Mumbai, Feb 12, 2026, 14:31 IST
- HUL shares lost ground as the company reported a decline in profit from continuing operations, even though overall headline profit jumped.
- Reported profit jumped, fueled by a one-time boost linked to the Kwality Wall’s ice cream demerger.
- The company bumped up its ad budget, rolling out a marketing overhaul while mapping out new steps for its health-and-wellbeing lineup.
Hindustan Unilever Ltd shares dropped up to 3.8% on Thursday. The decline came even after the company logged a one-time gain from spinning off its Kwality Wall’s ice cream unit. Earnings from ongoing businesses slipped year-on-year. 1
HUL, under Unilever’s umbrella, stands as a key indicator for India’s fast-moving consumer goods sector—think soaps, detergents, packaged foods. Investors routinely track HUL’s volume trends as a gauge of household demand. This quarter, the market was set to filter out accounting quirks and drill into what’s moving off shelves and at which margin.
HUL’s quarterly net profit surged 121% to 66.03 billion rupees for the period ending Dec. 31, lifted by a 46.11 billion rupee gain from spinning off its ice cream segment into Kwality Wall’s (India) Limited, according to a regulatory filing. Stripping out that one-time boost, profit after tax from continuing operations slumped 30% to 21.18 billion rupees. EBITDA margin narrowed by 70 basis points to 23.3%. The company’s ad and promo expenses edged up 2.4% to 15.22 billion rupees. 2
Analysts were looking for net income to come in around 27.7 billion rupees, Bloomberg reported, but the demerger gain pushed the actual headline figure well above that. 3
HUL is pressing ahead with a major internal overhaul. With its new “Unified India” strategy, business unit heads now answer directly to the CEO, while each unit gets its own chief marketing officer reporting up the line. The company is also putting together a dedicated quick commerce platform for ultra-fast delivery orders. CEO and Managing Director Priya Nair pointed to “demand trends reflected early signs of recovery”; HUL posted 5% underlying sales growth and 4% underlying volume growth, factoring in the product mix. 4
HUL is moving pieces around in its health and wellbeing portfolio. The company plans to pick up the remaining 49% of Zywie Ventures—maker of OZiva—for 8.24 billion rupees. It’s also offloading its 19.8% holding in Nutritionalab Private Limited (Wellbeing Nutrition) to USV Private Limited, fetching 3.07 billion rupees, with both transactions set to wrap by March. “Health & Wellbeing is an important growth vector for us,” Nair said. 5
Not everyone was buying in. Trade Brains flagged the gap between core profit and the headline figures, arguing the stock’s drop was tied to an overdependence on one-off gains from discontinued operations instead of genuine growth in operating earnings. 6
But that’s just part of it. The boost from the demerger won’t be back, and HUL’s margins still face pressure from volatile commodity prices and the ongoing price battles in detergents and personal care. If demand stays soft, higher advertising budgets and more money going into quick commerce mean profitability could take a hit in the near term.
Goldman Sachs pointed to a gradual pickup in HUL’s core performance, but noted the company is “still trailing some of its peers,” as per a note quoted by The Economic Times. The firm stuck with its buy rating and set a 12-month price target at 2,800 rupees. 7
HUL goes up against rivals like Dabur India and Marico in the Indian consumer space, while also contending with aggressive private-label offerings in both modern retail and e-commerce. For investors, it’s straightforward: that standout boost from Kwality Wall’s caught attention, but the bigger question is whether HUL can drive volumes, juggle pricing, and control how much it shells out to keep its brands top-of-mind.
