Earnings Central: Beats, Misses and Everything Between

From HUL's volume stumble to L&T's order book strength, the first edition of Earnings Central breaks down what moved the market on Tuesday: the headline numbers, the commentary behind them, and what to watch next.

Welcome to the first edition of Earnings Central, a daily companion for the results season, published at 8 pm through the thick of it. Consider this an evening wrap, a chance to sit back after a long trading day and make sense of the numbers, the noise and the nuance that moved the market between 9 am and 3:30 pm.

When volumes disappoint, the Street does not forgive

Tuesday's loudest reaction came from HUL, and it was not a pleasant one. The stock fell as much as 7%, its worst single-day drop since 2020, after domestic volume growth came in at just 5% against expectations of 6% to 7%. As India's largest FMCG company by revenue, HUL is widely treated as a bellwether for the broader consumption story, which is why even a single-percentage-point volume shortfall can trigger a sharp repricing.

The topline itself was not the problem. Revenue of ₹17,341 crore beat the CNBC-TV18 poll of ₹17,235 crore and was up 10% from a year earlier. But profit fell 3% to ₹2,673 crore, missing the Street's estimate of ₹2,814 crore, while a sharply higher tax outgo of ₹939 crore, compared with ₹485 crore a year ago, added to the disappointment.

HUL management struck a calmer note than the market did. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, the company said the FMCG demand environment remained stable through the quarter, with growth split evenly between price and volume, and that EBITDA margins stayed within the guided range. It also flagged that raw material inflation is likely to remain volatile, with cost pressure of 2% to 5% expected quarter on quarter heading into September, and said calibrated price increases would help offset that.

Where HUL's investors were focused on a volume miss, Larsen & Toubro's were weighing a different trade-off. Net profit rose 14% to ₹4,123 crore, comfortably ahead of the estimated ₹3,490 crore, and revenue climbed 6.7% to ₹67,942 crore, again beating the Street. The catch was margins, which slipped to 9% from 9.9% a year earlier, a reminder that a volatile operating environment leaves its mark even when headline numbers hold up.

L&T itself used the word "volatile" for the quarter. The company said geopolitical developments disrupted supply chains and that it was in discussions around rebuilding facilities damaged in West Asia, noting that its customers effectively control the region's economy, which led to delayed shipments. The offset was a strong order book. Inflows rose 14% year on year to ₹1.08 lakh crore, taking the consolidated order book above ₹7.79 lakh crore — a pipeline that provides multi-quarter revenue visibility for India's largest engineering and construction conglomerate.

The quarter also brought the completion of the Nabha Power divestment, a signed agreement to divest its Hyderabad Metro stake, a new electronics manufacturing facility in Coimbatore aimed at EV traction motors, and a tie-up between L&T Vyoma and Nvidia to build what it called a gigawatt-scale AI factory in India.

A quieter warning sign from D-Mart

Somewhere between those two headline names sat a number that deserves more attention. Avenue Supermarts, which runs D-Mart, reported a respectable quarter on the surface, with consolidated profit up 11.3% to ₹860 crore and revenue up 14.8% to ₹18,794.53 crore.

Look a layer deeper, however, and the same fatigue visible in HUL's volumes shows up here too. Like-for-like growth in stores at least two years old slowed to 5.5% from 7.1% a year ago, and growth in older large-metro stores, typically the chain's highest revenue-per-square-foot outlets, was essentially flat. The company also added just three new stores during the quarter, a slower pace than in previous years, taking its total count to 503. Taken together with HUL's volume miss, the pattern points to a broader moderation in urban consumer spending that will be closely watched as more consumption-linked companies report in the days ahead.

Earnings beats did not always mean a rising stock

Cholamandalam Investment posted a strong quarter by any measure: profit rose 45.5% to ₹1,656 crore and net interest income increased 27%. Even so, its shares fell more than 6% at one point before recovering, as the market chose to focus on asset quality. Gross NPAs edged up to 4.5% from 4.29% a year ago, even as the NBFC's board approved a fundraise of up to ₹55,000 crore through non-convertible debentures to support growth.

Radico Khaitan had the opposite problem in the best possible sense: a quarter so strong that the market had little to argue with. Profit surged 76% to ₹230 crore on the back of its premiumisation push, and the company raised its FY27 guidance for premium and above volume growth to over 25%.

Ambuja Cement beat estimates on the headline line, with profit at ₹660 crore against a poll of ₹469 crore, but the year-on-year comparison was less flattering, as profit fell 36.6%. The company also flagged soft cement demand of around 5% for FY27, alongside a seasonally weaker second quarter that runs into peak fuel cost inflation.

Varun Beverages missed on most counts, with India business volume growth of 14.4% falling well short of the estimated level of more than 20%. Suzlon Energy also saw profit and margins slip, even as revenue grew a healthy 22%.

Not everything was gloomy. Equitas Small Finance Bank returned to profit with ₹184 crore after a loss a year earlier, while TTK Prestige shares jumped as much as 11% intraday after profit more than doubled on broad-based demand and improving margins, despite the same commodity cost pressure that is affecting the wider sector.

What the corner office had to say

Beyond the numbers, several management commentaries were worth noting.

Tata Power's Praveer Sinha told CNBC-TV18 that the company expects India's power demand to grow 6% to 7% in FY27. Tata Power backed that view with spending, investing ₹5,300 crore in the June quarter alone, its highest ever first-quarter capex, with roughly 2.5 GW of renewable capacity due to be commissioned this year.

HUDCO's Sanjay Kulshrestha said the housing financier expects its loan book to touch nearly ₹2 lakh crore by the end of FY27 and may even need to revisit its longer-term FY30 target given how quickly the urban infrastructure pipeline is filling up.

Coforge's Sudhir Singh sounded bullish about the year ahead, calling FY27 an "exceptional" one for the company on the back of AI-led transformation and cloud modernisation demand, with margins improving and, in his words, a chance to set the industry's growth benchmark for a third year running. He also expects record large-deal wins in the September quarter.

A number of other companies also reported through the evening, with profit growth well into double digits across sectors ranging from agri-inputs to retail real estate, a reminder that this earnings season still has plenty left to say.

That is Tuesday, wrapped up. We will be back tomorrow at 8 pm to walk you through what Wednesday brings.

For the full blow-by-blow on Q1 earnings as it happens, follow our live blog here.