Pidilite in a sticky margin spot

Glued to profitability

- Harsha Jethmalani

Pidilite Industries Ltd is sailing through smoothly despite a challenging demand environment for consumer discretionary firms in general. The adhesives maker clocked nearly double-digit underlying volume growth (UVG) of 9.9% in the June quarter. The consumer and bazaar (C&B) segment's UVG came in 9.3%, the best in the past five quarters. Business-to-business (B2B) UVG was 12.6%.

Note that paint companies, another discretionary play, saw a rough Q1. Most large paint makers saw modest volume growth and lacklustre margin owing to elevated competition and muted demand.