Colgate-Palmolive (India) put up its second straight quarter of double-digit sales growth on Thursday. In its Colgate Q2 results for the September 2026 quarter, net sales rose 12.2% year-on-year to ₹1,692 crore from ₹1,507 crore, while net profit came in at ₹342 crore against ₹328 crore a year ago. The board also declared a first interim dividend of ₹24 a share for FY27.
Profit grew far slower than sales, and the reason sits in the expense lines. More on that below.
In this article
Colgate Q2 results: the key numbers
- Net sales: ₹1,692 crore, up 12.2% from a year earlier. For the six months to September, sales grew 12.1%.
- Net profit: ₹342 crore versus ₹328 crore, which works out to about 4.3% growth on our maths. The company says profit grew 5.5% once one-offs and exceptional items are stripped out; its footnote names the one-off as a charge linked to the inverted duty structure after GST changes.
- Gross margin: up 40 basis points year-on-year to 69.6%.
- Versus the June quarter: sales were about 6% higher than Q1’s ₹1,591 crore, but profit was a touch lower than Q1’s ₹343 crore.
Where the extra rupees went: advertising
This is the interesting part. The results table shows advertising expense of ₹314.8 crore in the quarter, up from ₹225.1 crore a year ago. That is roughly a 40% jump, and about 25% more than the ₹251.9 crore spent in the June quarter. On our calculation, ad spend took up about 18.6% of sales, against roughly 15% a year back.
So the company did not sit on its better gross margin. It spent it. MD and CEO Manish Anandani said in the results release that Colgate “further stepped up investments in brand building & premiumisation” on the back of its margin profile, and that the gross margin gain came from its Funding the Growth cost programme.
On volumes, the company said its toothpaste portfolio delivered high-single-digit volume growth, led by the premium toothpaste range and Colgate MaxFresh. For a mature category like toothpaste, volume growth of that size matters more than the headline sales figure, because it shows people buying more tubes and not just paying more for each one.
Dividend and record date
The ₹24 per share interim dividend adds up to a payout of about ₹653 crore. The record date is November 2, 2026, and the dividend will be paid on and from November 19, 2026. The company ended September with ₹1,587.7 crore in cash and cash equivalents, up from ₹1,426 crore at the end of March, according to its balance sheet.
Changes at the top
The board noted the resignation of Gunjit Jain as Executive Vice President – Marketing, effective close of business on November 30, 2026. Akash Parekh, currently Senior Director, Marketing for Asia Pacific, takes over the role from December 1, 2026. Shareholder approval for Manish Anandani’s appointment as MD and CEO will be sought through a postal ballot, with October 23, 2026 as the cut-off date for e-voting eligibility.
What we would watch next
The question for the next few quarters is whether heavy ad spending keeps volumes growing, or whether it simply eats into profit. A 12% sales rise with 4% reported profit growth is fine for one quarter. If it repeats, investors will start asking when the spending pays back. If you are new to reading these filings, our guide on how to analyse quarterly results of a company walks through the line items we used here. For another consumer name’s September quarter, see our note on Vishal Mega Mart’s Q2 results.
All figures are from Colgate-Palmolive (India)’s results filing and news release on NSE, dated October 22, 2026. The company also posts its releases on the Colgate-Palmolive India website.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and education only and is not investment advice. Please do your own research or consult a SEBI-registered adviser before making investment decisions.
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