aug. 3, 2026

 

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--Aditya Birla Lifestyle: Have increased prices to offset higher input costs 
--CONTEXT: Aditya Birla Lifestyle mgmt in post-earnings analyst call 
--Aditya Birla Lifestyle: Remains confident of growth in small towns 
--Aditya Birla Lifestyle: Seeing higher traction in premium pdts segment 
--Aditya Birla Lifestyle: Working on women's pdts in Reebok range 
--Aditya Birla Lifestyle: See substantial headroom in women's pdts for Reebok 
--Aditya Birla Lifestyle: Aim 150-200 net store addition in FY27 
--Aditya Birla Lifestyle: Aim 20% sales from small towns in next 2-3 yrs

 

By Avishek Rakshit & Arya S. Biju

 

KOLKATA – Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands Ltd. is banking on higher productivity and cost actualisation to maintain its margins as the company sees costs rising 3-4% in the current and upcoming quarters, a senior company official said Monday. At the same time, the company is focused on increasing its net store count as it charts its growth path.

 

"For the second half of the year, and particularly between Q2 (September quarter) and Q3 (December quarter), we expect between 3% to 4% cost increase," the senior official said. "This is a function of both raw material prices, higher logistics costs, and, in some cases, higher labour costs also due to minimum wage impact." A significant portion of this cost increase will be mitigated via increased productivity and the rest through cost actualisation, the official said. "So, we don't feel a material change in margin on account of this."

 

However, the official did not say if Aditya Birla Lifestyle plans any increase in prices of its merchandise to cover for increased costs. The retailer has already raised prices of its merchandise in the June quarter, albeit in a small proportion, to counter input cost inflation.

 

In the June quarter, the company's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation margin rose to 16% from 15.5% in the year-ago quarter. The lifestyle brands, which are its core revenue and profit generator, reported a margin of 18.5%. The emerging business reported an EBITDA margin of 4.3%.

 

Aditya Birla Lifestyle plans to add 300 stores at a gross level and 150-200 stores at the net level in the current financial year. In the June quarter, the company opened more than 65 new stores across its portfolio, taking the total retail store footprint to 3,362 stores, spanning nearly 5 million square feet across more than 800 cities and towns. "This year, we'll have more than 300 stores as far as gross is concerned and between 150 to 200 stores as far as net is concerned," the company official said.

 

While the company continues to focus on the premium segment and expects the mid-premium product segment to be the key driver of growth in the coming quarters, it is bullish on growth from smaller towns as well. Typically, premium products find more traction in metropolitan and large cities as smaller towns are more price-sensitive. However, tier-3 and tier-4 markets are growing in excess of 15% while the metros and tier-1 markets are growing closer to 10%.

 

"The picture was slightly different two and a half years back when the smaller towns were actually under pressure and some of them were declining or not growing very much. But that's changed in the last 18 months," the company official said. The Aditya Birla group company is eyeing 20% contribution to its total revenues from small towns in the next 2-3 years.

 

The company official said Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands will expand women's products under its Reebok brand as it sees substantial headroom for growth. "Women's wear is still small (for Reebok). I think that opportunity is a much larger opportunity. We are working on products, there are specific collections that we are launching," the official said.

 

Monday, shares of Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands closed at INR 95.91 on the National Stock Exchange, up 1.3% from Friday.  End

 

Edited by Shubhayan Bhattacharya

 

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