Castrol India

“We are not giving a guidance for the next few months because it's unprecedented in terms of the raw material price movement, right?”

“As I pointed in my opening remarks, in the medium term, I do expect the profile to be out of the range as well -- it will be out of the 21%, 24% range.”

“And therefore, we're just calling on the fact that in that volatile environment, if that sustains, then we are not giving a guidance on the 21% to 24% in the short term.”

“I think our decision is clear that we will continue to invest on the parts of the portfolio, which are our growth drivers, and that's the choice that we will make.”

“So you can take that for the year, it is going to remain broadly in that same range.”

“We have a lot of work that happens in the background in terms of building in capacity, and we also have extra opportunity to drive up volume when we require, right?”

“Auto Care, which is an adjacent business that we introduced a few years back is now available across 50,000 physical stores, is doing very well on e-commerce and modern trade.”

“In the full year and9 months that has followed, we have added close to 400 customers net, and that helped us generate new business as well as drive the top line growth.”

“And in industrial, as you would have seen in our press announcement, that has continued to deliver strong volume growth, and in the September quarter, we have grown by double digit in that segment.”

“In our institutional business, we work with leading OEMs such as Tata, Maruti, JCB. These are long-standing valued customers, and we continue to work with them.”

“So our position remains pretty much similar to what I had guided last time, that there are ongoing pilots which are there. There are -- there's a bit of business that's going on.”

“The market growth on a regular year in India is estimated to be in the range of 3% to 4%. This year, it may well be a bit different.”

“Overall volumes may remain soft in the short to medium term. However, our growth engines, rural and industrial continue to grow, and we expect these to grow ahead of the market.”

“What I can tell you is in the 9-month period, we continue to track volume growth, which is ahead of the market growth rate.”

“So I will tell you that between quarter 2 and quarter 3, because we had managed it that way, the volume growth is looking healthy. And that is the reason we called out saying that market shares have been held.”

“EBITDA was INR262 crores, down 19% year-on-year and 47% sequentially. This translates to an EBITDA margin of approximately 15% for the quarter.”

“EBITDA was INR1,086 crores, up 11% year-on-year, supported by the pricing action we took early on in the year. EBITDA margin of approximately 21% for the 9 months period.”

“In this time of extreme volatility, for us, margin per liter is a true measure. And on that basis, we have fully absorbed cost inflation. Margins are steady to slightly higher.”

“Increases in commodity and input costs, along with the broader inflationary pressures began flowing in towards the end of second quarter and became more visible in the third with high double-digit commodity inflation.”

“From a financial control standpoint, I think cost prudence and supply resilience is top priority right now”

“We have also launched Magna CTX, a range of circulating oils designed for demanding industrial lubricant applications.”

“We have brought along new products such as Hysol 35 XBB, and Hysol 61 XBB, boron-free metalworking fluids which is designed for industrial machines.”

“Castrol has global operations across many, many countries. I think, the number of countries goes beyond 50. And all licenses, legal as well operational licenses, have to be procured.”

“That work stream is progressing well. Beyond that, I think the moment we find the completion of licenses is done, I think the announcement is due to SEBI, and we will follow that.”

“However, the operating environment has been unprecedented with a 60-plus percent increase in raw material bill in the quarter that went by.”

“Looking ahead, we expect the operating environment to remain volatile and inflationary.”

“We are linked to crude oil, and crude oil itself has gone through a cycle of $120-odd in quarter 2, which is the June quarter of this year, went down to $80 and now is back at about $114, $115.”

“Adverse currency movements added further pressure. Pricing helped moderate this impact, and we held market leadership”

“There could be short-term headwinds, but overall in the strategy that we had announced on industrial business continues to deliver.”

“For the third quarter of 2026, revenue from operations was INR1,735 crores, up 27% year-on-year, down 7% sequentially.”

“Profit after tax was INR176 crores, down 23% year-on-year and 49% sequentially.”

“For the 9 months, the revenue from operations was INR5,151 crores, up 20% year-on-year.”

“Profit before tax was INR1,043 crores, up 10% and profit after tax was INR766 crores, up 9%.”

“I would add that our business should not be read sequentially as the second quarter is traditionally our strongest quarter, driven by seasonal demand from agriculture and associated movement of goods”