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ITC Posts Record Quarterly Profit as Tobacco, Paper Sales Rise 

ITC Ltd., Asia’s second-largest tobacco company by market value, posted a record quarterly profit as cigarette sales rose and its paper and agriculture businesses almost doubled earnings.

Net income climbed 27 percent to 11.4 billion rupees ($247 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31, from 9.03 billion rupees a year earlier, Kolkata-based ITC said in an e-mailed statement today. That compares with the 10.7 billion rupee median estimate of nine analysts compiled by Bloomberg.

The fastest pace of earnings growth in three years helped the company’s shares gain as much as 3.8 percent today, the biggest jump in two months. Accelerating growth in the $1.2 trillion economy is boosting income for residents of the world’s second-most populous nation and increasing demand for ITC’s Goldflake and Wills cigarette brands and Fiama di Wills shampoos.

“Cigarette volume growth has been very impressive because of the lack of increase in taxes in the budget,” said Abhijeet Kundu, an analyst

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