Godrej Consumer Products warned that its fourth quarter revenue has been hit by the 21-day lockdown imposed across the country.

In a pre-earnings note, the FMCG company said “India, demand was steady till the outbreak of Coronavirus and slumped due to disruption of both back end and front end supply chain in the last twelve days of March. March also happens to be the start of the season for a few of our categories like soaps and household insecticides. Consequently, we will report around high teens revenue decline in the quarter. We did see low double digit sales decline in the performance of our distributors, implying that their stock levels are getting depleted.”

This update by the company provides an overall summary of the operating performance and demand trends witnessed during the quarter ended 31 st March 2020. This will be followed by a detailed performance update, post the approval of 4QFY20 financial results by the Board of Directors.

“ We have been also ensuring adherence to the lockdown and in parallel working with the government to re-open the supply chain for essential items in India. However,there have been significant issues with manufacturing, transportation and distribution of essential items in the later part of March. We expect the situation to gradually improve in the coming days, with manufacturing and distribution for essential items being restored, at reduced levels,” the company added.

Godrej Consumer said there should be a gradual bounce back in the near term driven by restoration of the supply chain, higher consumption for Personal Wash and an ongoing favourable season for Household Insecticides.