How were the quarterly numbers of ITC for the Mar-22 quarter?

For an FMCG company, ITC did manage to show some immunity to the cost factor. However, that was more on account of the fact that it is still a business that is predominantly driven by cigarettes. Let us turn to the numbers for the quarter to March 2022. Net profits were up by 11.7% at Rs4,196 crore, while the top line revenues for the quarter were up 15.3% at Rs17,754 crore for Q4FY22. The growth was robust and showed full signs of recovery.

Needless to say, the performance was driven by the cigarettes business followed by the FMCG, Hotels and Paperboard verticals. The FMCG business improved its EBITDA margins by 75 bps despite input cost headwinds that plagued all the FMCGs plus weak rural sales. Cigarette volumes returned to pre-pandemic levels but the valuation challenge for ITC remains that cigarettes continue to account for over 80% of EBITDA. The contact intensive hotels business finally saw a business turnaround.