ITC Limited

Timeline

1. 1906Jellicoe and Page travel from London to Calcutta looking for an agent for W.D. and H.O. Wills cigarette brands; Buksh Ellahie becomes the first agent.
2. 1910The Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited is registered in Calcutta on 24 August with an authorised capital of 1,000 rupees.
3. 1911The company begins partnering with farmers in southern India to source leaf tobacco.
4. 1912The Indian Leaf Tobacco Development Company is formed in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.
5. 1913The first cigarette factory is set up in Bangalore.
6. 1925Packaging and printing is set up as a backward integration for the cigarette business.
7. 1926The company buys the plot at 37 Chowringhee in Calcutta for 310,000 rupees.
8. 1928The headquarters building, Virginia House, comes up on that plot and becomes a Kolkata landmark.
9. 1935The Carreras Tobacco Company factory at Kidderpore is acquired.
10. 1946An indigenous cigarette tissue paper making plant is helped into existence to cut import costs.
11. 1953The manufacturing business of Tobacco Manufacturers (India) Limited and the printing business of Printers (India) Limited are acquired.
12. 1970The company is renamed India Tobacco Company Limited as ownership Indianises.
13. 1974The name changes again to I.T.C. Limited.
14. 1975The hotels business begins with the acquisition of a hotel in Chennai that is now a Welcomhotel.
15. 1979ITC promotes ITC Bhadrachalam Paperboards Limited to enter the paperboards business in a backward region of Andhra Pradesh.
16. 1985Surya Tobacco Company is set up in Nepal as a joint venture; it becomes a subsidiary in 2002.
17. 1990Tribeni Tissues is acquired and the Agri Business Division is created for agri exports.
18. 1996Yogesh Chander Deveshwar takes over as chairman and starts restructuring a company then facing an 803 crore rupee excise demand.
19. 2000The e-Choupal initiative begins with soya farmers in Madhya Pradesh, and the IT business is spun off into ITC Infotech India Limited.
20. 2001The full stops are removed on 18 September and the company becomes ITC Limited; the foods business starts with Kitchens of India.
21. 2003Sunfeast biscuits and Classmate notebooks are launched; Mangaldeep enters incense sticks.
22. 2005The personal care business starts and ITC Hotels is merged into ITC Limited.
23. 2010The company turns 100 with a market capitalisation of about 1,14,000 crore rupees and issues one bonus share for every share held.
24. 2015Savlon and Shower to Shower are acquired from Johnson and Johnson, and B Natural and Aashirvaad Svasti extend the foods portfolio.
25. 2017Sanjiv Puri becomes chief executive officer; ITC MasterChef super safe spices are launched.
26. 2019Sanjiv Puri is appointed chairman on 13 May after the death of Y. C. Deveshwar.
27. 2024British American Tobacco sells 436.85 million shares, about 3.5 per cent of ITC, on 13 March for net proceeds of about 16,690 crore rupees.
28. 2025The hotels business is demerged into ITC Hotels Limited with effect from 1 January, holders getting one ITC Hotels share for every ten ITC shares.
29. 2025ITC agrees to buy the Century Pulp and Paper undertaking of Aditya Birla Real Estate for 3,498 crore rupees and completes the purchase of Sresta Natural Bioproducts for 472.5 crore rupees.
30. 2026The company reports gross revenue of 80,867 crore rupees and profit after tax of 20,286 crore rupees for the year to March 2026.

What it does

ITC Limited is an Indian conglomerate with its head office at Virginia House on Jawaharlal Nehru Road in Kolkata. It describes its businesses in four broad groups: fast moving consumer goods, which covers cigarettes and cigars, branded packaged foods, personal care, education and stationery products, safety matches and incense sticks; paperboards, paper and packaging; agribusiness; and information technology. Hotels sat inside the company as a fifth large business from 1975 until the hotels undertaking was demerged into ITC Hotels Limited with effect from 1 January 2025.^[1][2]

The company's own report for the year ended 31 March 2026 puts the scale plainly. Gross revenue was 80,867 crore rupees, EBITDA was 25,208 crore rupees and profit after tax was 20,286 crore rupees. ITC says it supports 250 plus factories, 30 plus mother brands, more than 7,500 MSME partners and about nine million sustainable livelihoods across its value chains, and that nearly 90 per cent of its value addition happens inside India.^[1]

