ITC shines on plan to expand its consumer products business

07 Sep 2012 Evaluate

ITC is currently trading at Rs. 260.90, up by 0.10 points or 0.04% from its previous closing of Rs. 260.80 on the BSE.

The scrip opened at Rs. 263.90 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 263.90 and Rs. 260.65 respectively. So far 1, 03,000 shares were traded on the counter.

The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 1 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 271.50 on 30-Aug-2012 and a 52 week low of Rs. 185.20 on 26-Sep-2011.

Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 269.70 and Rs. 260.15 respectively. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 2, 04,364 crore.

The Institutions and Non-Institutions held 51.87% and 47.83% respectively.

ITC, India's biggest cigarette maker aims to venture into dairy products, drinks and perhaps even healthy breakfast foods to expand its money-losing consumer products business. Normally, it sells 80% of the cigarettes in the world's second most populous country where 275 million people use tobacco products but as India follows the rest of the world in adopting anti-smoking regulations, the company's core tobacco business is getting compressed.

The company already markets cookies, crackers and potato chips’, so expanding into dairy and breakfast foods is not that big of a stretch. But healthy food marks a sharp turn for a company best known for cigarettes. Although ITC got into the food business a decade ago, cigarettes account for half the company's revenue and even its initials are a throwback to its century-old roots when it was known as Imperial Tobacco.

The entity is at a leading position in packaged flour segments, but it has not won more than 15 percent of the market for any product category in which it competes. It also makes Sunfeast biscuits, Bingo snacks and the Fiama Di Wills range of soaps and shampoos.

ITC is not the first company to try to mix cigarettes and food. Tobacco giant Altria Group Inc (MO.N), formerly known as Philip Morris, bought Kraft Foods in 1988, although it later spun off the food company and returned its focus to tobacco.

ITC Share Price

404.80 1.75 (0.43%)
05-Dec-2025 16:59 View Price Chart
Peers
Company Name CMP
ITC 404.80
Godfrey Phillips 2731.75
VST Industries 251.90
The Indian Wood Pro. 37.38
NTC Industries 163.55
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