Volume growth, margins still a cause of concern for Dabur

For fast-moving consumer goods firm Dabur, augmenting growth in volumes and margins has been an overriding concern for the past few quarters.

The company has managed to improve its margin growth in the December quarter, although volumes grew less than 10%.

Lower offtake from the Indian military's canteen stores department and underperformance of its US-based business led to muted consolidated revenue growth of 12.3% for the quarter, the lowest in five years. Its domestic consumer business grew 14.5%, the least in five quarters.

At 18 %, Dabur's operating profit growth was the best in five quarters; it was helped by lower input costs. Savings on raw material costs helped the company boost its operating profit margin to 15.5%.

However, higher spend on advertising and promotion limited the margin expansion to 70 bps. The company spent 14.4% of its revenues on advertising and promotion, the highest in ten quarters.