For a reader trying to understand the company in one line: it is a cigarette maker that became a national consumer goods business and a paper and agri exporter, and it still earns most of its profit from tobacco even though most of its brands are sold in food and household categories. Its 2026 report notes that legal cigarettes are only about 10 per cent of the tobacco consumed in India against a global average of 90 per cent, an argument the company has used for years against tax increases.^[1]

History

The story starts before the company exists. In 1906 two Englishmen, Jellicoe and Page, travelled from London to Calcutta looking for an agent for Scissors and other W.D. and H.O. Wills cigarette brands. They found Buksh Ellahie, a small time agent who borrowed money to take up the agency, and he became the first link in what would become ITC. The Imperial Tobacco Company of India Limited itself was registered in Calcutta on 24 August 1910 with an authorised capital of 1,000 rupees in ten shares of 100 rupees each.^[3]

Because the business rested on agricultural raw material, the young company moved quickly into sourcing. It began partnering with farmers in southern India for leaf tobacco in 1911 and formed the Indian Leaf Tobacco Development Company in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh in 1912. The first cigarette factory followed in Bangalore in 1913. In 1926 the company bought the plot at 37 Chowringhee, now Jawaharlal Nehru Road, for 310,000 rupees, and the headquarters building known as Virginia House came up on it two years later.^[4]

The decades that followed added the businesses that still define ITC. Packaging and printing was set up in 1925 as a backward integration for cigarettes; the Carreras factory at Kidderpore was acquired in 1935; a cigarette tissue paper plant was helped into existence in 1946 to cut import costs; and printing and packaging capacity was added in Madras in 1949. In 1953 the company acquired the manufacturing business of Tobacco Manufacturers (India) Limited and the lithographic printing business of Printers (India) Limited.^[4][5]

Ownership Indianised slowly. The company was run by Britishers well after independence and got its first Indian manager, Abdur Sardar Hussain, only in 1934. Ajit Narain Haskar became the first Indian chairman in 1969, and it was under him that the company began looking beyond tobacco, entering hotels in 1975. The name changed to India Tobacco Company Limited in 1970, to I.T.C. Limited in 1974, and finally to ITC Limited on 18 September 2001, when the full stops were dropped and ITC stopped standing for anything at all.^[3][6][4]

Founders and leadership

ITC has no promoter and no founding family. It was created by British tobacco interests and inherited that parentage until Indian management took over, and that unusual history is the reason the largest shareholder is still a British company. Its first Indian chairman, Ajit Narain Haskar, held the post from 1969 to 1983; Jagdish Narain Sapru followed him; and Yogesh Chander Deveshwar, who took charge in 1996, is the man most identified with the company's modern shape.^[3]

When Deveshwar took over, ITC was dealing with a retrospective excise demand of 803 crore rupees on cigarettes, loss making forays into financial services, edible oils and international trading, criticism of its diversification, and a battle for control of the company. His answer was to restructure and reposition rather than retreat, and the FMCG, paper and agri businesses that exist today were built out under that plan. He was named the seventh best performing chief executive in the world by Harvard Business Review in 2013 and received the Padma Bhushan; he stepped down as chief executive in 2017 and died in 2019.^[3][7]

Sanjiv Puri, who joined the board as a whole time director in December 2015, became chief executive officer in February 2017, managing director in May 2018 and chairman on 13 May 2019. His tenure has been about scaling the non cigarette FMCG portfolio, accelerating digital and AI tools across distribution, and taking structural decisions such as the demerger of the hotels business. Meera Shankar, India's ambassador to the United States between 2009 and 2011, joined the board in 2012 as the first woman director in the company's history.^[8][7]

Cigarettes and the tobacco business

Cigarettes remain the financial engine. The company owns brands such as Gold Flake, Wills Navy Cut, Classic, Insignia, India Kings, Bristol, Capstan and Scissors, and it describes the business as an integrated seed to smoke value chain that runs from leaf tobacco sourcing through manufacturing to a distribution network that reaches small shops in every state. The 2026 annual report records that the cigarette business continued to improve its profitability through a richer product mix and cost management.^[1]

The tax argument recurs in every annual report and in the company's public positions. ITC maintains that cigarettes are taxed far more heavily than other tobacco products, that legal cigarettes are only about 10 per cent of tobacco consumption in the country, and that duty paid cigarettes contribute more than four fifths of the revenue the government raises from the tobacco sector. The industry's counterpoint, made by public health groups, is that price and availability of cigarettes still drive consumption and that the company's profits come from a product that kills.^[1]

