Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the management of Dabur India Limited, I welcome you to the earnings conference call pertaining to the results for the quarter ended 31st December 2025.

Present here with me are Mr. Mohit Malhotra, Chief Executive Officer; Mr.

Ankush Jain, Chief Financial Officer; and Ms. Gagan Ahluwalia, VP, Corporate Affairs.

We will start with an overview of the company's performance by Mr. Mohit Malhotra, and this will be followed by a Q&A session.

I'll now hand over to Mr. Mohit Malhotra.

Thank you.

Thank you, Isha. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

We welcome you to Dabur India Limited's conference call pertaining to the results for the quarter ended 31st December 2025. Demand trends in India witnessed a gradual recovery following the GST rate cuts.

While the month of October experienced transient headwinds due to GST transition, demand improved over rest of the quarter. Rural markets continue to outperform urban markets consistent with recent quarters.

In quarter three, consolidated revenue of Dabur grew by 6.1% year-on-year with domestic FMCG business growing at 6% year-on-year on back of volume growth of 3% year-on-year. In the India business, HPC portfolio continued its strong performance and recorded double of 10.6% growth year-on-year.

Within hair care, hair oil portfolio registered a robust growth of 19.1% year-on-year with both perfumed and coconut oils growing in double digits. We outpaced the category growth and gained market share of 193 bps with overall volume market share touching all-time high of 20%.

Shampoo posted 6.2% growth this quarter. We remain focused on premiumization and expansion into new-age offerings in both hair oils and shampoos.

The toothpaste portfolio delivered a robust growth of 10% with a flagship brand, Dabur Red Toothpaste, sustaining its growth momentum. Meswak and Herbal registered strong growth of 25% each.

The herbal segment grew 530 basis points ahead of non-herbal segment, highlighting a strong and sustained consumer shift towards the natural and herbal oral care products. Capitalizing on this trend, our portfolio outperformed overall category growth, driving gains in market shares.

Skin care portfolio registered a mid-single-digit growth. Bleach portfolio and facial kits performed well during the quarter.

Within home care, Sanifresh recorded a high single-digit growth. Odonil gel pockets and aerosols posted a high double-digit growth, resulting in market share gains of 131 bps in air freshener category.

In the health care category, health supplements grew in low single digit. Honey recorded a strong volume-led growth of 10%.

Chyawanprash remained flattish primarily due to excess inventory in the trade. However, off-takes grew by 11% during the quarter, resulting in a higher secondary sales and gain of 52 bps in market shares.

The premium portfolio of Gur Chyawanprash and Ratnaprash recorded a strong double-digit growth. In the digestive portfolio, Hajmola franchise posted a 7% growth driven by double-digit growth in candies.

New variants such as Chatkola, Imli Chuz, Mr. Aam contributed to 20% overall franchise, registered a strong 23% growth.

Pudin Hara grew by 6.6% year-on-year. OTC and ethical portfolio recorded a growth of mid-single digits.

Honitus delivered a strong growth of 16.6%, supported by a favorable season. Ayurvedic health juices continued their strong momentum, registering a growth of 17.9%.

In juices and nectars, the premium portfolio comprising Real Activ 100% juices and coconut water continue to scale up, delivering a robust growth of 38% and 52%, respectively. The nectar portfolio remained muted on account of unfavorable season.

We continue to outperform the juices and the nectars category, gaining market shares of 195 bps in nectars and 650 bps in juices. The culinary portfolio grew by 14%, led by oils and fats and Hommade portfolio.

The international business registered a growth of 11% in INR terms and 7.5% in CC terms. In INR terms, MENA grew by 12.5%, Sub-Saharan Africa grew by 30%, UK and European Union by 30%, and Namaste US grew by 19.3%.

The export and emerging market businesses were impacted by tariffs and geopolitical disturbances. In terms of profitability, operating profit grew by 7.7% while PAT grew in double digits by 10.1% during the quarter.

