Wipro Consumer Care revenue up 9.3%, acquires hair care giant in Philippines
Strong rural demand and GST rate cuts helped push the annual gross turnover to ₹11,600 crore, even as high palm oil costs and Middle East trade disruptions put pressure on operating margins.
Summary
Strong rural demand and GST rate cuts helped push the annual gross turnover to ₹11,600 crore, even as high palm oil costs and Middle East trade disruptions put pressure on operating margins.
Wipro Consumer Care reported a 9.3% year-on-year increase in annual gross turnover for FY26 to ₹11,600 crore, primarily driven by underlying volume growth, chief executive Kumar Chander told Mint in an interview. Topline growth reached 12.7% in the December 2025 quarter, with operating profit margin standing at 12.7% for that quarter before dropping to 10-11% in the March and June 2026 quarters. The company also expanded its Southeast Asian presence by taking over Philippines-based personal care maker S Brands.
“Luckily, the demand environment has been seeing an uptick in the last six to nine months, both in India and our international markets. A good sign is that we have been seeing an uptick in rural demand as well. We are watching [the progress of] El Niño, although forecasts say 90% of the average annual rainfall should come through by the end of the monsoon, so we should be okay,” Chander said. He added that urban demand has been picking up as well, ever since the government slashed Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates on packaged consumer goods, with premiumisation helping growth.
Much of Wipro’s annual revenue growth is coming from India, where business grew 15% year-on-year in the June 2026 quarter, according to Anita Sandeep Zutshi, chief financial officer of Wipro Enterprises. India accounts for 49% of Wipro Consumer Care’s business, with international markets led by Malaysia, China, and now the Philippines accounting for the remaining 51%. The company also operates in South Africa and the Middle East.
Middle East ops hit
However, disruptions due to the US-Iran war hurt the company’s growth in the March 2026 quarter as its operations in the Middle East were affected. “We saw a decline in that quarter in the Middle East, where growth could have been about 1%,” Chander said. “But from Q1 onwards, Middle East grew, though it is not back to last year's run-rate.”
The company also faced the pinch of rising input costs, especially of crude-linked products such as packaging, palm oil, and surfactants used in soaps. “About 70% of our business comes from soaps, which are dependent on palm oil, prices of which went up as a consequence of the crude price hikes,” Chander said.
“In some categories, such as soaps, we were forced to pass the additional cost to the customers. In other categories, we reduced discounts. In some categories we had to roll back price hikes because the competition did not respond immediately.” He added, however, that overall demand remained resilient, helping topline growth and giving the company room to absorb these costs.
Analysts tracking India’s consumer sector remain cautious about El Niño’s impact on demand “We remain watchful on rural demand as we believe that it will likely face multiple headwinds of below-normal monsoon, El Niño, and product price increases being taken by companies due to the West Asia crisis,” analysts at the brokerage arm of investment bank Nomura wrote in a note on 20 July.
“We note that until 3Q, rural growth continued to grow faster. However, many companies have recently indicated that while it is still outpacing urban growth, it has started to moderate,” they wrote, adding that companies with products that sell more during summer – such as soaps and fragrances—are likely to benefit from the weather pattern changes.
16th acquisition
Wipro Consumer Care also announced the acquisition of S Brands, a privately held personal care company based in the Philippines. The transaction marks Wipro’s 16th acquisition and breaks a six-year deal hiatus following its purchase of South Africa’s Canway in FY20. Wipro did not disclose the financial details of the S Brands deal.
“We are calling it our sweet 16,” Chander said. “This is a doubling down on the Philippines for us. In June 2019 we acquired a company called Splash. Acquiring S Brands helps our portfolio in that country, where the hair conditioner market is bigger than the shampoo market.” S Brands’ biggest offering is a hair treatment product called KERATINplus. The company hopes to dominate consumer niches in the Philippines including hair treatment and hand sanitizer with S Brands’ offerings, along with the brands from its previous acquisition of Splash.
“With this, the Philippines crosses the ₹1,000 crore mark and becomes our third largest market outside of India,” Chander said. Malaysia is the company’s largest international market, followed by China, where it dominates the country’s southern markets.
Chander, an over 30-year veteran of Wipro Consumer Care, took over as chief executive from former managing director Vineet Agrawal in February this year. Agrawal retired after spending 40 years with the company. Chander previously led Wipro Consumer Care’s southeast Asia operations and the fragrance brand Yardley in India. Anita Zutshi took over the role of Wipro Enterprises’ CFO that same month.
Source: Livemint — Companies
