Godrej Consumer margins hit hard by oil prices

Mumbai: Godrej Consumer Products said it was among the worst hit by surging input costs in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, with volatile commodity prices and uneven weather weighing on its India business despite healthy underlying volumes.

"One of the reasons why our India gross margin fall is pretty sharp this quarter is three commodities more than trebled costs," said managing director Sudhir Sitapati, referring to LPG, kerosene and LABSA price shocks amid the West Asia crisis.

"I think among all companies in India we were the ones who had the highest impact of raw material cost as LPG in particular has been both a cost and availability issue in the quarter."


LPG prices rose from around '60 a kg before the conflict to ' 190 at the peak before easing to around '90.

The company said its India business faced an unforeseen 6% cost increase in the quarter, over and above the 3-4% inflation already factored in, taking overall cost inflation to around 9-10%.

For the June quarter, GCPL reported consolidated revenue of ' 4225 crore, up 18.3% year-on-year, while net profit rose 11.5% to '504.5 crore.

Consolidated EBITDA grew 14%, while India margins fell about 450 basis points sequentially.

GCPL raised prices by about 5% but said it could not fully pass on the short-term shock.

GCPL expects commodity pressures to ease and margins to recover in the second half. "In the next couple of quarters, we should get back to a normative margin in India," Sitapati said.