Jean Jacque van Zyl
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Spinneys Q1 2026 earnings call. My name is Jean van Swaay, Investor Relations Officer for Spinneys.
Joining me today are our CEO, Sunil Kumar, and our CFO, Mukesh Agarwal. Thank you for being with us this afternoon, and our thanks to Chorus Call for hosting today's call.
Before we begin, I'd like to draw your attention to the disclaimer on slide 2, which contains important information regarding today's presentation and discussion, particularly in relation to forward-looking statements. Today's call will follow a familiar structure.
Sunil will open with our business overview and an update on execution of our strategy, with particular focus on how we navigated the regional challenges that shaped Q1. Mukesh will then walk you through the financial highlights in detail.
Sunil will close with our strategic focus and 2026 guidance, after which we will open the floor to questions. Before I hand over, I want to acknowledge that Q1 2026 was an extraordinary quarter, one that tested our supply chain, our teams, and our operational agility in ways we had not anticipated.
I am pleased to say that Spinneys responded with resilience, and the results we are presenting today reflect that. We look forward to taking you through the detail.
I will now hand you over to our CEO, Sunil Kumar. Sunil?
Sunil Kumar
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining earnings call today.
As Jean mentioned, we had a very eventful first quarter. It represents what the numbers what you see now.
The revenue grew by 12%, and we are happy to see the like-for-like sales growth also was at 7.4%, and EBITDA margin is an 18.2%. It is an industry if you are considering supermarkets and margin is still intact.
E-commerce is growing faster than brick-and-mortar stores, in fact, it is 34.9%. Profit after tax, it is 87 million despite the uncertainties and the month of March we have faced, still we grew by 2%.
Of course, cash and bank balance is 871 million. Now when I measure our business, a couple of metrics is very crucial for retail, particularly a food supermarket like us.
One is transaction count, which is crucial to see the customer's trust and confidence is still with the brand, what the value proposition we offer to the customers and they are happy with that. That is an indication normally you see that's a transaction growth.
Other two pillars which actually carries this brand is our fresh food business, which is almost grew from 64 to 64.6%. There's a growth which is visible.
The other one is very competitive range of products with quality which we offer, the private label, and that's also moved from 44.2 to 46%. These three top line metrics on that chart shows the confidence and trust of our customers, and we continually delivering them what the customers are expecting from us.
Now the other indicator for the metrics of the business is also an average basket, and the basket also grew from 89.8 to 92.9, which I'm very happy to see the transactional and particularly basket size growth. We had 81 stores last year, 12 months, and now we have 93 stores.
Of course, as I mentioned, e-commerce is growing faster and from 15.6 to 18.8 within one-year span. The challenge which everyone has seen, known, and through the media, as a supermarket chain like Spinneys, we face more critical issues because of the products which comes to our store.
Availability is measured from whenever the customer comes to the store, availability is measured, and if they come to buy something, it is the responsibility of the business to give the product to the customers. We managed that crisis through different approach.
We anticipated to a certain extent a bottleneck of supply chain, and we navigated around that crisis through pivoting air freight immediately, whatever the product which we can get into the shelf, and also looking at other option. One was the road freight from the UK or from Europe through the road and bringing those products into UAE.
Couple of things has affected our revenue. One, if I split that into three the store formats, one, we have mall-based stores.
We have Dubai Mall, for example, Dubai Mall, Nakheel Mall, Marina Mall, mall-based stores. Then the other stores formats are in business towers where we are catering to a lot of office people, and the other one is community centers.
Now community stores did extremely well in this crisis, I should say. Mall stores as well as office-based stores, because of remote working as well as distance learning, had an impact on and of course, the tourism is the biggest major impact on the mall stores.
Luckily, as a business, we have a right ratio of 88% of the business is still in the community centers and in local neighborhoods. Those stores did well compared to the malls as well as business towers.
The crisis management, as I mentioned earlier, as soon as the crisis started, disruption started, the air was not possible, and within 2 days to 3 days time, we got an opportunity to tie up with Emirates as well as Etihad. There are some chartered cargos were coming from different countries, and we managed to get those products on to the shelf.
The ports was congested. We were looking at Jeddah as an option, Oman is an option, Khorfakkan is an option.
We were looking at all these three options. The end of voyage, which is a vessel is coming and they can't go to Hormuz through, and those voyages were going to India or Sri Lanka or in African countries, and they were offload the end of voyage.
Now in March, we normally in a month we take 180 to 200 containers, and in the March, it was almost a 62% drop in containers coming to UAE due to this crisis. We have to ensure those product range which is crucial for the business is available for our customers.
We were focusing on credible range, and how can we bring those credible range into the shelf, and we were using air freight and road freight at the same time for getting things on for customers. I should say we are proud that we reached into an 82 to 88% of the availability in the month of March, and we continue improving to April and May.