There is a one-time provision arising from changes in the labor laws. Adjusting for this exceptional item, PAT grew by 7.2%.

In spite of GST transition, high inflation, and one-time provision due to labor laws, operating profit and PAT growth was ahead of the top line on back of calibrated price increases and prudent cost-saving measures. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic on a sequential recovery in demand supported by an improving macroeconomic environment and targeted investments in brand and distribution.

This strategic focus strengthens our ability to deliver sustainable value and reinforce our leadership in the FMCG sector. With this, I conclude my address and open the floor for the Q&A.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.

Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two.

Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.

Our first question comes from the line of Avnish Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead.

Thanks. My first question is on hair oil.

Q3, we have seen all the three listed companies see strong double-digit growth in hair oil, including you. Wanted to check, is there any one-off for the industry and for you given such a strong double-digit growth?

Is there something we can take away from here that some of your other FMCG categories could see some kind of a revival in the near term? Is this kind of hair oil growth possible that it can continue in the near term?

Thanks.

Hi, Avnish. On hair oils, I think overall the growth of the category is being driven by value growth, which is price increases.

If you look at major contributor of hair oils has been coconut oils. In coconut oils, there's been a huge inflation of roughly around 100% odd.

The coconut oil rates used to be around 120, 130, went up to a spike of around 400, and then down to around 250 odd. All companies have taken price increases in coconut.

If you look at the growths, growths are essentially price-driven growths, which I think is one-off till the time we lap over the base of the cost increases in coconut as we see the coconut prices are actually softening going forward. The volume growths are pretty muted in the category, around 3% to 4% is the kind of volume growth for the category, but overall value growths are in high double digits.

As far as other categories are concerned, one Yeah, please.

One follow-up there. We have seen for Marico's VAHO and even for Bajaj Consumer, volume growth has also been quite impressive.

Is there any difference we are seeing in terms of volume growth in like-to-like categories? I understood on the coconut, but non-coconut, how has been the volume performance?

Non-coconut also, because LLP prices have actually come down, the margin upside is there and that is being invested in the consumer communication. On back of that, even the perfumed hair oil category or the value-added category that Marico nomenclature is it, also has been doing well for us.

Also, there's been high double-digit growth in the perfumed hair oil category. Due to GST rate cuts, also there's a positive upside onto that.

Understood. Second question in terms of toothpaste, your performance has been quite impressive past few quarters, including this quarter.

When I see your growth, it seemed that Meswak and Herbal seem to be growing much faster than Red. Is there any base effect which is leading to that?

Is there any specific consumer promotion which has led to those two segments going faster than your main brand of Red Toothpaste?

Not really. I think overall oral care is doing exceedingly well for us.

I think there's a tailwind, like I mentioned, there's a 500 bps gap between the growth of the non-herbal category and the herbal category. Herbal category is growing by 500 bps higher as compared to the non-herbal category.

There's a tailwind and natural segment is actually doing far better than the non-natural segment, and Meswak and Herbal don't have any base effect, base itself is pretty low. Both the brands are showing great traction in the marketplace on back of a lot of advertising work that we guys are doing on digital marketing.

I think brands are resilient and continuing to do well both on the distribution front, distribution expansion, as also on the consumer franchise front. As far as Dabur Red is concerned, flagship brand is doing very well.

That's also growing by double digits for us. There is no issue.

We've done a pack change and complete revamp of Dabur Red, that is also yielding dividends in the marketplace, and it's doing well. Now where we've not done well in oral care is Babool.

Babool has not done very well for us, and we are in the process of revamping our entire portfolio of Babool for that also to get into the growth trajectory.

Mohit, one follow-up on toothpaste. Last three, four quarters, competitive intensity in this category across the three, four players has been on the higher side.

If you could tell us, are you seeing some level of abatement there? Given that, how are the margins in toothpaste business given the higher intensity?

