India’s P&G Hygiene and Health profit drops as costs bite

Nov 12 (Reuters) – Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care reported a 7% decline in quarterly profit on Thursday as the Indian consumer goods maker battled raw material and energy cost inflation brought on by the Middle East crisis.

The fallout from the conflict has driven up energy and freight costs, raised commodity prices and strained supply chains, with corporates globally jacking up prices to counter the margin squeeze.

Here are more details:

• For P&G Hygiene and Health Care, a subsidiary of American consumer goods group Procter & Gamble, profit dropped to 1.96 billion rupees ($20.93 million) for the second quarter ended September 30, from 2.1 billion rupees, a year earlier.

• Shares in the Indian maker of Vicks lozenges and Whisper sanitary pads fell nearly 4% after results. They were last down 1.4% at 7,099.50 rupees.

• Higher raw material and energy costs weighed on profit during the quarter, P&G Hygiene and Health Care said.

• “The macro-economic landscape remains challenging,” Managing Director Kumar Venkatasubramanian said.

• Revenue from operations slipped marginally to 11.45 billion rupees.

• Several bellwethers including Hindustan Unilever and Nestle India have also flagged commodity inflation with the industry turning to reduced pack sizes and price increases to boost profits.

($1 = 93.6400 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)