{"id":119219,"date":"2026-08-14T09:15:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/119219\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T09:15:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:15:37","slug":"lg-electronics-expects-stronger-second-quarter-after-last-years-gst-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/119219\/","title":{"rendered":"LG Electronics expects stronger second quarter after last year’s GST uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Noida-based consumer electronics company LG Electronics (LGE) Indi expects a stronger second quarter this year after last year’s GST-related uncertainty disrupted demand during the festive season.<\/p>\n

The company said the completed GST rollout, improved affordability and a longer festive selling window due to a later Diwali are supporting demand, giving it confidence that the quarter will outperform the first.<\/p>\n

Sanjay Chitkara, Co-Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, LG Electronics India, said, \u201cLast year, we had a troubled quarter two, wherein on August 15, GST was announced but rolled out in September. There was some confusion among consumers and trade partners. The partner was carrying a lot of AC inventories. This year, things are better.”<\/p>\n

The company expects quarter two to perform better than quarter one and is confident of outperforming its annual guidance of mid-teen revenue growth and an early double-digit EBITDA margin.<\/p>\n

Atul Khanna, Chief Accounting Officer, LG Electronics India, said the company\u2019s endeavour is to consistently surpass its past performance. While maintaining the existing guidance, Khanna said the company would continue to challenge itself to deliver better results.<\/p>\n

\"\" The stock was trading at \u20b91,692.50 at 10:14 am on the NSE and has gained more than 9% over the past year.<\/p>\n

In April-June quarter (Q1FY27), LG Electronics India reported revenue of \u20b97,233 crore<\/a>, profit after tax of \u20b9653 and margin of 12.5%. These are the edited excerpts of the interview.<\/p>\n

These are the edited excerpts of the interview.<\/p>\n

Q: Quarter one has been great, with revenue growth at 15%. How has quarter two been panning out so far? You are now entering the phase that is the best for any company like yours, with pre-festive demand starting to pick up, followed by the actual festive season. Could you describe the environment right now?<\/p>\n

Chitkara: First of all, the quarter one results were the strongest quarter since we got listed. That boosted a lot of confidence among us because the market conditions were very challenging. There were cost pressures, and despite that, we took a price increase of 10-14%. Despite that, we grew by 15.5% and improved our profit by around 27%, which gave us a very strong confidence that it shows LG’s brand strength, India’s fundamentals, and that things are moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n

The best thing about our growth is that it was not a one-season-specific or product-specific growth. In fact, all the products registered double-digit growth, which shows that it was a very diversified performance.<\/p>\n

Since LG has products for all seasons, for quarter two, quarter three and quarter four, all these products have shown double-digit growth. We are very confident that we will try to beat our guidance for quarter two and quarter three. There might be some fluctuation in every quarter, but our annual guidance, which is mid-teen growth and early double-digit EBITDA, will definitely be achieved.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Q: So, the guidance is maintained, right? But, to go back to quarter two, what you’ve seen so far, is it better than what you thought it would be, or is it in line so far?<\/p>\n

Chitkara: So far, it is in line with or, in fact, I can say it’s better than what we performed in quarter one. And if you remember last year, we had a troubled quarter two, wherein on August 15, GST was announced but rolled out in September. There was some confusion among consumers and trade partners. The partner was carrying a lot of AC inventories.<\/p>\n

This year, things are better. GST has been completely rolled out, product affordability has improved, and the best thing is that this year Diwali is in November. Last year, it was in October, and we have seen that whenever Diwali is delayed, we get a much bigger window for our sell-out. So we are very confident that we will outperform our guidance.<\/p>\n

Q: How much better, Sanjay? Can you do compared to your guidance? Mid-teen revenue growth, can it push towards high teens? And even in terms of early double-digit margins, what were you pencilling in, and what can it stand at?<\/p>\n

Chitkara: This is a very long journey. We have just finished quarter one. And being a sales leader, I will definitely try to push more. But it is too early to say. Things are very positive, and we are very confident because all products have shown double-digit growth. The products which generally sell in quarter two and quarter three during the winter season, such as washing machines and televisions, have seen growth much better than our average growth rate. We are moving in a positive direction. Definitely, we will give a better outlook.<\/p>\n

Q: Atul, on margins, what led to the margin expansion in quarter one? And could you tell us about commodity inflation and whether there is another round of price hikes you think you need to take?<\/p>\n

Khanna: When the revenue increases, it always gives us operating leverage and helps in absorbing some of the fixed costs. Nevertheless, the new tech-based products we introduced during quarter four of FY26 as well as quarter one of FY27 have given us a very proven result that consumers are looking for premium product segments, which are expanding their lifestyle and providing ease and convenience. This has also added to our margin profile.<\/p>\n

We are still focused on increasing the width of our localisation, particularly localisation, which will reduce the pressure from forex depreciation as well as commodity costs. Yes, you are right. There are some challenges from commodity price pressures on profits, but we managed them well with a good price hike, which we took in April across all our product categories.<\/p>\n

We are continuing this phase for quarter two and thereafter, and we’ll maintain our guidance for an early double-digit EBITDA margin. Our endeavour is always to grow better than our past performance. This is our endeavour, to take that leap forward, and we are confident that we can deliver better results.<\/p>\n

Q: Just to clarify, you are now confident of surpassing the earlier guidance, right? You’re not quantifying it, but you’re confident of getting past the mid-teen revenue growth and the early double-digit margins, correct?<\/p>\n

Khanna: Our endeavour is always to surpass our past performance. We are particularly maintaining our guidance, which we have given, but we will definitely challenge ourselves to deliver better results.<\/p>\n

Q: What about exports? You had told us earlier that they would go into double digits in this fiscal year. I think last year it was 6%. Is it possible that happens? What was it in the first quarter?<\/p>\n

Chitkara: Export is moving in the right direction, and in the first quarter we registered around 30% growth. When we did our IPO, we were exporting to 47 countries. Now we have expanded the number of countries, and we are exporting to 65 countries.<\/p>\n

Once our new plant in Sri City is operational, we will further expand our exports because we will have more capacity.<\/p>\n

Currently, we are running at roughly 85-90% capacity across both our plants. We are also getting very good domestic demand. Once the third plant is operational, we will definitely expand into newer categories and newer countries. The Essential series, which we launched in October last year at the time of the IPO, has also started being exported to 22 countries. Export is moving in the right direction as we planned.<\/p>\n

LG Electronics\u2019 current market capitalisation is \u20b91,11,318.67 crore.<\/p>\n

For the entire discussion, watch the accompanying video<\/p>\n

\"CNBCTV18\"<\/p>\n

Follow our live blog for more stock market updates<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Noida-based consumer electronics company LG Electronics (LGE) Indi expects a stronger second quarter this year after last year’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[621],"tags":[34045,28468,2189,61685,4135,3177,61682,6856,39227,61681,315,357,61684,3154,1497,1501,61683,61680,462,818,34044],"class_list":["post-119219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lg-electronics","tag-atul-khanna","tag-consumer-durables","tag-consumer-electronics","tag-diwali-demand","tag-ebitda-margin","tag-exports","tag-festive-demand","tag-fy27-guidance","tag-gst","tag-gst-changes","tag-lg","tag-lg-electronics","tag-lg-electronics-earnings","tag-lg-electronics-india","tag-lg-electronics-india-share-price","tag-lg-electronics-india-stock-price","tag-lg-india-growth","tag-lg-india-q2-outlook","tag-q1-earnings","tag-q1-results","tag-sanjay-chitkara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}