I think competitive intensity in oral care has been inching up, especially in the modern trade side, with the main market leader being very aggressive on the modern trade. Of late, a bit of abatement we've seen in the previous quarter, but not so much so that I can say that it's going to be sustained.

Competitive intensity always been high in oral care for us. I think modern trade is where the shoe pinches more as compared to the general trade for us, but overall oral care will continue on a growth trajectory.

I don't see a reason why this should go down, and the tailwind on natural herbal is actually helping us.

Avnish, on the margin front, we have protected the margin because we have saved some bit of piece on consumer promotions and advertised more. Hence, overall margins are actually protected despite the intense competitive intensity.

There was a high degree of inflation in oral care, with SLES and SLS prices also moving up. We've taken calibrated price increases before the GST cut happened, and that follow-through impact is also there in our oral care, and margins are as robust or higher than what they used to be before.

Understood. Last quick question.

On Chyawanprash, one or two questions. One is, if you could update us on contemporarization of the category because that has been a key challenge.

Second, there is a big divergence between the primary and secondary. Does that mean that in Q4, the growth in Chyawanprash could be better because season is favorable?

I do understand Q4, in the second half, the season ends, Q3 is more important, Q4 is not, but given primary and secondary, there is a big gap, do you think there is some kind of recovery in Q4?

Absolutely right. I think you've got the analysis perfectly right.

Our tertiary sales have increased by 11% and market share MAT is also up. Tertiary in terms of off-take, I think the season has favored us and the brand has been doing exceedingly well.

Why the primary has been low is because last year there were some carryforward stocks which we had to liquidate in the marketplace. Therefore, we did not do too much of pre-season loading in Chyawanprash.

That's why you see an impact in terms of primary sales. Quarter four is going to be definitely better because whatever loading that we did not do, and last year we did and the season did not favor us, there was some stock which actually came back to us, this time that anomaly is not going to happen, and therefore quarter four will give you a very high double-digit growth, albeit on a very lower base of Chyawanprash.

The business has been okay on Chyawanprash. As far as premiumization is concerned, premiumization percentage of Chyawanprash is roughly around 13% to 14% of premiumization.

We are continuously adding variants for premiumization in Chyawanprash. Gur has done exceedingly well for us.

Ratnaprash has done well for us. All the newer variants that we've added in Chyawanprash have done.

Sugar Free is doing exceedingly well. We've almost doubled our distribution in Sugar Free also, so that's doing well.

We got a little late. We'll be introducing gummies and bars in Chyawanprash also going forward, and that's the modernization of the formats that we are doing on Chyawanprash.

Sure, thanks. That's all from my side.

Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Prakash Kapadia from Kapadia Financial Services.

Please go ahead.

Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions from my end, Mohit.

Any thoughts on the upcoming summer season? How does the beverage and juice business look like?

Because it's been volatile for some external factors over the last many, many quarters. One quarter we see growth, then there is some season change.

What is the outlook for that? As we progress, how does the mid-term growth look from year on?

If you could dissect that for rural and urban demand. Is it now set for higher teens growth?

How does next few quarters look like? Those were my two questions.

Thank you.

All right. On the beverage and juices business, we are also keeping our fingers crossed.

Because the season did not favor us in the last summers. There were some stocks, we are in the process of liquidating all that stock in the marketplace so that we start the new season afresh without stocks, and we are able to do billing, keeping our fingers crossed.

I just hope the season favors us in the coming summers and the weather gods favor us. I think that's what we sit and pray, and the whole category should surge.

On back of the category tailwind, we should also ideally do well because the bases are low. Last year, we had in the first quarter around minus 14% business growth.

Sequentially, the business has improved going forward, and we are almost flushing out the inventories in the trade. Hopefully, the next year for beverages, we will target a double-digit growth for ourselves next, and the pre-season loading should be good.

Hopefully, I think the season should be good. As far as the overall FMCG growth is concerned, this quarter has actually seen a little depression in the FMCG numbers.

