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Informist, Thursday, Apr. 30, 2026

 

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--HUL: Not worried about rural demand being impacted by weaker monsoon
--CONTEXT: Comments by HUL mgmt in post-earnings briefing for newswires
--HUL: Looking at efficiencies in media spend to optimise costs
--HUL: Foods segment has seen lowest impact of price hikes so far
--HUL: Demand today is stable, saw broad-based growth
--HUL: Will get Minimalist into our underlying sales growth in next quarter

 

MUMBAI – Hindustan Unilever Ltd. Thursday said its premium skincare brand Minimalist, which it bought from Uprising Science Pvt. Ltd. last year, will be part of its underlying sales growth calculations from the June quarter. "Minimalist is not in our underlying sales growth (for the March quarter), but it is in our revenue growth," Chief Executive Officer Priya Nair told reporters in a post-earnings briefing Thursday.

 

"Minimalist today is already at an INR 850 crore (INR 8.50 billion) ARR (annual revenue runrate) and is performing well for us," Nair said. "Overall, across all our premium messaging segments, now between Minimalist or Zebra, Simple and Nexus, or the other brands, we have a 1,400 crore (INR 14 billion) ARR in our messaging business, and this is performing strongly for us."

 

Earlier in the day, the company reported a net profit of INR 29.30 billion for the March quarter on revenues of INR 157.33 billion. Profit exceeded expectations but revenue did not. The company reported a consolidated underlying sales growth of 7% for the quarter, driven by consolidated underlying volume growth of 6%.

 

"The performance (in the March quarter) was broad-based across our categories. This marks our highest growth in 12 quarters and reflects both the ongoing portfolio transformation and stronger, more consistent execution on the ground," Niranjan Gupta, Hindustan Unilever's chief financial officer, said.

 

The fast-moving consumer goods major raised prices by 2–5?ross its portfolio to pass on the burden of the 8-10% rise in commodity costs. "In the short term, we may see some rebalancing between volume and price growth. However, our categories are relatively inelastic or face low elasticity, given that we are talking about daily consumption essential characteristics," Gupta said. Segments such as home care products, followed by personal care products, have faced the brunt of price hikes while segments such as foods have not.

 

To bridge the gap between the quantum of price hikes and the rise in commodity costs, HUL is also undertaking certain cost-saving measures. "We are looking at efficiencies in our media spends because it (HUL) started deploying AI-based models as far as media is concerned," Gupta said. "We are looking at optimisation on the overlays. There are multiple lines where you can optimise in order to make sure that ... you are passing on the pricing, which is the right pricing from the consumer point of view."

 

The FMCG bellwether company saw uptake in both rural and urban areas; however, rural areas are performing slightly better in offline sales. Going forward, the company does not expect demand in rural areas to be affected as much by the outlook of a weaker monsoon season. This is because of balancing factors such as higher reservoir levels when compared to a year ago, an increase in the minimum selling price of certain crops, which has increased rural incomes, and the spread of the monsoon across India, Gupta said.

 

Thursday, shares of Hindustan Unilever closed 2.7% lower at INR 2,250.90 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

 

Reported by Anand JC and Arundathi A R

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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