HUL announced its Q2FY16 before market closure and the market was disappointed. Thanks to the price cuts across all categories during the quarter, the company showed a 7% rise in volumes and this helped boost the net sales by 4% (YoY) to Rs.7955 crore.  But this did not help the bottomline.  Exceptional income from sale of properties, which was a part of last year, higher advertising costs, lower other income and higher tax, all together impacted the net profit. It ended Q2FY16 with a net profit of Rs.962 crore, down 3%.  EBITDA on the other hand rose 7% to Rs.1326 crore while margins at 16.7% showed a 50 bps increase. Lower employee cost and drop in cost of goods sold helped EBITDA.  

The company stated that growth during the quarter continued to be impacted by phasing out of excise duty incentives and price de-growth, as benefit of lower commodity costs was passed on to consumers. In terms of verticals, soaps & detergents EBIT showed a 4% drop while beverages fell 11.5% and personal products was the true savior, showing a 17% jump in EBIT.