Last year, sequentially, the FMCG numbers are down from 13% to around 7.8%. That depression is I think only optical because of GST rate cuts, the pricing and the value is down, and that's why you see, but even the volumes are down.

Volumes are down because people were waiting for the new price stocks to hit the market and then do the purchases. Therefore, they postpone the purchases till the time inventory actually liquidates in the marketplace.

If you look at the MAT numbers, MAT numbers are pretty stable, from 11.5%, 11.8% to around 11% now, and gradually slowly there will be only improvement on account of the sentiment improving, consumer confidence levels are improving, even the CPI inflation is actually reined in. I think the subsequent quarters are going to be better because first quarter was hit by season, second quarter was hit by GST, third quarter has been significantly better, and the fourth quarter will even be better.

I think we'll start on a firm footing as far as the next year is concerned.

Okay. Any specific categories you would want to call out or any urban or rural insight you would want to share?

How is that demand looking? Because urban and rural both were doing pretty okay for us as compared to industry where rural was doing better.

Any thoughts on that?

As far as urban and rural is concerned, the difference between urban and rural has narrowed a little bit. That means urban is starting also doing well while rural continues its consistent performance, and rural is outsmarting urban by around 300 basis points, but this 300 basis point is down to half what it used to be.

Last year, it was 600 basis point. I think the urban performance is kind of inching up.

The rural performance is kind of staying up also. I think both urban and rural are doing well, and GST rate cuts are only helping this consumer sentiment.

I think overall is doing well, and this will be across categories. Whether it's food or it is OTC or it is personal care, beauty care, it should be across categories.

Beverage, which is very season-dependent, is something that we have to wait and watch, and glucose, which is also very season-dependent, summer season-dependent, is what we will have to see. That is a little caveat which is very weather god dependent.

Rest, I think overall things are seemingly all right. As far as inflation is concerned, we saw huge inflation in quarter three.

The inflation is ebbing a little bit as we see. As I told you, coconut oil prices are softening, SLES prices are softening, vegetable oil prices are also softening.

The next year growth is going to be more volume-driven growth and not so much price-driven or value-driven growth. That's a little remark, and volume-driven growth is a little harder to get as compared to a combination of a value and a volume.

Understood. I'll join back the queue if I have more questions.

Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we request you to please restrict yourselves to two questions only.

If you have any further questions, you may rejoin the queue. Our next question comes from the line of Mihir Shah from Nomura.

Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question.

Sir, firstly, just some clarification. You highlighted post-November demand saw some improvement.

How much of this improvement can be attributed to restocking? Also, given the quarter was partially impacted earlier, can one expect growth to improve on a quarter-on-quarter basis in 4Q or probably remain at a similar range because we had both up and down levers in 3Q playing out?

That's my first question.

I think overall if we look at the quarter, October had a cascade impact of the GST old stock liquidation in the trade, and therefore October was not so good, and a little bit November also got impacted because of that. December has been far better as compared to October and November also.

I think going forward, demand should only improve in quarter four as compared to quarter three. That's what the MAT numbers also tell us.

On account of restocking to your point, I think that going forward the business should only inch up.

Understood. Sir, secondly, while juices is one of the lowest-margin portfolio, it seems the mix within juices is changing towards nectars and Activ, which are relatively higher margin than the rest of the portfolio.

Wanted to understand, has the change, been so significant? Can it improve the overall margins of the juices portfolio and thus the overall company margins?

Also, if you recollect, 4Q is usually 4Q is one of the lowest-margin quarters because of this since past few years. Last year was the margins were really low.

Is there any, way that the margins can see material improvement in 4Q? Also, the impact on the US litigation, any update on that that probably can see some reversal on margins because of that?

Essentially on the margins bit basically.

All right. In juices what's happening is, while you're right, nectar is a lower-margin portfolio for us, whereas Activ and coconut water are the higher-margin portfolio for us, and the higher-margin portfolio has done significantly better.

