House and personal care (HPC) category is still around 5-5.5%, which is not very good but the company has managed to beat that with 7-8%, said Sunil Duggal, Chief Executive Officer, Dabur.

The fast moving consumer goods major, Dabur, posted an increase of 19% (year-on-year) in its net profit for March quarter to Rs 397.2 crore.

Duggal said he saw some improvement in rural demand in March and going forward, given good monsoon and other stimulus, the HPC would grow at high single digits and the company would be able to beat that with a double-digit growth in the first quarter.

He does not expect improvement in gross margins going forward and expect them to sustain at current levels in the first half.

“The company is already sitting on historical high margins and growing on that is not going to be easy,” said Duggal.

Talking about competitive threat to market share, he said, “The downsides which happened on account of competitiveness is largely behind us.”

Duggal expect international business to grow in double-digit on back of high margins products doing better.

With regards to volume growth, the company hopes to be around 8-10% in H1FY19 and expect to do better than that in H2.