Vedanta Q4 FY26 Results Explained

If you follow Indian markets even casually, you probably noticed Vedanta's stock jump nearly 5% today. The company dropped its Q4 FY26 results this afternoon, and the numbers were, to put it plainly, absurd in the best possible way.

Let us break down what happened, why it happened, and what comes next.

The Numbers First

Vedanta reported a consolidated net profit of ₹9,352 crore for the January–March 2026 quarter. That is an 89% jump compared to the same quarter last year. Revenue hit ₹51,524 crore, up 29% year-on-year. EBITDA, which is the operating profit figure analysts use to gauge how well the core business is running, came in at ₹18,447 crore, up 59% year-on-year.

But here is the number that should really grab your attention: the EBITDA margin touched 44%. That means for every ₹100 of revenue Vedanta earned, ₹44 flowed straight to operating profit. A year ago that figure was 35%. 9% of margin expansion in a single year is not a rounding error. It is a structural shift.

For the full year FY26, the story is equally compelling. Annual revenue hit ₹1,74,075 crore, up 15%. Annual EBITDA crossed ₹55,976 crore, up 29%. Full year PAT came in at ₹25,096 crore, the highest ever, up 22%.

These are not just good numbers. These are record numbers across the board, simultaneously.

So What Actually Drove This?

Three things, broadly.

• Commodity prices cooperated. Aluminium averaged around $2,775 per tonne for the full year, up approximately 10% from the prior year. Zinc averaged $2,970 per tonne. Silver, which Vedanta produces through its Hindustan Zinc subsidiary, averaged $53 per ounce for the year, but by the fourth quarter it had surged to $84.3 per ounce, a 165% jump compared to Q4 FY25. When you are sitting on one of the world's largest zinc-silver mining operations, that kind of silver price movement goes straight to the bottom line.
• Costs fell even as production rose. This is the part that tends to get overlooked. Aluminium cost of production dropped 5% year-on-year to $1,752 per tonne, the lowest in five years. Zinc India's cost of production fell 9% to $959 per tonne, also the lowest in five years. Producing more metal while spending less per unit is the entire game in commodity businesses, and Vedanta executed on both simultaneously.
• The balance sheet got meaningfully cleaner. Net debt to EBITDA, the ratio that tells you how many years of operating profit it would take to pay off your debt, improved from 1.22x a year ago to 0.95x. That is the best leverage position Vedanta has been in over the last 14 quarters. Finance costs fell 21% year-on-year because the company both reduced its borrowings and negotiated lower rates. Cash and cash equivalents stood at ₹28,485 crore at the end of March.

The Aluminium Machine

Let us spend a moment on aluminium, because it is doing something genuinely impressive.

The Lanjigarh alumina refinery produced 2,916 kilotonnes of alumina for the full year, up 48% year-on-year. That is not a typo. Nearly half again as much output, driven by the commissioning of Train II at the refinery. The exit run rate is now 4 million tonnes per annum in capacity.

This matters because aluminium smelting is essentially an alumina-eating process. The more self-sufficient you are in alumina, the less you pay external suppliers, and the lower your cost of production. Vedanta's EBITDA margin per tonne of aluminium in the fourth quarter hit $1,512, up 72% year-on-year. The full year margin was $1,154 per tonne.

The company also got its first metal out of India's largest 525 kA smelter at BALCO during the year. Capacity additions that were greenfield projects a few years ago are now producing actual revenue.

Zinc India: The Silent Earner

Hindustan Zinc, which is publicly listed and 60.71% owned by Vedanta, quietly had an outstanding year. Mined metal hit a record 1,114 kilotonnes. Refined zinc production reached 851 kilotonnes. The EBITDA for Zinc India for the full year was ₹22,056 crore, contributing roughly 39% of Vedanta's consolidated EBITDA all by itself.

The silver contribution is worth highlighting separately. Silver produced 627 tonnes for the full year, and with silver prices surging, it contributed 45% of Zinc India's overall profitability in FY26. Hindustan Zinc is, in a meaningful sense, becoming as much a silver company as a zinc company.

Zinc India also hit a record ore reserves and resources figure of 468.6 million tonnes, surpassing 13.9 million tonnes of metal reserves for the first time. In mining, this is the equivalent of a technology company saying it has a decade of growth pipeline locked in. The resource base is not shrinking.

The Debt Story at the Parent Level

One thing Vedanta watchers always keep an eye on is the parent company, Vedanta Resources Limited, which sits above the listed Indian entity and has historically carried significant debt of its own.

That story is also improving, though more gradually. VRL's net debt (excluding the listed subsidiary) now sits at around $4.5 billion, down from over $8 billion a few years ago. Fitch upgraded VRL's credit rating to BB-. S&P and Moody's continue their positive outlook. The average maturity of VRL's debt has been extended to around 4 years, and the interest cost has come down to around 10%.

The deleveraging journey is real, even if it is not yet complete.

Tomorrow's Big Event: The Demerger

Here is where things get genuinely interesting beyond the quarterly numbers.

Vedanta has fixed May 1 as the record date for its demerger. Since markets are closed tomorrow for Maharashtra Day, April 30 is effectively the ex-date. Shareholders who hold Vedanta shares as of record will receive one share each in five new entities: Vedanta Aluminium Metal, Talwandi Sabo Power, Malco Energy, Vedanta Oil and Gas, and Vedanta Iron and Steel.

The logic of the demerger is straightforward. A conglomerate that spans aluminium, zinc, oil and gas, iron ore, power, copper, and ferrochrome will always trade at a discount to the sum of its parts. Analysts call this the conglomerate discount. By separating these businesses into focused, independently listed entities, the management believes the market will value each business on its own merits rather than applying a blanket discount to the whole.

The investor presentation shared today even breaks down the pro forma net debt across the demerged entities, signalling that the financial separation has been carefully structured. Vedanta Aluminium carries roughly $3.5 billion of net debt but also generates $2.9 billion of annual EBITDA, giving it a net debt/EBITDA of 1.3x. Vedanta Oil and Gas, interestingly, is essentially net debt neutral after accounting for cash.

What to Watch Going Forward

The FY27 guidance gives a clear picture of where management sees the business heading. Aluminium production is guided at 2.6 to 2.7 million tonnes. Zinc India mined metal is targeted at 1,140 to 1,160 kilotonnes. Oil and gas average gross volume is guided at 90 to 95 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Growth capex is expected to step up significantly to ₹17,000 to 19,000 crore in FY27, from ₹14,918 crore in FY26. The Gamsberg Phase 2 project in South Africa is at 93.6% completion and is expected to ramp up in the second quarter of FY27. The 250 KTPA integrated zinc metal complex at Hindustan Zinc, a massive ₹12,000 crore project, is just getting started.

The key risk, as always, is commodity prices. Vedanta's own sensitivity analysis shows that a 10% drop in aluminium prices would reduce EBITDA by $641 million. Zinc is the next most sensitive at $278 million impact per 10% move. These are large numbers for a business, however well-run.

The Bottom Line

Vedanta had a genuinely excellent year. Record production, record revenue, record EBITDA, record PAT, lower costs, lower debt, better margins. The kind of year where almost everything went right simultaneously.

The demerger starting tomorrow is arguably the bigger strategic inflection point. If each separated business finds a sharper identity and a more appropriate valuation, shareholders who have held through years of balance sheet anxiety might finally see the full value of what was always a collection of world-class assets sitting inside a complicated structure.

The commodity cycle, the operational execution, and the structural simplification are all moving in the same direction at the same time. That does not happen very often.