If you look at the Activ business, Activ business is grown by 38% for us, which is 100% pure juice business grown by 38%, although it's a smaller base, and coconut waters have again grown by around 50% for us. Higher-margin portfolio is inching up far higher as compared to the lower-margin portfolio.

We expect this to continue that trajectory going forward also. On quarter four being a low-margin quarter, yes, as compared to quarter three, it's a relatively lower margin because of glucose being quite salient in the quarter four and also being a juice quarter.

Both ways, I think it's a little low margin, but as the premium portfolio should inch up, I think a little bit margin should be much better as compared to last year. If last year quarter four to this year quarter four, I will expect the margins to be higher on back of lower inflation and on back of premium portfolio also inching up going forward.

As far as the third part of your question, US litigation is concerned, last year, the US litigation cost over a period of I think past two to three years has been coming down drastically. In quarter three, we had a lower base last year.

This time in quarter three, you see a spike in terms of litigation cost because of some insurance reimbursement happening on to us. Next quarter, the US litigation cost again will be on lower, but significant reduction in the litigation cost is happening year-on-year for us overall.

Litigation cost has reduced by almost 25% over last three years since we started. We expect it to stabilize from next year on at these lower levels.

Understood. Given that there is a tailwind of this and the margin, just on the margin bit for FY '27, what would be a fair range of margin that one should think about for 4Q specifically and for FY '27 specifically?

While we expect a sequential improvement in margins as we go along, but we are still in the budgeting process and working on the exact margins because commodity prices etc., all the numbers are just flowing in. We don't expect too much of inflation coming in.

Margins sequentially should be better, but exact range of margin, I can't tell you right now. How was that to you, Ankush?

We expect margins should be better than this year, but exact range I think we'll have more clarity

Got it, sir. Thank you very much, wishing you all the very best.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Percy from IIFL. Please go ahead.

Hi, Mohit and team. Congrats on good set of numbers.

My first question is on Q4. Over the last three years, we are seeing in Q4 there is some or the other sort of negative surprise either on the top line or the margin or both.

Just wanted to understand Q4 this year, one is can we expect the sales growth to be at least in line with what we have delivered currently? Secondly, can we expect on a YoY basis the EBITDA growth for Q4 to be higher than Q4 sorry, the YoY EBITDA growth for Q4, would it be higher than the sales growth for Q4?

What I'm trying to say is would there be a EBITDA margin expansion in Q4 after accounting for whatever one-offs etc. that you might have because Q4 is typically a quarter in which maybe the full-year trueing up etc.

happens and there are some one-offs. Including that, is there some level of confidence that we can show a YoY EBITDA margin expansion combined with a normative level of sales growth that we are clocking currently?

Right. I think in terms of the top line first.

I think top line Q4, we expect because of some one-offs which happened last year in the season not favoring us, we expect the season to favor us and the top line should be better than what the Q4 was last year, definitely. We expect the growths to be in high single digits in quarter four.

That's what we are aspiring to deliver, a high single-digit growth, which will be either in line with quarter three growths or will be a little higher than what we've delivered in quarter three. That's what we expect, and we are all aspiring.

I don't know what happens. India is such an unpredictable environment on regulatory one.

Didn't know this labor code came as a surprise in quarter three. That is not going to happen in quarter four.

Last year, there were some one-offs which will not happen in the current year. In EBITDA margins also, we anticipate expansions on EBITDA margins YoY.

From last year to this year, there should be expansion. While the quarter three is our highest EBITDA margin quarter, that will be lower than quarter three, but YoY, there will be improvement.

Anything Ankush you

want to add to it? Our operating margin will definitely be higher than the revenue, and PAT will also we expect to be higher even from operating margin level.

Very helpful. Secondly, just wanted to understand for FY '27, as you mentioned earlier that it's going to be a volume-led growth and therefore at an overall value level there is no price contribution and therefore that would sort of puts a dampener on the sales growth.

