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12 hours ago · 2 min read

ITC's revenue rose 28% and its profit fell 20%

ITC reported its September quarter on Monday evening. Revenue from operations was Rs 28,318 crore, up 28% from a year ago. Net profit was Rs 4,137 crore, down 20% from Rs 5,176 crore.

The number that explains the gap is the margin. ITC's EBITDA margin for the quarter was 18.22%. A year ago it was 31.15%. That is nearly thirteen percentage points gone in four quarters, on a business that was growing its top line at the same time.

An operating collapse of that size would show up somewhere in the segments, and it does not. On these numbers the likelier read is mechanical: the steep increase in tobacco tax now flows through ITC's reported revenue rather than sitting outside it, which inflates the top line and compresses the percentage margin without either number telling you much about how the business actually ran. ITC's own stated cause for the earnings pressure is that tax increase, which it says has held legal cigarette volumes down while pushing some demand towards illicit trade.

The parts of ITC that are not cigarettes had a good quarter. Biscuits, snacks, noodles, spices, salt, frozen snacks, homecare and notebooks each grew more than 20%. Dairy and personal wash grew in the high teens. Paperboards revenue rose 36% and that segment's profit before interest and tax rose 48%. The agri business grew 12%, held back by weaker domestic leaf tobacco demand after the tax change.

The one line worth keeping is the digital-first and organic portfolio, where revenue rose over 70% and annual recurring revenue crossed Rs 1,800 crore. That is still small against Rs 28,318 crore, but it is the only part of ITC growing at a rate that could change the company's shape.

The question this quarter raises is not whether ITC can grow without cigarettes. It already does. It is whether the cigarette business can keep funding that growth while the tax base keeps moving. ITC describes its pricing response as calibrated, which is the language of a company choosing to absorb some of the increase rather than pass all of it on. That protects volume and shares the pain with the P&L.

For everyone selling into the same shelves, the more useful signal is the FMCG segment's margin, which improved more than 50 basis points both year on year and sequentially. Biscuits, snacks and spices growing above 20% with margins rising at the same time suggests ITC is getting price alongside volume in packaged foods — the opposite of what several listed FMCG peers reported this quarter, where revenue grew and margins slipped.

The caveat is that a single quarter of a tax transition is a poor base for anything. Until there are four clean quarters under the new tobacco structure, the year-on-year margin comparison for ITC is close to meaningless, and anyone quoting the 18% figure as a deterioration in the business is reading an accounting line as an operating one.

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Startup Funding · yesterday

Indian startups raised $678 million in October, 47.5% less than in September

Entrackr's monthly count puts October's funding into Indian startups at about $678 million across 108 deals. September was $1.29 billion. October last year was $1.73 billion, so the fall is 60.8% year on year.

The split inside that number is the part worth reading. Growth and late-stage rounds accounted for $414.6 million across 20 deals; early-stage took $263 million across 79. Twenty cheques carried nearly two-thirds of the month's money, which means a single large round landing or slipping a week moves the headline figure more than any change in underlying activity does.

Bengaluru took about $420 million, roughly 62% of everything raised, across 52 deals. Delhi-NCR took $110 crore worth — $110.26 million — across 18. E-commerce led sectors at $182.69 million, followed by AI at $131.12 million and healthtech at $104.61 million. One semiconductor deal, Tessolve's $75 million, was the month's largest.

A month this concentrated is better read as a deal-timing artefact than as a verdict on sentiment. The more durable observation is the deal count: 108 deals, 79 of them early-stage, is a reasonably busy month. Capital is being committed; it is the large rounds that are arriving in clumps.

What that does to founders is uneven. An early-stage round is still gettable — the number of them says so. A growth round now competes for a pool that in October was effectively twenty slots nationally, and more than half of those were in one city.

Amara Raja · yesterday

Amara Raja's profit fell 45% to Rs 152 crore, and it is putting Rs 100 crore into vehicle servicing

Amara Raja Energy & Mobility reported September-quarter net profit of Rs 152 crore, down 45% year on year. On the same day, its board approved a wholly-owned subsidiary that will offer automotive maintenance, battery servicing, vehicle care and roadside assistance under the Amaron Assist brand, with an initial commitment of up to Rs 100 crore released in tranches.

The subsidiary is to be incorporated in Telangana within two months and Amara Raja will hold all of it. The company says it will build on the retail and distribution network it already has — which is the whole argument. Amaron sits in tens of thousands of battery shops and workshops across India, and a battery sale is already a service visit in everything but name.

The read is that a components maker watching its margins compress is trying to buy a second revenue line out of an asset it has not monetised: the service occasion. Whether that works depends on something the announcement does not cover — no revenue target, no outlet count, no launch date was given.

The structural logic is sound even if the execution is unproven. A lead-acid battery is a three-to-five year replacement cycle with almost no contact in between, so the brand has a relationship with the mechanic rather than with the car owner. Owning the service layer puts Amara Raja in front of the owner, which is where pricing power and repeat revenue sit.

