KEI Industries Q2 results, released after market hours on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, tell a familiar story for the cable makers this season. Sales are flying. Margins aren’t keeping up. Consolidated net profit rose 29% from a year ago to ₹262.45 crore, while revenue grew a much faster 38.5%.
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KEI Industries Q2 results at a glance
Per the company’s earnings presentation filed with NSE, net sales for the September quarter came in at ₹3,776.42 crore, up from ₹2,726.35 crore a year ago. Against the June quarter’s ₹3,185 crore, that is an 18.6% jump.
- Net profit: ₹262.45 crore, up 28.96% from ₹203.51 crore. It was 4.3% lower than the ₹274 crore of the June quarter.
- EBITDA: ₹401.05 crore, up 28.7% from ₹311.63 crore, but down 3.5% from ₹415 crore in the June quarter.
- EBITDA margin: 10.62%, down from 11.43% a year ago and 13.04% in the June quarter.
- Net profit margin: 6.95% of sales, against 7.46% a year ago.
One thing to keep in mind when you read other coverage. KEI’s own EBITDA figure includes other income. CNBC-TV18 reported EBITDA of about ₹376 crore instead, which it said missed its poll estimate of ₹395 crore. Profit also fell short of the channel’s poll estimate of ₹275 crore, while revenue comfortably beat the ₹3,442 crore estimate.
Where the margin went
The presentation makes the squeeze easy to see. Cost of goods sold ate up 78.19% of revenue in the quarter, compared with 76.67% a year earlier and 75.23% in the June quarter. That pushed the contribution margin down to 21.81% from 23.33%.
Other income also halved, to ₹24 crore from ₹42 crore. The cash pile that was earning interest has shrunk. Cash and bank balances fell to ₹698 crore at the end of September from ₹1,513 crore in March, while inventory swelled to ₹3,604 crore from ₹2,401 crore, a rise of about 50%. In other words, money that sat in deposits is now sitting in stock and capacity.
Wires and cables carried the quarter
Wires and cables brought in ₹3,639 crore, or 96.35% of sales. Domestic wires and cables grew 45.76% year on year, while exports grew a more modest 7.27%. The company says it expects exports to pick up on the back of a strong order book.
- Extra-high-voltage (EHV) cable sales rose 26.2% to ₹217 crore.
- Sales through dealers and distributors grew 50.46% and made up 58.79% of total sales, up from 54.12%. KEI had 2,146 active dealers as of September 30.
- EPC sales, excluding cables, fell 3.78% year on year. The results filing shows the EPC segment posted a loss of ₹8.93 crore before interest and tax.
- Pending orders stood at roughly ₹5,185 crore.
What it means for the stock
The board meeting outcome reached NSE at 5:21 pm, after trading had ended, so Thursday’s session will be the first real reaction. The stock was already weak going in. CNBC-TV18 reported that shares fell 4.76% to ₹4,230.40 on October 21.
Our take: the demand side looks healthy, and the shift toward dealer sales is the kind of change that tends to stick. But a cost share that jumped nearly three percentage points in a single quarter is something we’d watch. If margins don’t recover toward the 11-13% range, strong volume growth won’t translate into the same kind of profit growth. Peer Polycab India’s Q2 results make a useful comparison, and our guide on how to analyse quarterly results walks through why margin trends matter as much as headline growth.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and education only and is not investment advice. Please do your own research or speak to a SEBI-registered adviser before making investment decisions.
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