Commissioning of several new production lines in India within a short span coupled with subdued order flow from overseas customers (geo-political crisis, supply chain corrections, and currency fluctuations) led to disruption of overall demand supply scenario as well as the margins. However, the impact on Cosmo was minimal as its strong and growing portfolio of speciality films is least prone to competitive pressures.

Margins were also under pressure in the overseas subsidiaries due to increase in raw material costs, weakening of foreign currencies against US dollar particularly in Japan and Korea.

The near-term outlook for non-specialty films could be challenging, and the company will continue to expand on specialty films growth.

A BOPET line was commissioned two days before the end of Q2. Like BOPP, the focus here too would be to rapidly develop value added and speciality products.

Despite the drop in this quarter’s earnings, the company’s financials remained strong with annualised ROCE and ROE at 25% and 32% respectively.

Pankaj Poddar, Group CEO, Cosmo First, said “In films business, we have recently developed some unique products which will support specialty sales growth. Our specialty chemicals business doubled its revenue YOY. Our petcare vertical has grown into 6 experience centres at Q2 end and supported by an online portal and online app is gaining rapid recognition.”