Analyst Concall
Asian Paints to hike prices further, says discounts to stay
This story was originally published at 19:34 IST on 29 May 2026
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--Asian Paints: Already hiked prices by around 11% for high input costs
--CONTEXT: Asian Paints mgmt's comments in post-earnings analyst concall
--Asian Paints: Expect to raise prices further going ahead
--Asian Paints: Will not pass on entire hike in inputs costs to consumers
--Asian Paints: Expect high single-digit volume growth going ahead
--Asian Paints: Expect upstocking with dealers to happen as prices increase
--Asian Paints: Optimistic on demand due to prolonged festive season in FY27
--Asian Paints: Expect consumers to absorb future price hikes
--Asian Paints: See discounts to dealers continue due to high competition
--Asian Paints: Don't see cost inflation coming down during H1 of FY27
--Asian Paints: Volume value gap of 3-4% to remain going ahead
By Avishek Rakshit and Prateem Rohanekar
KOLKATA/MUMBAI – After raising prices by around 11% owing to high materials costs due to the Iran war, India's largest paints company Asian Paints Ltd. is set to hike prices further in the coming months. The price hikes are likely to take place during Apr-Sept as raw material costs will remain costly during this period, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Amit Syngle said Friday.
"We are looking at further price increases which might happen in the market as we kind of go ahead. And at the same time we don't intend to possibly look at passing out the entire impact," Syngle told sector analysts in a post-earnings conference call.
The company's top official said that overall, Asian Paints' input costs have risen by around 20% since the start of the Iran war which resulted in crude oil prices shooting up exorbitantly. However, Asian Paints raised prices by only 11% to keep the demand momentum in the market. However, going forward, as demand conditions remain buoyant and a prolong festival season is expected to further improve demand condition, Syngle expects consumers to absorb future price hikes as well without substantial impact on demand. Usually, demand goes down when prices increase.
Syngle said demand conditions, both in rural and urban India have been good and improvement in consumer sentiment on spending was noticed on April-May.
"We expect at least some part of this demand to sustain in the market...And we basically believe that going forward we are able to get into at least a high single digit volume growth," he said. Later in the call, he clarified that he is looking at an 8-10% volume growth at least in the first half of the current financial year.
"We are also looking forward to possibly the monsoons being quite okay, not possibly full to that extent as per what the IMD predictions are coming in. So, we are looking at overall fairly okay demand conditions and we are looking at possibly a longer festive season also," he said.
At the same time, Syngle expects the trend of offering discounts to dealers and painters to push sales volume to continue the coming months. Sector analysts said that after the Aditya Birla group launched its paints business under the Birla Opus brand, the company have been offering discounts to dealers to push sales. As a result, other incumbents like Asian Paints and Berger Paints were also dragged into the race of offering discounts to dealers and painters.
"I think the discounting intensity stays, whether it is retailers, whether it is contractors, whether it is other stakeholders. What we see very clearly is that whether it is existing players, whether it is new players, I think the intensity of that kind of continues," the company official said.
Even as Syngle expects discounts to continue and consumer demand to remain resilient despite upcoming price hikes, he is bullish on maintaining Asian Paints' margins at 18-20% in the first half of the current financial year. Given the volatility on commodity prices, especially crude oil and its derivatives, the key raw material for the paints industry, after the Iran war, Syngle is not ready to take any guess for the full financial year.
"We are also looking at a lot of measures from our side which would be in the area of cost excellence. Looking at in terms of what we can do around material sourcing, efficiencies and so on so forth," he said.
In case Asian Paints is able to cut down on the growth in input costs by means of cost rationalisation, it may be able to maintain margins at existing levels or even grow them further under strong demand conditions. Single expects upstocking among the dealers to continue as and when prices increase and the sales volume and value gap to remain at 3-4% going ahead. Usually, volume growth is higher than price growth as budget and less premium products sell more which pulls up sales volume but not revenue to the same extent.
Friday, shares of Asian Paints closed flat at INR 2,671.60 on the National Stock Exchange. End
Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury
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