Wipro consumer revenues rises 17.63%, rules out soap price hike

BANGALORE:L Wipro’s consumer care division ruled out further increase in soap prices as prices of key raw material palm oil have started to ease.

Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting—which makes personal care products, baby products as well as commercial lighting and furniture-—on Wednesday reported 17.63% growth in its revenues at Rs 754.5 crore for the April-June quarter against Rs 641.4 crore in the year-ago period.

Operating margins slipped to 11.9% from 13.9% a year earlier. “The first quarter was tough from a margin standpoint,” Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting President Vineet Agrawal said. This was mostly due to high palm oil prices, which hit the soap business. Palm oil prices started soaring in the September-December 2010 quarter, forcing several soap makers to increase prices more than once—Wipro Consumer did it twice.

But the company said it did not face a slowdown in volumes. Its household business, largely toilet soaps, grew 21% in the first quarter. Brand Santoor grew 21%, with 12% volume growth. “We were expecting an impact of volume growth. We were concerned that it would tend to have a downtrading effect in demand,” Agrawal said, with reference to rising food prices, interest rates .