Just a quick follow -up on tea. Usually, when -- this time, you have delayed price increases and overall demand for the industry has been weak for the past 2, 3 quarters. So usually ahead of price increases, channel tends to stock up. This time around, why have you not seen that trend at all? And do you see a risk that going forward, demand could weaken further once price increases are taken?
Questions across 35 calls
Jay Doshi
Kotak
Hindustan Unilever Limited
Just pressing a little bit on Percy's question. What has to change for HUL to deliver 10% revenue growth? So, is it primarily a macro constraint or a portfolio issue? And in that context, are street expectations of double -digit earnings growth misplaced?
Okay. If I may just ask so if you are already at 6% revenue growth in second half, if we assume this as a normalized quarter, so second half this year will be 6% and if you're expecting a better FY'27 with low -single digit pricing, then double digit earnings growth should not be very difficult, right?
TATA CONSUMER PRODUCTS LIMITED
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions on profitability. Now India branded business EBIT was down 26% Y -o-Y. How should we think about now since you've taken a few staggered price increases in tea as well as price increase in salt. Going forward, sequentially will margins improve o r will there be more pain before margins recover from September quarter levels? And this is primarily India branded busine ss organic EBITDA margins. Sunil D’Souza: So Jay, let me slice it in two or three different ways. For salt I think more or less we miti gated the cost increase. So that is done. You could see us maintaining/inching up slightly the margin. I would say no significant movement there.
Was there a significant headwind from salt also in September quarter in terms of your profitability? Sunil D’Souza: No. September quarter the cost has not come in through us. Remember t he cost comes in at Mithapur which then flows in into our system. When we knew this cost is coming through because they had to buy brine because of the excessive rains, our own fields could not supply the brine. Therefore, we had to buy brine which i s the cost. And therefore, when we knew it was happening, we have proactively mitigated it with the price increase. On tea there are two things. A) in a logical world, you would pass on the cost to a consumer, albeit maybe in a graded way so that you don't pas s 100 at one shot, you pass it in two parts or three parts. Now the thing -- key thing is you have to remember, it's a competitive environment out there and the one thing we will not do is sacrifice the long term to deliver a short term. Therefore, I will -- and I've maintained this earlier market share is a very, very important metric to me. Profitability is probably the next . Ideally, I would like to see both of them there . But therefore , we will make sure we are competitive out there and mo ve lockstep a s competitors move. Therefore, while I expect the margins to be sl ightly better, I would not put a wager on it because it depends on the competitive environment as well. I've given a long ans wer to a short question, but I do overall think that they will probably move better. How much? I'm not very sure.
Yes. First que stion is a bookkeeping question on Capital Foods and Organic India. What w ill be the aggregate amortization charge for both the entities and depreciation as well? And what is the ballpark EBITDA that you are sort of building for FY '26 for the EPS neutral MAT?
Will it be EPS accretive or EPS neutral? And is this after factoring in amortization charges?
Pidilite Industries Limited
Could you explain us a little bit about your B2B portfolio, and typically, what is the visibility you have in this business? For us, a lot of that is kind of black box, our ability to predict forecast is limited. And how should we think from a 2- to 3-years perspective, will the growth rate be broadly similar to see Consumer and Bazaar, or do you expect it to grow faster? Or you think overall medium term, the growth rates can be probably lower than Consumer and Bazaar?
Understood. That's helpful. Could you also give some color on your international exports. What are the opportunities? How do you think from the medium-term perspective, especially Africa as the market?
Congratulations on good performance and good year overall. I am just following up on the previous question and just to make sure if I heard it correctly, did you mention that FY '25 will be, if not better, at least as good as FY '24 from a volume growth perspective based on the way you see things today?
Sure. That's helpful. Can you say the same about margins, at least as much as FY '24, if not better?
First, a bookkeeping question, what is the difference between domestic consumer and Bazaar and standalone consumer and Bazaar and last quarter I think standalone had a volume U VG of 8% and I think domestic had 12 and this quarter both are very similar. So, just want to under stand what is the difference t here and a gain on the four-year basis when we loo k at the numbers that we have historically reported , maybe some of the quarters yo u reported standalone or only volumes . So, that four- year CAGR comes to about 11% . So, a request if you could in the next quarter in a presentation if you can have a time series data of the past few quarters either domestic or standalone something that is consistent UVG and yes, so that is the first question in terms of what the difference is.
Thank you. Second is, what is t he cumulative price cut that you have taken so far at the portfolio level over the last six months or maybe nine months from the peak pricing?
