Pernod Ricard grew 1% in nine-months ended March, down from 19% a year ago

MUMBAI: French firm Pernod Ricard said it grew sales by 1% in India during nine-months ended March on a high comparable base but the country’s lockdown softened its growth during the quarter.

“India has solid mid-single digit growth until February but nation wide lockdown imposed on 24th of March led to softening of third quarter performance,” Pernod Ricard’s finance head Helene de Tissot said at an investor call.

The maker of Absolut vodka and Chivas Regal Scotch had grown 19% for the nine months ended March a year ago. India, US, China and global travel retail are the four “must-win” markets for the Paris-headquartered company. In India, it gets a significant chunk from premium and semi-premium brands, mainly Royal Stag and Imperial Blue.

“We continued very strong growth of strategic international brands and good resilience of Seagram’s whiskey portfolio and Jacob’s Creek and strong pricing of 2%,” added Tissot.

Analysts feel post lockdown ends, the spirits market will see some pent up buying, but it will be short lived given consumer sentiments are severely impacted and state taxes are seeing huge shortfall which raises risk of high taxes for next two years. With Pernod Ricard India recording 5% growth for July-December, it implies a 7% decline in January to March 2020 quarter according to an estimate by brokerage firm Edelweiss.

“For March quarter for United Spirits, we expect 4% volume decline and 2.5% revenue dip and there is likely to be downward risk to our numbers seeing Pernod’s numbers,” said Abneesh Roy, senior vice president at Edelweiss Securities.