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HomeBusinessUnilever's India unit posts Q3 profit beat on beauty products demand

Unilever’s India unit posts Q3 profit beat on beauty products demand

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BENGALURU (Reuters) -India’s Hindustan Unilever (HUL) on Thursday posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by growing demand for its beauty and personal care products, which offset a rise in raw-material costs.

The Dove soap maker also said cooling inflation in the country could further help a recovery in sales, which have been under pressure in rural India.

“We are cautiously optimistic in the near term and believe that the worst of inflation is behind us,” said Chief Executive Officer Sanjiv Mehta.

“This should aid in a gradual recovery of consumer demand.”

While the Indian fast-moving consumer goods sector has been growing rapidly over the years due to rising household income and changing lifestyles, rural consumption has been hit by higher costs of everything from oil to vegetables.

India’s retail inflation has hovered around the 6% mark for about a year now – towards the upper end of the central bank’s upper tolerance band – cooling only in the last two months.

HUL said it sold products worth 149.86 billion rupees for the December quarter, compared with 129 billion rupees a year earlier.

Revenue from beauty and personal care – its biggest segment- climbed to 57.18 billion rupees from 51.75 billion rupees, boosted by higher demand for Close-up toothpaste and Clinic Plus shampoo.

Profit for the company rose to 25.05 billion rupees ($307.97 million) for the third quarter ended Dec. 31, from 22.43 billion rupees a year ago.

Analysts had expected 24.76 billion rupees, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Separately, HUL said its board approved a new deal with Unilever group, which would see royalty and central services fees increasing to nearly 3.45% of turnover from roughly 2.65% in fiscal 2022.

($1 = 81.3390 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Meenakshi Maidas in Bengaluru and Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)

Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibilty for its content.

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