Godrej Consumer Products Limited
Now if I actually exclude RCCL then it looks like your India business margins have declined by about 250 basis points Y -o-Y, EBITDA margin. I just want to understand what is driving this and also your earlier comment that margins will be around these levels. So if you could sort of clarify what do you mean when you mentioned that margins will be around these levels for India business?
Okay. Maybe my assumption for RCC L this year could be on the higher side. Understood. I'll take it offline.
Continuing on the previous question. So how much time did it take you to register this product in India? And when did this journey start, RNF molecule?
But comparable molecule, something comparable.
Honasa Consumer Limited
Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity. There's a follow up on, you know, TDC, Aqualogica and Dr. Sheth’s. What would be the offline contribution for all these three brands put together today? I know it's insignificant. And, you know, currently your reach for Mamaearth is about 188,000 outlets. What percentage of the outlets, either on a weighted average basis or, on an absolute numeric basis, do you think are essentially ready to onboard these brands?
Sure. Second is how do you internally track, the repeat offtakes? And is there a, qualitative or a quantitative sort of colour you can give on some of your three, four -year-old ranges such as Onion Range, Vitamin C? How have these ranges performed versus, you know, the Mamaearth brand, or in FY '24 or over the last two years? So are you seeing far healthier growth in some of those core ranges and the slowdown that we've seen for, you know, the flagship brand is largely because of the long tail sort of, lower repeat offtakes there? So how do you sort of internally assess this? And if you can, you know, help us understand it better. Sure.
Devyani International Limited
A couple of bookkeeping questions to start with. What was the revenue contribution and EBITDA contribution of KFC Thailand in quarter 4?
So you mentioned predominantly the entire international EBITDA is KFC Thailand?
United Breweries Limited
My question is for Vivek. Vivek, could you give us some kind of guidance of how we should think about the road map or on margin improvement? And internally, do you have a target of EBITDA margin in next 1 year, 2 year or do you think of it on EBITDA per ca se basis? The challenge that we are facing is that you would have done 50 million cases in this quarter. If someone would have asked me 2 years back or even a year back that when they do 50 -- when United Breweries does fifty million cases, what should be the margin? I would not have expected it to be in single digits or like 6%, 7%. So, we are struggling to understand. I think it is a broader sort of struggle that I think most of us face is that is there a structural problem in profitability, or this is a temporary issue that we are not able to appreciate better? So, if you could give us some guidance, a band, a margin band, it will be of great help.
No, no. Just if I may ask a follow-up question here. Is there anything that's short term in nature that's hurting your profitability at gross margin? And when I ask this question, it's largely pertaining to the mix of glass bottles and the cost of gross bottles. So, is that something that will change meaningfully in the next 3 to 6 months, which -- or should we expect any meaningful improvement there or that is also something which will take time?
Titan Company Limited
I've got 2 questions. First one is what is contribution of gold exchange program to overall gold procurement now? How does it compare versus last year? And I believe that 0 deduction is now a default part of gold exchange program, which was not the case earlier. So perhaps if you can give us some color in terms of what was 0 deduction gold exchange earlier as a part of overall gold exchange? And -- I mean, I'm assuming right now, it's 100%.
Understood. Second question is competitive intensity, do you generally see it rise when gold prices increase sharply because a lot of your competitors as well as their franchisees are sitting on inventory gains. In that case, when gold prices stabilize, do you see some moderation in intensity? Or you think the intensity that you're sort of witnessing at this point of time is here to stay for long?
United Spirits Limited
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just following up on your earlier response on demand slowdown. So is this also across the -- across all price points, even in the BIO, BII portfolio, you're seeing slowdown -upper prestige and whether it's across the country or some states, some more color will help.
Understood. That's helpful. Second question, is it possible for you to share some more color on progress of American Pride? Possibly some quantitative numbers that helps us appreciate it better.
Britannia Industries Limited
Yes. A couple of bookkeeping questions. What's the cumulat ive price cuts that you have taken at the portfolio level from the peak pricing that you may have seen 6, 9 months back?
Right. Now see. In most FMCG categories, what we have seen is companie s cut prices proactively even before there is full recovery in gross margin. At least that's what we've seen in the cycle. You've managed to maintain your market share quite well and also gained 250 basis point gross margin expansion over pre-pandemic levels, so do you expect that, for the category and for Britannia, gross margins of 42.5%, 43% is a new normal gross margin? Or you have intention of sort of taking it down to somewhere midway between there, 40%, where it was pre pandemic; and 42.5%, 43%, where it is right now.