Just trying to understand on the EBITDA how it works out, because while there is an input cost benefit and that is the reason for the pricing growth to be absent, does it mean that we should be looking at slightly higher margin expansion on a lower sales growth so as the absolute EBITDA growth that we would be looking at should remain unchanged, or do you think that the absolute EBITDA growth will also suffer a little bit given that the absolute sales growth will sort of be on the lower side? I hope I am clear in my question.

If not, please let me know.

Percy, what we are thinking is while this year it was a combination of price and volume, next year it should be more volume given the GST tailwinds. However, having said that, price increase will not be absent because certain price increases which we took in earlier part, pre September, they will also have a rollover impact.

Further, wherever they are inflation categories, we will definitely take more price increases. They will be a combination, but it will be more volume and slightly lesser value.

Having said that, since we will be moving into lesser inflation and therefore we will have headroom to improve our operating margins. Whatever upside in gross margins we will get, a significant portion of that we may want to reinvest in advertisement and balance, say, around 20%, 25% of that expansion in gross margin, we give back as operating margin.

We see the tailwinds in volume with some price increases and inflation at a lower level. Things should be better than this year at least as what we think, while we are still in the budgeting process and more clarity will emerge over next three to four months.

Just to summarize, I think we are targeting a growth of high single digit on top line and EBITDA improvements over this year next year. That's what in summary I think it is.

Okay. This high single-digit top-line growth would be 80% to 90% of that would be volume-led, right?

Percy, you are audible. The management will respond shortly.

We don't really know. We are in the process of making budgets because what happened is in the quarter three, we've not taken any price increases because of GST change and regime change happened.

Hello, can you hear us?

Yeah. Sir, you are audible.

Percy, are we audible?

You're audible.

Hello? Sir,

you are audible. You may proceed.

Are we audible? Sir,

you are audible. You may proceed.

I think you'll have to reconnect the management. Can you hear us?

Okay. Percy, what I was saying is that due to GST transition, we had pushed a lot of products where we wanted to take a price increase.

Percy, can you hear us?

Yes.

Percy, I think there's an audio issue at your end. Could you come back to the queue?

I can hear you.

What we're saying is that during the GST transition, we postponed a lot of price increases wherever there was inflationary raw material because of the GST rate cuts. We pushed it due to the anti-profiteering issue.

Which we will be taking in the current quarter, which should follow through next year also. There will be price increase to that extent, plus there'll be volume growth.

We're targeting a high single digit to a low double-digit growth next year and with operating margin improvement over current year, because we want to go back to our erstwhile 20% operating margin. There'll be attempt to have saving initiatives and price increases even if there is no inflation.

There are brands in which we are market leader, we will take price increases proactively despite being not so inflationary environment.

Okay. Sir.

That's all from me. Thanks and all the best.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jham from HSBC.

Please go ahead.

Yes. Mohit and team.

Good evening. I had two questions.

The first is for the hair oil category, you have been mentioning that one of the reasons the growth has picked up is because of the GST cuts. Just wanted to check, at least even in the data do we see that you're not seeing something similar for toothpaste and some of your other categories?

Hello, am I audible?

Sir, you are audible. Please stay with us, the management will address your question.

Sorry, we couldn't hear you. Could you please repeat?

Just checking, am I audible to you, Mohit? Hello, am I audible?

Hello, no. We could not hear.

Could you please repeat the question?

Sure, Mohit. Just checking once, am I audible?

Then I'll repeat my question.

Nihal, please repeat your question. The management would like to hear the question again, please.

Can you please be a little louder?

Sure, I was asking that we have mentioned that for the hair oil category, one of the reasons growth has improved is because of the GST cuts. Checking that for the toothpaste category where the cut in GST has been higher, have we not seen an incremental growth coming because of that?

Operator, if there's an issue from my line, I'll come back in.

Nihal, give us a moment, please. We can hear you.

Please stay on the line, all of you. No,

we could not hear you, actually. Sorry for that, but we couldn't hear you.

