Asian Paints reported a weak set of second-quarter numbers with a massive miss on margins that came in at 12.7 percent versus a CNBC-TV18 poll of 20 percent.

Throwing light on the quarterly performance, Amit Syngle, MD & CEO, Asian Paints told CNBC-TV18 the overall environment has been really unprecedented mainly in terms of inflation.

“We saw a 15 percent inflation in Q1 over Q4 of last year and we did not really anticipate that there would be another 6 to 7 percent inflation over that number of Q2 over Q1. Therefore, this entire spate of inflation has been quite unabated,” Syngle said.

The inflation trend has been seen worldwide across the entire industry and the difference this time around was the quantum, which kept going up. "Inflation trend was seen across the set of raw materials that are critical to the entire paint industry overall," he added.

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Syngle said, “We have not seen this kind of inflation in the last about 40 years and therefore, to that extent, we were looking at a lot of measures, which we have taken in Q1 and Q2, including the price increases in terms of what we have taken.

Also, it is not only the inflation in raw material prices, it has also impacted raw material availability, freight rates. I think the inflation is something which is quite exemplary in its own way,” he added.

Talking about the price hikes already taken and the outlook going forward, he said, “Overall, we have taken almost a 7.5 percent kind of increase over quarter one and quarter two, which itself is fairly high. Given the gap between what the inflation is now, the pace of the price increases will have to go up to that extent. And even some of the quantum because this is something that we need to get into control fast, as an industry leader.”

Also Read

: Asian Paints Q2 Results: Net profit falls 29% to Rs 605 crore, misses Street estimates

For the full interview, watch the video

(Edited by : Yashi Gupta)

First Published:Oct 22, 2021 4:36 PM IST