COLPAL
Mid CapColgate Palmolive (India) Limited
Consumer
Colgate-Palmolive (India) Limited is a leading oral care company in India, focused on driving consumption in the toothpaste category, accelerating premiumization, and growing its toothbrush and personal care businesses. It emphasizes oral health education and strong brand partnerships.
One read, four checks
75+ is strong, 60-74 is usable, 45-59 is mixed, and below 45 needs caution. These are research lenses, not buy/sell instructions.
Mixed fundamentals, management trust is supportive, price trend is neutral, and recent execution is weak.
Fundamental lens: valuation, quality, growth, balance sheet, and cash flow.
low confidence · 0/0 claims checked
Timing lens: price trend and sector relative strength.
Rolling lens: recent quarterly delivery, not the latest single-result score.
Quarter ended 31 Mar 2026
Bad · 0/100PAT -1% YoY · margin compression · Rev +9% YoY · +7% QoQ
| Metric | This quarter | YoY | QoQ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | ₹1,595 Cr | +9.0% | +7.3% |
| EBITDA | ₹510 Cr | +2.4% | +15.4% |
| Operating margin | 32.0% | -200 bps | +200 bps |
| PAT | ₹353 Cr | -0.6% | +8.9% |
| PAT margin | 22.1% | -214 bps | +33 bps |
NDF means not disclosed in the current structured filing feed. It is intentionally not treated as zero.
Where growth can come from, and what can break the case
Q4 FY26 domestic net sales grew 9.2% YoY to Rs. 1,583 crores, driven by broad-based growth across Core and Premium portfolios, with resilient gross margins at 69.6% and EBITDA margins over 32%.
Management reports significant Q4 acceleration in domestic sales, driven by product superiority, premiumization, and increased ad spend elasticity. While full-year growth was flat, H2 showed a 5%+ step-up. Sustaining volume-led growth and managing competitive intensity are key.
Core Brand Superiority
Relaunched Colgate Strong Teeth with our best ever formulation, powered by arginine plus calcium boost, 8.5x more effective at re-mineralizing than competition.
Accelerated Oral Care Premiumization
Colgate Total (Dual Zinc and Arginine) linked to 'Peak Performance'; Visible White Purple growing 4x faster than the overall Toothpaste category.
Toothbrush Category Expansion
Significant growth opportunity in India, playing across value, mid-tier, Premium, and kids segments, with new brushes and a Rs. 10 brush.
Personal Care (Palmolive)
Foaming Hand Washes growing double-digit; Body Wash 'Moments Range' innovation; opportunity for a more digital-first approach.
Increased Ad Spend Elasticity
Significant elasticity on advertising on the Premium portfolio and overall increased brand investments.
E-commerce Channel Growth
E-commerce as a channel is growth-accretive, margin-accretive, share-accretive, premiumization-accretive for us.
Oral Health Awareness Initiatives
Programs like 'Bright Smiles, Bright Future', government partnerships, and 'Free Dental Checkup' via QR codes are driving consumption.
Product and Packaging Superiority
Products are now 100% superior to competition across the core, toothbrushes, and packaging, underpinned by best-in-class science.
Commodity and Currency Challenges
Despite all the headwinds of commodity and currency, we continue to deliver very good margins.
GST Inverted Duty Structure (IDS) Impact
EBITDA margin for the full year includes an 80-bps impact from the GST IDS impact. For the quarter, 160 bps.
Competitive Promotional Intensity
We are not seeing any let up in promotional intensity. The market continues to be quite competitive.
Sustaining Volume Growth
Our endeavor is to deliver a balanced growth between volume and pricing, not relying on pricing as much as we have probably done in the past.
Competitive Product Imitation
Competitors launch an extremely similar kind of product, which looks almost like a Xerox copy in terms of the product and maybe even the packaging (Visible White Purple).
Input Cost Inflation
There are some headwinds in terms of commodities and also the currency coming through.
What management said, and what results must prove
Issuer guidance and extracted claims are tracked against later reported outcomes. Treat these as management statements, not IndiaPulse forecasts.
Q4 results are presented YoY, showing significant acceleration. However, the full year was flat, and management highlights H2 vs H1 growth, indicating sequential momentum is also crucial for assessing recovery.
Net Sales Growth (Q4 FY26)
Domestic growth now at 9.2% YoY.
Gross Margin (Q4 FY26)
Gross margins continue to be strong at 69.6%.
EBITDA Margin (Q4 FY26)
EBITDA margins continue to be absolutely best in class at a shade over 32%.
Brand Investments (Q4 FY26)
Brand investments, just a shade under Rs. 200 crores, represents a significant step up from the same quarter the previous year at 10% increased investment.
Renewed Optimism for CY26
As we enter the Calendar Year 2026, we feel a renewed sense of optimism and confidence in terms of what this business can deliver.
Focus on Balanced Growth
Our endeavor is to deliver a balanced growth between volume and pricing. So, similar to what we saw in Q4, that's the kind of volume we are looking at going forward.
Continued Investment in Brands
We are seeing significant elasticity on stepped up investment and we intend to continue to step up investment to further drive growth.