Sure, Mohit. I'm just checking, am I audible to you?

Then I'll repeat my question,

sir. Nihal, please give us one or two minutes.

There seems to be some technical glitch. We're trying to resolve.

Sure, sure.

Sure. Just checking, am I audible to the management?

Yes, you're audible, Nihal.

Mohit, I was asking that you mentioned about the growth improvement in hair oil, one of the key reasons was also the GST cut for the category. With a similar thought, toothpaste has obviously seen a higher relative cut in GST.

Have we not seen an acceleration in growth in that category because of the GST cut?

There has been acceleration in the growths in toothpaste also. As our toothpastes have also grown by double digits in the quarter, and there has been a tailwind in oral care.

As I told you, oral care also herbal and natural segment is growing 500 basis points ahead of the non-natural segment. That's a double whammy.

Our Meswak is grown by 25%, 26%. Is Herbal toothpaste grown.

Has Dabur Red flagship brand grown. There has been an impact in the sentiment improvement on purchase of the consumers in oral care also.

We've taken some price increases when we revamped our portfolio also because of the SLS price increases also. There has been impact in oral care as well.

Home and skin, there's no GST impact. There the sale is in the range of around 6% odd, 6.6% growth is there in skin care.

Please.

Sure. I was just coming from the fact that if I look at say the Q1 growth for oral care, Q2 obviously had the base impact, it is cumulatively last year, this year combined sort of similar even in Q3, whereas in hair oil that has accelerated.

Hence I was asking that you've not seen a big step-up in growth like the hair oil category has seen for you. That's where I was coming from.

Oral care step-up

is not as high because the price increase element in oral care is not as much as in hair oils. Like I told you, in hair oils it's coconut oil and there was an inflation of around 100% plus.

There was a price increase element which is playing out in hair oils, which is not the case in oral care. Oral care is primarily driven volumetrically as compared to hair oil, which is both value and volume mix.

Sure, Mohit. Got that part.

The second question was on the beverage category, if you could just comment on how the competitive intensity is and also the drinks portfolio. We had an aspiration of sort of reaching a 500 crore top line there.

What is the current scale of that if you could just give a sense of that?

Drinks portfolio, approximately the revenue is around 200 odd crores ballpark. We are in a good space in drinks, and out-of-home portfolio is sequentially doing well.

Out-of-home portfolio was the one which actually impacted by the season not favoring us in the summers because rains were unprecedented in the first quarter, out-of-home got impacted. If we look at the current quarter and sequential improvement in out-of-home has been better, and out-of-home portfolio has grown by around 5% in the current quarter despite being acute winters also.

We expect our drinks portfolio, PET bottles also to do well. To bolster the impact of season, we've also introduced a 10 rupee, 20 rupee, a 50 rupee, and a 100 rupee price point also in drinks.

That should also help us in the season going forward. With the GST cuts which have actually happened for the beverage category, as compared to the carbonated category, the price index premium of juices over the carbonated has also significantly reduced.

That should also be a sort of helping factor.

Understood, Mohit. That was it from my side.

Thank you so much and wish you all the best.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ajay Thakur from Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers Limited.

Please go ahead. Hello.

Ajay, you are audible. You may proceed.

Ladies and gentlemen, the current participant seems to have disconnected from the queue. Our next question comes from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec.

Please go ahead.

Hi. Good evening.

I just had two questions. First was on this GST bit again.

Would it be fair to say, Mohit, that going into quarter four, you should realize the full kind of volume growth benefits on lower unit packs etc. in Q4 because October still had a transition?

If yes, how much could that kind of contribute to as far as volume growth is concerned? That's the first question.

The second question was on gross margins. You did mention that there was some pricing that you couldn't take because obviously, you don't want to be looked at as profiteering.

Going into next year, what is the quantum of pricing that you think you will need? Also, it seems like the India gross margins are actually going to be the base is quite comfortable.

