Why Arvind Singhal is bullish on ITC

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

«The same thing goes in terms of spending for clothing. The moment the weather patterns are slightly off, it is less cold, the winter wear per se, whatever it might be, just goes for a toss,» says Arvind Singhal, CMD, Technopak Advisors.This year has the weather pattern really been that unusual? And if yes, do you think this is just a one year phenomenon because all the consumer companies which we have spoken to, they are of the view what you just expressed unusual winter, unusual summer, unusual rainfall in the month of March and May has really dampened their sales. Is it true? I think so too because the consumer behaviour, let us put it like this, from a behavioural perspective, I have never understood the logic that if it is very hot, only then somebody will buy an air conditioner or a refrigerator.

But the fact of the matter is that people do behave exactly, you know, the temperature is 45 degrees, all of a sudden, they will need to buy a new refrigerator. The same thing goes in terms of spending for clothing.

The moment the weather patterns are slightly off, it is less cold, the winter wear per se, whatever it might be, just goes for a toss. So this is something which is a phenomenon which probably is more applicable to Indian consumers.

And therefore, any kind of a disruption in what is seen as the normal actually ends up disrupting the consumer side of the business. And of course, it leads to a cascading effect in terms of excess inventory somewhere or a shortfall of inventory if the summers, for example, are very, very extreme or the winter is very, very extreme.