The business is also a reminder of how much of ITC is still tobacco. In the quarter ended 30 June 2026 the cigarette business revenue rose 81 per cent year on year to 15,384 crore rupees, on a base quarter that had been hit by trade disruption. When the cigarettes business grows, group profit follows; when it is taxed harder, the whole company feels it.^[9]

Branded packaged foods

ITC's foods business began in August 2001 with Kitchens of India ready to eat dishes and has grown into the company's largest non cigarette engine. Aashirvaad wheat flour and the minto and Candyman confectionery ranges came in 2002, Sunfeast biscuits in 2003, Bingo! snacks in 2007 and Sunfeast YiPPee! noodles in 2010. Dairy arrived with Aashirvaad Svasti ghee in 2015 and pouch milk in 2018; Fabelle chocolates and Sunbean gourmet coffee came in 2016; ITC MasterChef super safe spices, prawns and frozen snacks followed between 2017 and 2018; and Farmland potatoes marked the entry into fresh fruits and vegetables.^[4]

The FMCG businesses other than cigarettes, usually called FMCG Others, recorded revenue of 24,210 crore rupees in the year to March 2026 against 21,982 crore rupees a year earlier, and ITC says the portfolio now represents an annual consumer spend of more than 37,000 crore rupees across categories that reach about 28 crore households. Nearly 100 new products were introduced in the year, grouped around health and nutrition, hygiene, convenience and indulgence.^[1][10]

The foods business leans on the rest of ITC in ways a standalone company could not. Atta, spices, potatoes and aqua products are sourced through the agri division; packaging comes from its own packaging business; the cuisine expertise of ITC Hotels has been used to develop ready to eat and frozen products; and the trade marketing and distribution network built for cigarettes carries biscuits, noodles and soaps into the same shops. In the June 2026 quarter the FMCG segment grew 12 per cent year on year, with dairy, snacks, noodles and frozen snacks up about 20 per cent.^[1][9]

Personal care, stationery, matches and agarbattis

Personal care began in 2005 and grew under brands such as Fiama, Vivel, Essenza Di Wills and Superia, followed by Engage deodorants in 2013 and, through acquisition, Savlon and Shower to Shower in 2015, Charmis in 2017 and Nimyle floor cleaner in 2018. Dermafique took the business into premium skincare in 2018, and hygiene products, Nimwash fruit and vegetable wash and Nimeasy dishwash gel followed in the early 2020s. The portfolio is small next to the multinationals but is profitable in the categories it has chosen.^[4]

Education and stationery is a quieter success. Paperkraft premium notebooks arrived in 2002 and Classmate notebooks in 2003, and Classmate grew into the largest notebook brand in India, adding pens, pencils, geometry boxes, practical books and drawing books between 2007 and 2009. Safety matches were taken up in 2002 under brands such as Homelites, Aim, Dazzle and Ship, and incense sticks in 2003 under Mangaldeep. Both are built on partnerships with small and cottage producers rather than on company owned factories alone.^[4]

Paperboards, paper and packaging

ITC entered paperboards in 1979 by promoting ITC Bhadrachalam Paperboards Limited, which merged into the company in 2002. Tribeni Tissues, acquired in 1990, merged with it in November 2002 to form the Paperboards and Specialty Papers Division, and a paperboard facility near Coimbatore, bought from BILT Industrial Packaging in 2004, added the Kovai unit. The division is now India's largest producer of value added paperboards, with the Bhadrachalam plant described by the company as the largest integrated paper plant in the country.^[4][1]

Packaging is the older business, set up in 1925 for cigarettes and now serving foods, personal care, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and electronics customers. In March 2025 ITC signed a business transfer agreement to acquire the Century Pulp and Paper undertaking of Aditya Birla Real Estate at Lalkuan in Uttarakhand, commissioned in 1984 with an installed capacity of 4.8 lakh tonnes a year, which the company describes as a strong fit with its paperboards and paper business.^[1]

Agri business and the e-Choupal network

The Agri Business Division was set up in 1990 for export of agri commodities, using sourcing skills the cigarette business had built since 1911. It is one of India's largest agri exporters, dealing in wheat, rice, spices, potatoes, aqua culture and leaf tobacco, and it supplies raw material to ITC's own food brands. Foreign exchange earnings across the ITC group amounted to nearly 10.1 billion dollars over the last ten years, of which about 60 per cent came from agri exports.^[4][1]