Gross Margin Resilience
Gross margins would stay in the range is what I wanted to communicate, despite the headwinds we are seeing and the currency challenges.
Numbers and claims to verify in the next filings
| Checkpoint | Current evidence | What to verify next |
|---|---|---|
| Volume Growth | Balanced with pricing in Q4 FY26. | Sustained volume growth, not just base effect, and contribution from new households. |
| Premiumization Contribution | Increased 35% over the past two years. | Continued acceleration in growth rate and contribution to overall business. |
| Advertising Spend & Elasticity | 10% increase in Q4 FY26, good elasticity observed. | Continued step-up in ad spend and sustained positive elasticity on growth. |
| GST IDS Impact Mitigation | 80-160 bps impact on EBITDA margins. | Progress on efficiency measures, government representations, and supplier efforts to mitigate impact. |
Verification checkpoints are IndiaPulse research interpretation, not investment advice.
Trend score and candlestick chart
46Neutrallabel neutral
Technical chart
COLPALweekly · 1Y-14.7%Technical trend read
NeutralTrend is undirectional — long-term trend unclear. RSI 44.
- SMA20 roughly flat — short-term momentum stalled.
- RSI(14) at 44 — rising, no extreme reading.
- MACD below signal but histogram contracting — bearish momentum easing.
- 18% off 52W high · 14% above 52W low.
Mechanical read from the price + indicator series above. Not a recommendation — technical setups can reverse without warning, especially around earnings and macro events.
Valuation, score drivers, trust methodology, financials, and peers
Use these sections after reviewing the decision summary, latest result, thesis, management accountability, and technical timing above.
Fundamental score breakdown
FAIR VALUEWhy this score?
Top U-Score contributors and drags from the latest stored fundamentals.
Positive drivers
- Piotroski is strong at 8/9.
- Quality contributes 20/20 to the score.
- Balance sheet contributes 11/15 to the score.
Main drags
- Fair-value margin of safety is negative at -1080.7%.
- Valuation is weaker at 0/30; verify the latest quarterly trend.
- Growth is weaker at 7/25; verify the latest quarterly trend.
Consumer valuation: PE/PEG and brand-quality premium
Consumer franchises can deserve higher multiples, but only when growth quality supports them.
Stored run vs live recompute
This shows the stored score trend when snapshots exist, and also compares the latest stored nightly score with a live recompute from current fundamentals and price.
Score history
12 stored score snapshots. Latest stored move: +0 points.
Factor attribution
Trust asks: does management behaviour match later outcomes? Higher is better, but confidence and evidence depth matter as much as the number.
Healthy Trust: Claim history is still being built. It ranks around the 93rd percentile of the scored universe and 94th percentile within Consumer. Main check: results consistency is weak at 49/100.
High Trust Lite: Promoter pledge is zero. Key concern: 1/4 latest quarters had positive YoY PAT growth.
Generally investable credibility. Look for weak sub-scores before increasing position size.
overall median 67 · Consumer: 94th pctile, median 67 · Mid: 74th pctile, median 76
68 documents indexed, but claim history is not strong enough yet.
0 claims extracted · No contradicted claim yet
How to read this Trust Score
Healthy Trust · low confidenceRead Trust alongside U-Score, result consistency, and technical trend. A cheap stock with weak Trust needs a larger margin of safety; a high Trust score does not make an expensive stock attractive by itself.
Forensic breakdown
Read low sub-scores as due-diligence warnings, not automatic sell signals.
Trust positives
- ▸Promoter pledge is zero.
- ▸FCF yield is positive at 0.8%.
- ▸5 years of positive FCF.
- ▸Debt/equity is 0.02.
Trust risks
- ▸1/4 latest quarters had positive YoY PAT growth.
Trust Lite uses financial behaviour only. Prefer claim-tested Trust when enough concall claims have later outcomes.
Intrinsic value
Fundamentals
Valuation
- P/E
- 126.00
- P/B
- 165.79
- EV/EBITDA
- 117.32
- Market Cap
- 54551.00Cr
Profitability
- ROE
- 158.00%
- ROCE
- 179.00%
- ROA
- 49.27%
- Dividend Y
- 2.54%
Growth (CAGR)
- Revenue 5Y
- 3.00%
- EPS 5Y
- 3.00%
- Revenue 3Y
- 15.00%
- EPS 3Y
- 33.00%
Balance Sheet
- Debt/Equity
- 0.02
- Interest Coverage
- 217.00×
- Altman Z
- 10.17
- Book Value
- 12.10
Cash Flow
- FCF Yield
- 0.79%
- FCF Positive Y
- 5/5
- OCF
- 404.00 Cr
- EPS TTM
- 15.96
Shareholding
- Promoter Hold
- 51.00%
- Promoter Pledge
- 0.00%
- Momentum 52W
- 31%
Financial History
Updated 9/6/2026
Revenue
₹ CrNet Profit
₹ CrReturn on Equity
%Peers
Business-comparable peers in Consumer — ranked by industry, sub-sector, theme-tag overlap, market cap, and U-Score similarity. Green cells mark the best available peer metric in this table.