The risk is that organised vehicle servicing in India is already crowded with players who have been at it longer and are still not comfortably profitable. Rs 100 crore in tranches is small enough to read as an option rather than a commitment, which is probably the right way to size it.

iD Fresh Food · yesterday

iD Fresh Food's revenue reached Rs 870 crore and its operating profit more than tripled

iD Fresh Food's FY26 operating revenue was Rs 870 crore, up 27.7% from Rs 681 crore. Profit before tax and exceptional items was Rs 79 crore, against Rs 24 crore the year before. EBITDA was Rs 111 crore at a 13% margin, and return on capital employed was 17.4%.

Expenses grew 20.5% to Rs 801 crore while revenue grew 27.7%, which is where the profit came from. Raw materials at Rs 394 crore were about 49% of all spending. Employee costs rose 16% to Rs 168 crore.

Manufactured products — the parathas and the batters — contributed Rs 671 crore, about 75% of operating income. The rest is traded goods: curd, paneer, chapatis, coffee, beverages, frozen fruit. A fresh-food business holding a 13% EBITDA margin on a cold chain running from Bengaluru to Ajman is a harder operational result than the revenue number suggests, because the spoilage risk sits entirely with the company.

The reason this matters beyond iD is that it tests whether fresh, short-shelf-life packaged food can carry FMCG-style margins in India. The usual answer is that it cannot — cold chain, returns and wastage eat the gap. Rs 79 crore of pre-exceptional profit on Rs 870 crore says it can, at least at this scale and in these cities.

There is a large exceptional line of Rs 713 crore in the accounts, mostly fair-value movement on preference shares and a gain from deconsolidating a subsidiary. It has nothing to do with how the business traded, and the operating numbers above exclude it.

DeHaat · yesterday

DeHaat's revenue fell 9.8% to Rs 2,715 crore and its loss grew to Rs 224 crore

DeHaat's FY26 consolidated operating revenue was Rs 2,715 crore, down 9.8% from Rs 3,010 crore. Its loss, excluding a Rs 578 crore fair-value gain on preference shares, was Rs 224 crore against Rs 201 crore the previous year.

Total expenditure fell 8.3% to Rs 2,972 crore, and procurement of materials — about 80% of everything it spends — fell 11.7% to Rs 2,390 crore. Employee costs fell 9.1%. A company cutting procurement faster than revenue is usually choosing to trade less, not failing to find buyers.

Input sales of seeds, fertiliser and farm products were Rs 517 crore, about 19% of revenue. The remainder is the produce side. India accounted for 83% of revenue. The read is that DeHaat is walking away from low-margin produce volume to get to profitability, and the loss still widened, which suggests the costs it cannot cut are the ones that matter.

Agri marketplaces in India have mostly grown by buying and reselling produce, which is revenue with almost no margin attached. Shrinking that line deliberately is the correct move and it makes the reported numbers look worse for at least a year. The thing to watch is whether the input business — the Rs 517 crore with real margin in it — starts growing as the produce line comes down.

It has not yet. Revenue fell and the loss grew in the same year, which means the mix shift has not paid for itself so far.

MobiKwik · yesterday

MobiKwik made Rs 11.8 crore last quarter, its highest profit ever

MobiKwik reported Q2 FY27 operating revenue of Rs 295.7 crore, up 9.4% year on year, and profit after tax of Rs 11.8 crore. A year ago it lost Rs 28.6 crore in the same quarter. EBITDA was Rs 22.7 crore, and this is its fourth consecutive profitable quarter.

The profit did not come from growth. Revenue rose about Rs 25 crore year on year while total expenses fell about Rs 5 crore, to Rs 290.9 crore. Payment gateway charges alone are over 42% of costs. Employee expenses went the other way, up 59% to Rs 56.2 crore.

Platform GMV rose 35% to Rs 59,677 crore and lending disbursals rose 34% to Rs 1,082.6 crore. GMV growing at 35% while revenue grows at 9.4% is the sentence that matters: MobiKwik is moving a lot more money and keeping a thinner slice of it, which is what payments economics in India do to everyone who runs them.

Rs 11.8 crore of quarterly profit against a Rs 1,770 crore market capitalisation is not yet a valuation story. What it is, is evidence that the cost line can be held flat while volume grows, which is the only route to profit available in Indian payments once the take rate is fixed by regulation.

The pressure point is the 59% jump in employee cost. Whatever that is funding — lending, tech platform services — it has to produce revenue that carries a better margin than recharge commissions, or the next few quarters give back the gain.

⚡ 30-Second Scan

Ola Electric has allotted 37 crore partly paid-up shares under its rights issue.

Norton is entering the mid-capacity motorcycle segment with a 450cc bike.

Razorpay has its final IFSCA licence to move money cross-border out of GIFT City.

Sourced from public reporting; analysis by The Insight Labs.

Sources: ITC filing, Upstox, Business Standard, Entrackr monthly funding report, Autocar Professional, Entrackr (regulatory filings), Entrackr (company results).

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