But as far as investors go, a bigger worry has surfaced in the company’s results announcement. The company announced a massive 7% drop in underlying volume growth in the March quarter, compared to 5% growth in the first nine months of the fiscal. Even after factoring in major disruption at the end of March owing to the lockdown, analysts had factored in flat volumes. This was simply based on the assumption that growth had continued at around 5% before the lockdown.

But the fact that volumes actually fell, and by as much as 7% means that growth had fallen sharply even before the lockdown, and was likely close to zero. “Our analysis suggests that the slowdown in volume growth was before lock down as well,” analysts at Dolat Capital said in a note to clients. “Even in January and February, the company witnessed slower volume growth, with rural growth slowing down due to liquidity issues with trade channels,” said analysts at ICICI Direct.

This obviously has implications for analysts’ and investors’ assumptions about revenue and profit assumptions for the future.

The lockdown, of course, has intensified the growth slowdown. HUL had been growing earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation at a rate of 14% in the first nine months of the fiscal. Ebitda fell by 15% last quarter.

“HUL’s miss on volumes, in our view, could be because the peak season for soaps (in March) coincided with the lockdown. Beauty and personal care revenues (which include soaps; also beauty products are discretionary) were down 13.5% for HUL in Q4FY20,” analysts at Edelweiss Securities Ltd said in a note to clients.

The company’s comments reveal a high degree of uncertainty: “Operations continue to be disrupted… it’s difficult to estimate the wealth and income effect of the crisis… not clear if demand is being deferred or is lost,” the company said in a media call. It added that the impact on rural demand has been worse than urban areas.

“We believe the continuation of the lockdown in all of April, and the expected extension in many parts of the country in May, would result in revenue decline in Q1FY21 as well,” ICICI Direct’s analysts say.

Meanwhile, shares of the company are trading at valuations of 71 times reported earnings for the year ended March 2020, indicating that investors’ expectations are running really high. The March quarter results should ideally bring a much-needed reality check for investors, although some investors may well brush off the negative news in the results saying other industries are getting much worse by covid-19.