Honasa Consumer Ltd’s shares on Thursday zoomed 20 per cent after the company posted an almost twofold increase in its consolidated profit after tax (PAT) for the second quarter ended September. Stock of Honasa, which owns FMCG brands such as Mamaearth and The Derma Co, surged 19.99 per cent to reach its upper circuit limit of Rs 422.50 on the BSE on Thursday. At the NSE, the shares surged 19.99 per cent to reach its highest trading permissible limit for the day at Rs 423.75.
Honasa Consumer’s on Wednesday clocked a 2-fold rise in its consolidated profit after tax to Rs 29.43 crore for the second quarter ended September. It had a profit after tax of Rs 15.19 crore in the year-ago period, according to a regulatory filing from the company, which got listed on November 7.
The company’s revenue from operations was up 20.85 per cent to Rs 496.10 crore in the second quarter of this fiscal year. It was at Rs 410.49 crore in the same period a year ago. Its total expenses stood at Rs 463.98 crore in the September quarter, up 18.25 per cent compared to the year-ago period. In the September quarter, the company’s total income jumped 21.09 per cent to Rs 503.18 crore.
“Honasa has been able to deliver market-beating growths and constantly improve the profitability portfolio of the company. Our business has grown by 33 per cent Y-o-Y in H1 FY24 which is 3.8 times the median growth of FMCG companies in India,” its Chairman and CEO Varun Alagh said.
Honasa has also said that it will launch more brands to grab opportunities in the beauty and personal care space. The company now operates with six brands in the beauty and personal care space and will fill those “white spaces” in the segment, which has good growth potential as average spending is on the rise with an increase in income levels.
“Beauty and Personal Care (BPC) continue to be the areas of focus for us. We continue to look at makeup and other parts of this segment to understand what are exciting categories, where we are not present,” Alagh said. In the past, Honasa Consumer did not have as many brand chassis to cover those opportunities, he said.
“Now with six brands in our portfolio, we do see us being able to capture a lot of those white spaces in these brands.” “But we also see a few white spaces where our current brands cannot participate and to capture those white spaces in the future, we might look at launching more brands as well,” Alagh said. However, he did not disclose details when asked about the new brands or products.