India’s carton packaging industry, a crucial link in the country’s consumer and pharmaceutical supply chains, has demonstrated a mostly steady growth trajectory over the past eleven years. A period shaped by continuous investment, innovation, evolving demand patterns, and an inflection point brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Based on IppStar’s (www.ippstar.org) financial data research and our continuous interaction with the industry to validate trends, we present an update over eleven years. Between FY 2013-14 and FY 2023-24, the total revenues of 20 select leading monocarton-packaging companies surged from Rs 2,116 crore to over Rs 6,647 crore, underscoring an industry-wide compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 12.12%.
Notably, this tripling of turnover and momentum was consistent across established players such as Parksons Packaging, TCPL Packaging, and Borkar Packaging, as well as agile mid-sized firms such as Canpac Trends and Pragati Pack. However, the combined profitability of our sample remains flat – from approximately 3.8% to 4% in relation to their combined toplines. Combined profitability rose to 5.6% of the total revenues of the sample in FY 2022-23 but declined to 4% in FY 2023-24.
The 2020-21 fiscal year marked a turning point. Though revenue growth decelerated modestly due to lockdowns, the sector’s overall resilience was evident as total revenue still edged up by 3.8% in that year compared to the previous year. Some companies faced temporary contractions in topline performance, while others, such as Award Packaging and Manohar Filaments, pivoted quickly, buoyed by packaging demand in the niche products, health, and essential goods sectors.
Cumulative net profit dipped marginally during this period, partially because of heightened competition and input costs. Nevertheless, the topline growth trajectory of our sample recovered in FY 2022-23 from the previous two flat years.
Our sample of the twenty leading companies in the monocarton and litho-laminated carton segment of the packaging industry recorded a robust 24% revenue rebound at Rs 6,689 crore in FY 2022-23, accompanied by the highest-ever combined net profit of ₹375.72 crore (5.6% of their combined turnover) —a testament to the resilience of the economy and the adaptability of the bigger Indian monocarton manufacturers.
In FY 2023-24, although the combined revenues dipped slightly to Rs 6,648 crore, this is only partly explained by the lower raw material costs, including substantial imports of paperboard. Moreover, the significant decline in profitability to Rs. 266 crore (4% of their combined turnover) does reflect steadily rising labor costs that have risen from 9% to over 11% in the past eleven years (as visible in the accompanying graph) – as well as hyper-competition and wafer-thin margins.
Readers should keep in mind that while capital expenditure and capacity expansion have been consistently rising each year in the past five years, both top and bottom lines are affected by the volatility in raw material prices and rising labor costs. Board and paper prices have mostly been benign or flat in the past two years – with converters complaining about the costs of local board supplies, and the board mills complaining of dumping by mostly Asian suppliers.
Raw material cost remains the dominant expenditure, constituting over 55% of operating revenues across the observed period. While large manufacturers such as TCPL and Parksons continued to leverage scale efficiencies, mid-level converters such as Manohar Filaments and Galaxy Offset India saw steeper material cost escalations. Together with board prices, rising labor costs were driven by wage inflation and retention strategies in competing for skilled operators and mid-management personnel.
Yet, overall profitability improved post-2020, driven by leaner cost models, automation, and operational digitization. Looking at the data, one infers that a number of mid-tier firms tightened controls during the pandemic, emerging leaner and more focused by FY 2022-23.
The years since Covid-19 have also been marked by consolidation and strategic investments. Industry bellwethers expanded capacity (e.g., Pragati Pack and Temple Packaging), diversified their clientele by entering new FMCG segments, and adopted longer and more complex offset presses for added decoration in a single pass as well as automation to meet the very high quality standards demanded by even new brands.
While FY 2023-24 saw a slight softening in growth, likely from global demand realignments and raw material volatility, the fundamentals of the monocarton packaging segment remain sound, with continuous investment capacity building. With paper and paperboard packaging perceived as more sustainable with available waste and recycling streams, the Indian industry is also aware of the paperization trends that use barrier-coated paper and boards instead of flexible packaging wherever possible.
Although flexible packaging is almost universally more cost-effective than cartons for volume distribution of commodities and food products that require moisture and oxygen barriers for their safe and hygienic delivery, innovative paper and board solutions are being evaluated. Increasingly, more localized and short-run packaging for niche products and startups prefer paper and carton packaging to establish their sustainability and organic credentials. Additionally, the government’s flexible packaging and waste regulations have kicked in on 1 July 2025, which are compelling flexible packaging to adopt more compliant structures that are adding to costs.
