Pidilite Industries, best-known for its Fevicol and Fevikwik brands, is expanding its paints venture called Haisha into the east from the southern markets, where it was launched two years ago.
Speaking to FE, Pidilite’s MD Sudhandshu Vats said the company was targeting mainly rural and semi-urban areas and would continue on its journey of a phased expansion of Haisha across the country.
“The paints business is growing quarter-on-quarter and month-on-month, which validates our license to play in the category. That said, we are still fine-tuning our business model and sharpening our right to win. A national rollout has been delayed intentionally. We will continue to look at a more cautious expansion of the business,” he said.
Vats on national push
Apart from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, Haisha has been taken to Odisha. A deeper push into the east is now on, Vats added without specifying the size of the business at the moment.
While Pidilite has shied away from a big splash in paints, taking a more quieter approach to the business, sector analysts have been tracking the company’s foray into the sector closely. Many see it as a significant step-up by the firm in its diversification programme. The cautious approach in paints, experts said, also comes as decorative paints has seen an intensification of competition with the entry of Birla Opus and incumbents such as Asian Paints, Berger Paints, Kansai Nerolac and JSW Paints all ramping up operations in the last two years.
Pidilite was widely seen to be among firms who were in the race for the decorative business of Akzo Nobel last year, eventually opting out over valuation concerns. The business was acquired by JSW Paints. Vats said that the company continued to evaluate inorganic opportunities in its various business segments.
Vats on Pidilite’s priorities
“We are actively evaluating multiple opportunities. The focus remains on specialised, high-margin adjacencies. We are avoiding large, low-margin commoditised spaces from an inorganic perspective,” he said.
The company closed FY25 closed with a consolidated topline of Rs 13,094 crore and a bottomline of Rs 2,096 crore, a growth of 6.1% and 20% each versus the previous year. The first of FY26 saw Pidilite deliver a topline of Rs 7,307.54 crore, a growth of 10.2% versus the previous year. Net profit grew 13.6% year-on-year to Rs 1,111.57 crore in the first half. Ebitda margins were in the region of 24% in the first half on benign commodity costs, which Vats said would continue into the second half of FY26.
Roughly 48% of Pidilite’s topline comes from its growth portfolio including brands such as Araldite, Roff and Dr Fixit. While 52% comes from its core portfolio including brands such as Fevicol and Fevikwik within adhesives.
Vats said that the company was eyeing double-digit volume growth for the second half of the year, supported by product innovation, consumer aspiration for home improvement and a bigger push by the firm into both urban and rural areas. While rural areas continued to outperform urban areas in terms of sales growth rates, urban would improve in second half led by GST tailwinds, he said.