CHENNAI/BENGALURU (Reuters) – India’s Tata Consumer Products reported a smaller-than-expected 24% rise in first-quarter profit on Wednesday, as mounting expenses outpaced higher sales of its eponymous packaged food and beverages.
The Kolkata, West Bengal-based company said its consolidated net profit rose to 3.17 billion Indian rupees ($38.66 million) in the quarter ended June 30, marking its eighth consecutive quarterly profit climb.
Analysts, on average, had expected a profit of 3.22 billion rupees, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Total expenses climbed nearly 12% to 33.04 billion rupees for the Tata Group’s consumer staples arm, led by a nearly 8% jump in input costs.
Consumer goods majors in India raised product prices in recent months to counter increased costs but have had to sacrifice some sales volumes as consumers switched to unbranded – and lower-priced – alternatives.
Tata Consumer said its share of the salt and tea markets suffered a knock in inflation-hit India even as it spent heavily on advertising and promotion and launched new products, including cold brews and packaged food.
The new launches and price increases still helped consolidated revenue from operations climb over 12% to 37.41 billion rupees.
Tata Consumer’s India business, which makes up nearly two-thirds of its overall business and includes its tea, coffee and water brands, reported an around-16% rise in revenue to 24.78 billion rupees.
Revenue from its international business, which sells brands such as Tetley Tea in the United Kingdom and Eight O’Clock coffee in the United States, rose 7%, slowing from an over-10% jump last quarter.
Shares of Tata Consumer closed less than 1% higher before posting results, taking their gains this year to 14%.
Last week, its unit Tata Coffee Ltd reported a more-than-5% rise in first-quarter profit.
($1 = 81.9890 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai and Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)