The best known part of the division is e-Choupal, which started in 2000 with soya farmers in Madhya Pradesh as an internet kiosk model that let farmers check prices and sell directly. It has since become a much larger digital platform, ITCMAARS, which combines on ground engagement with digital services through farmer producer organisations. The company reports that ITCMAARS now covers more than 2.6 million farmers, over 2,184 farmer producer organisations, 11 states and more than 25,000 villages, and that its climate smart agriculture programme covers more than 7,055 villages.^[4][1]

These numbers matter to the business as well as to the farmers. Sourcing through producer organisations makes supply traceable, which global food customers and organic brands demand, and it gives ITC first access to crops such as wheat and potatoes in years when prices move sharply. ITC also says its watershed programmes have created more than 38,500 water structures and greened over 14 lakh acres.^[1]

Hotels and the demerger of ITC Hotels

ITC's hotels business began in 1975 with the acquisition of a hotel in Chennai, chosen because hospitality could earn foreign exchange, build tourism infrastructure and create employment. It grew into brands such as ITC Hotels, Welcomhotel, Fortune, WelcomHeritage, Mementos and Storii, with landmark properties including ITC Maurya and ITC Grand Chola. The chain made responsible luxury its public identity and was the group's most asset heavy business, which is precisely why it was separated.^[4][11]

The demerger was approved by the board in July 2023 and took effect on 1 January 2025. Shareholders on the record date of 6 January 2025 received one ITC Hotels share for every ten ITC shares; about 60 per cent of ITC Hotels was issued directly to ITC shareholders and about 40 per cent stayed with ITC. ITC Hotels was given a licence to use the ITC prefix for a royalty fee, and the demerger unlocked value for about 36 lakh shareholders.^[11][12]

For the year to March 2026, ITC Hotels reported 16 per cent growth in consolidated revenue and 37 per cent growth in consolidated profit before tax, and the group now spans 150 plus hotels, over 14,200 keys and 95 plus destinations. Its first international property, ITC Ratnadipa in Colombo, opened in Sri Lanka. ITC keeps the tourism upside through its residual stake while its own return ratios improve, and the trade off for shareholders is that the hotels cash flows no longer sit inside the ITC dividend pool.^[1]

Information technology and new businesses

ITC Infotech India Limited was spun off as a wholly owned subsidiary in 2000 to pursue IT and IT enabled services more aggressively. It now works with clients in banking and financial services, consumer packaged goods, retail, manufacturing, engineering, media, travel and life sciences, and has a growing presence in over 35 countries. For the year to March 2026 the company reported revenue from operations of 3,488.76 crore rupees and net profit of 497.08 crore rupees.^[4][1]

The newer bets sit around the old ones. ITC's Life Sciences and Technology Centre and its research and development spend, 212.78 crore rupees or 0.26 per cent of gross revenue in the year to March 2026, work on product development across foods, personal care and paper. The company has also put money into digital first consumer brands and is developing adjacencies in nicotine extracts, biological extracts and moulded fibre products made from renewable material.^[1]

Revenue and financials

For the year ended 31 March 2026 ITC reported gross revenue of 80,867 crore rupees, up 10.1 per cent, EBITDA of 25,208 crore rupees, up 4.9 per cent, profit before exceptional items and tax of 26,951 crore rupees, up 3.7 per cent, and profit after tax of 20,286 crore rupees against 20,093 crore rupees a year earlier. Earnings per share were 16.20 rupees. The company declared a total dividend of 14.50 rupees a share, made up of an interim dividend of 6.50 rupees and a final dividend of 8.00 rupees.^[1]

The previous year's profit needs a note. In the year to March 2025 ITC's reported profit after tax was inflated by the demerger of the hotels business, which created an exceptional gain of about 15,163 crore rupees from the excess of the fair value of the net assets distributed to shareholders over their carrying value. That is why the 46.13 per cent net margin of that year is not comparable with any other, and why the clean comparison is the 20,286 crore rupees of 2026 against the 20,093 crore rupees of 2025.^[1]

The quarterly picture has been noisier. In the quarter ended 30 June 2026 standalone net profit fell 27 per cent year on year to 3,579 crore rupees against 4,911 crore rupees, even as revenue from operations rose 28 per cent to 26,943 crore rupees and total expenses rose more than 50 per cent. Management attributed the pressure to the conflict in West Asia, crude linked input costs, trade and supply chain disruption and a high base in the year ago quarter, and flagged imported inflation as the key watch item for the rest of the year.^[9]