Going into, say, Q4, Q1, Q2, at least standalone numbers as you report, so, is there still a belief that you need to take kind of incremental pricing going forward? Those were my questions.

Thanks.

On account of GST, we'll definitely see volume growth moving up, I think in the category, and also the inflation coming down. We will see volume growths moving up in quarter four and sequentially going forward in quarter one and quarter two also.

Can you hear us?

Mohit was slightly blurry, but I can hear you now, yeah.

I think pricing growth will also be better as compared to last year and gross margins improvement will also be better on account of pricing coming in which we have pushed out, which will be followed through into next year also.

Could you just give a sense on what the weighted pricing would be that you're either pushed out or looking to push out into Q4 which carries forward into FY '27 as well?

What you're asking is in Q1 and Q2, the price increases, correct?

I'm asking how much of price increase are you planning to put out? I think a 2% price increase is what will happen in the quarter four, which will be carried forward in next year as well.

Broadly.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Ajay Thakur from Anand Rathi Share and Stock Brokers Limited. Please go ahead.

Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question.

I got dropped out earlier. Wanted to just check on the hair oils growth.

If you were to get a bit more color in terms of how the coconut oil versus the non-coconut hair oil volumes have trended during the quarter, so that can give us maybe some sense of how the growth has been in the two different segment.

Both the segments, whether it's coconut oil or it is perfumed hair oil, both have grown well for us. We've registered a market share increase of around 193 bps in overall hair oils.

The perfumed hair oils also have grown in double digits for us, around 16%, 17% growth, and coconut oils have grown in the range of around 29% for us. Almost one out of every two households in the Hindi-speaking belt is now a Dabur hair oil user.

We've got a exit market share of 20% in hair oils now. It's ever highest market share that we've registered in hair oils in both perfumed as also in coconut.

That's where we are, yeah.

Thanks. That's quite helpful.

The second question was more on the NPDs that we had launched maybe around 1, 1.5, 2 years back. Wanted to get a sense on how they are kind of performing, if there's any update on them, and what are the plans for scaling them up further.

Some details would be helpful. Thank you.

Right. NPD percentage for the business is roughly in the range of around 2% to 3%.

As we had engaged McKinsey and we had done a exercise. We've rationalized a lot of tail products which were there.

That has been rationalized. That said, a couple of NPDs are really doing very well for us.

One is health juices that we had launched. Health juices are giving a growth of around 17% to 18% for us, and all the variants in health juices are doing well.

Drinks have performed exceedingly well for us, but for the season backlash. I think the drinks portfolio is doing well.

Ghee, which we had launched as a NPD a couple of years back, is giving a growth of 33%. Edible oils that we had launched is giving a growth of roughly around 50% for us.

I think across the board, our NPDs are doing well. Our Red Gel, which we had launched, also showing a good traction in the marketplace.

That said, Cool King is what we had launched in the hair oil piece is doing well. In health care, we had launched variants of Chyawanprash a couple of years back.

Sugar Free is doing exceedingly well. Now the variants contribution to the business is around 13% to 14%, and they are growing at 2x, 3x of what Chyawanprash is growing.

Gur Chyawanprash is doing very well. In honey, two variants of Sunderban and organic honey are again trending exceedingly well for us.

In glucose, the variants are doing well, but again the season did not favor us, therefore I can't comment upon how they will do on account of the season, basically. We have more plans in the OTC range, like in Shilajit, we had launched resins and drops.

Both of them are growing in very high double digits for us, and e-commerce is actually a platform where they are doing exceedingly well.

Understood, sir. Thanks.

These are some of the examples of NPDs that are on top of my mind, yeah.

Thanks for the input. Thank you.

As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Isha Lamba for closing comments.

Over to you, ma'am.

I would like to thank all the participants for joining today's call. The webcast recording and transcript will be available on our website.

Thank you, and have a great evening ahead.

Thank you. On behalf of Dabur India Limited, that concludes this conference.

Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.