Shareholding and ownership

ITC has no promoter. As on 31 March 2026 the largest shareholder was Tobacco Manufacturers (India) Limited, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco, with 17.79 per cent, down from 20.31 per cent a year earlier. Life Insurance Corporation of India held 15.83 per cent, the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India held 7.78 per cent, and the rest was spread across institutions and about 36 lakh retail shareholders.^[1]

British American Tobacco's stake has been coming down for years. In March 2024 it sold 436.85 million shares, about 3.5 per cent of the company, through an accelerated bookbuild at an average price of about 400 rupees a share, raising net proceeds of roughly 16,690 crore rupees that it used to buy back its own shares. The stake was then reduced again during the year to March 2026. A 25 per cent holding carries veto rights in India, and after the first sale BAT said it intended to stay an important shareholder.^[13]

ITC's shares are listed on the NSE, the BSE, where it is part of the Sensex, and the Calcutta Stock Exchange, and it is a constituent of the Nifty 50. Global depository receipts were listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. The share traded between a high of 434.20 rupees on the NSE on 27 May 2025 and a low of 287.00 rupees on 30 March 2026 during the year to March 2026, and it was around 261 rupees in October 2026.^[1][14][15]

Employees and offices

ITC employed 22,481 people as on 31 March 2026, up from 22,041 a year earlier, a small number for a company of its revenue because much of the manufacturing and sourcing happens through partners, contract units and MSMEs rather than on its own payroll. The group works with more than 7,500 MSME partners and says its value chains support about nine million livelihoods.^[1]

Its physical footprint is deliberately spread out. The corporate office is Virginia House in Kolkata; the registered office address and corporate identity number appear on every report; and factories run from Bhadrachalam in Telangana, Kovai in Tamil Nadu and Tribeni in West Bengal for paper, through Haridwar and other sites for personal care, to 12 integrated consumer goods manufacturing and logistics facilities for foods. The company is among the top three private sector contributors to the government's exchequer.^[1]

Acquisitions and joint ventures

ITC has bought more than it has built in some categories and bought almost nothing in others. The early acquisitions were industrial: Carreras' Kidderpore factory in 1935, Tobacco Manufacturers (India) Limited in 1953, Tribeni Tissues in 1990 and the BILT paperboard unit near Coimbatore in 2004. The consumer phase brought brands rather than plants: Savlon and Shower to Shower from Johnson and Johnson in 2015, Charmis in 2017, Nimyle in 2018, and the digital first businesses Sresta Natural Bioproducts with the 24 Mantra Organic brand, Sproutlife Foods with Yoga Bar, Mother Sparsh in baby care and Ample Foods with Prasuma and Meatigo. Together those newer brands are clocking annual recurring revenue of more than 1,350 crore rupees.^[1][4]

Joint ventures and subsidiaries extend the group abroad and into services. Surya Nepal was set up in 1985 and became a subsidiary in 2002; it recorded revenue of 5,669 crore Nepali rupees and net profit of 1,289 crore Nepali rupees in its latest year. ITC's hotels subsidiary WelcomHotels Lanka built ITC Ratnadipa in Colombo, and Sresta and Wimco were amalgamated into ITC after their acquisition so that the synergies could be realised in one legal entity.^[1][4]

Subsidiaries and group structure

ITC Limited is the parent of a group that now includes ITC Infotech India Limited, ITC Hotels Limited in which it retains about 40 per cent, Surya Nepal, ITC Fibre Innovations Limited, Wimco and the acquired foods and personal care businesses. ITC Infotech has its own subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and the group's IT arm has grown into the most clearly international of the non cigarette businesses.^[1][4]

The structure changed shape in 2025. Until 1 January 2025 hotels were a division of the parent; after the demerger they are a separately listed company with ITC as a large minority holder, which means ITC's own accounts no longer carry hotel revenue, hotel debt or hotel capital expenditure. Anyone comparing ITC's numbers across that date is comparing two different companies, which is exactly what the demerger was meant to achieve.^[11][12]

Competition

In cigarettes ITC competes mainly with Godfrey Phillips India and with the illegal trade, which the company says is the real rival because smuggled and untaxed cigarettes undercut legal ones. In packaged foods it faces Hindustan Unilever, Nestle, Britannia, Mondelez, Tata Consumer Products and a crowd of regional and direct to consumer brands; in personal care the competition is Hindustan Unilever, P and G, Nivea and Dabur; in paperboards and packaging the rivals are JK Paper, West Coast Paper and hundreds of converters; and in agri exports it competes with global trading houses.^[1][16]

The competitive position differs by business. Cigarettes are a near duopoly with very high margins and very little new competition because of taxation and regulation. Foods and personal care are the opposite: ITC arrived late, spends heavily on brand building and distribution, and grows from a small base against entrenched leaders, which is why the company describes its FMCG aspiration as being India's number one and not simply a large player. Paperboards is a market leadership position built on assets that take years and clearances to replicate.^[1][8]

The balance between those businesses is the investment case. Cigarettes generate cash, foods and personal care consume some of it to grow, paperboards and packaging reinvest in capacity, and agri exports are working capital heavy but earn foreign exchange. When a section of the market worries about ITC, it is usually worrying either about cigarette taxation or about how long the FMCG businesses will take to earn a return comparable to the cigarette business.^[1]

Sustainability

ITC has been publishing sustainability claims for longer than most Indian companies and repeats them in every report. It says it is the only enterprise of comparable size in the world to be water positive, carbon positive and solid waste recycling positive at the same time, and the 2026 report dates those statuses at 24 years, 21 years and 19 years respectively. Renewable sources supplied more than 50 per cent of ITC's energy, and 17 of its buildings carry platinum green ratings.^[1]

External ratings have followed. ITC held an AA rating from MSCI ESG for the eighth consecutive year and stayed in the Dow Jones Best in Class Emerging Markets index. It remained on CDP's A List for water for the third consecutive year and kept an A minus leadership score for climate. Its paper units at Bhadrachalam and Kovai hold GreenCo Platinum plus ratings, and the Kovai mill was the first paper mill in the world to reach the platinum level of the Alliance for Water Stewardship standard.^[1]

The sceptical reading is that a tobacco company needs these credentials more than a consumer goods company does, and that sustainability reporting of this kind is hard to verify independently. The practical reading is that the programmes are real, audited and cheap relative to the company's size, and that they have given ITC a story with banks, investors and employees that its competitors in cigarettes do not have.^[1]

Controversies and criticism

The oldest and largest controversy is the product itself. Public health researchers argue that cigarette companies cannot be treated as ordinary consumer businesses, that advertising and price promotions recruit young smokers, and that ITC's arguments about discriminatory taxation are designed to keep cigarettes cheap. ITC answers that its legal cigarettes are a small share of tobacco consumption in the country and that taxation drives smokers to cheaper untaxed alternatives, and it runs the business without advertising cigarettes in mass media.^[1]

The company's own history includes a control battle and a tax dispute. When Deveshwar took over in 1996 ITC faced a retrospective excise demand of 803 crore rupees on cigarettes and a fight for control of the company involving British American Tobacco, an episode that ended with Indian management and Indian institutions in charge and BAT reduced to a large but non controlling shareholder. For years after that the relationship between the two remained a live issue for investors.^[3][13]

The hotels demerger drew criticism of a different kind. Retail investors, including exchange traded funds holding ITC, had to sell or adjust when ITC Hotels listed because the new company did not fit their mandates, and some questioned whether one share for ten was fair given the valuation range analysts put on the hotel business. ITC's position, which the market broadly accepted, was that the demerger unlocked value and let shareholders choose whether to stay invested in hospitality, and that ITC kept about 40 per cent so it shares the upside.^[11]

Reading the numbers

Four numbers explain ITC better than a long narrative. Gross revenue of 80,867 crore rupees for the year to March 2026 shows the scale of the trading businesses, but profit after tax of 20,286 crore rupees shows who actually pays for it, since a cigarette business that is under a fifth of revenue contributes the largest share of profit. The dividend of 14.50 rupees a share, on 125.29 crore shares, is why the stock is held by insurers and households rather than by traders. And the shareholding line, no promoter with BAT at 17.79 per cent and LIC at 15.83 per cent, explains the company's governance and the constant market interest in where the BAT stake goes next.^[1]

Two cautions belong with those numbers. The year to March 2025 is not comparable with any other year because of the 15,163 crore rupee demerger gain, and the year to March 2026's quarter to June profit fall of 27 per cent is not a collapse but a return to a normal base after an unusual quarter. Read the annual report for the year, read the quarterly release for the trend, and treat any single quarter's headline as the least reliable of the three.^[1][9]

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