I should say that 82 to 88% in comparison with normally any given time it is a 90% is the availability. I think as a business, we have done extremely well to get products on shelf.
Now the other impact of the crisis is the cost, definitely. A container cost has gone upwards from $3,000 reefer container to $25,000, from $3,000 to $25,000.
As we know, we are a responsible retailer, we understand customer's behavior, and we have taken almost 40 to 60 years of confidence of the customers to get the loyalty into the brand, and one day, because of this crisis, we don't want to knock that loyalty and the trust and confidence with the brand. We took a deliberate decision that we don't want to pass the cost of freight into the product, particularly on essential products range.
Essential product we identified, also we followed the government guidance, but we were extra cautious and careful that we will not be passing that charges into customers. Therefore, you might have seen that 120 basis point compression on the margin, and now we are looking at the best cost-efficient freight inwards as well as utilizing our supply chain efficiencies, utilizing our sourcing offices, as well as our production unit here, and looking at the ingredients where we can bring from alternative sourcing and bringing to a finalized products from our factories in UAE.
Now I will pass to Mukesh to take you through the numbers, how we have achieved through this crisis time, as well as January, February, of course, it was a wonderful month, I should not be complaining about it, but March was a crisis month, but we have navigated around it, and the numbers what Mukesh is going to explain is a reflection of these 3 months. Mukesh?
Mukesh Agarwal
Thank you. Thank you, Sunil.
Good afternoon, dear investors and analysts. Very happy to be present here presenting the resilient results for the first first quarter, despite the fact that the crisis started on 28th Feb, and we have been navigating through the crisis since then, and that as Sunil mentioned, the the each of the steps taken by by by the business and by the management in in ensuring that we are delivering food to the platter of our customers and making sure the products are available.
Despite all the challenges, we have been able to deserve deliver some good results. You can see on your screen, our revenue has grown from 896 million last year to more than a billion this year, almost a growth of 12%, which is again a combination of like-for-like growth of almost 7.4% on a year-on-year basis.
The gross profit margin is more than 40% at AED 406 million. Last year, it was 374 million, a growth of 8.4% year-on-year.
Our adjusted EBITDA still at 18.2% despite the fact that there were significant cost pressures. We have been able to grow grow our keep our EBITDA stable at AED 184 million, a growth of 1.2% year-on-year.
Our profit profit before tax has been stable at again at 101 million. Last year, it was 102 million, a slight dip of 0.7% despite the fact that it was there was a significant pressure in the month of March on the freight and other elements of our product cost.
Our profit after tax similarly has grown from 85 million to AED 87 this million 87 million in in the current period. Our free cash flow conversion has been 63%, equivalent to AED 78 million, which again gives us a very strong footing to pay stable dividend when it comes to second second quarter as we promised, and also to invest in our future future growth of of the business.
Net debt is 130 130 million. If you look at this number, this has been growing going down significantly year-on-year because of the fact that we have been able to generate cash from the business.
We generated 871 million worth of cash as at 31st of March, the balance on on on 31st of March. If you reduce from that the net liability of lease liability of around 1 billion, you'll arrive at 130 million.
You will see our liquidity position is strengthening on a quarter-on-quarter basis. If you are to dissect the revenue further, you'll see that our like-for-like growth is 7.4% despite the headwind that we faced in the month of month of March.
Our overall revenue growth has retail sales has grown from 894 million to more than a billion. Like-for-like is still 7.4% in in in quarter 1.
The if you look at the dissection further, almost 7% growth is contributed by the new stores, existing stores are around 65 million dirhams, and 47 million came from new stores, which is almost 5.2% of the total growth that we get and that we got, and we lost around 3 million from the store that we closed. We opened 13 13 stores in the period, and we closed only one store.
This is this is phenomenal considering the fact that despite all the challenges, we have been opening new stores. We we opened three stores in the in the first quarter itself of of 2026.
We also opened one store subsequent to the period end in in JBR, JBR Marina. Also the fact that our value proposition continues to remain the same and our customers continue to like our products.
We have been to we have been able to increase our sales by increasing our fresh sales and private label penetration by 0.6 and 1.9% respectively. Our GP, you can see overall GP margin has been quite healthy due to the fact that our private label has increased, our fresh participation has increased.
Of course, there was impact in the month of March due to the fact that many of our containers were stuck in the sea, and the transit there was a delay in transit, delay in ETA in terms of timing that received the containers on. The cost there was war surcharges on on on some of the containers, had to pay higher freight costs, especially the air freight cost, which went up as the range of 37 to 55% depending on the origin.
The as a result of lower sales and there was lack due to lack of tourism and school holidays and when people started working from home, there was an impact on sales. As a result, there was higher wastage due to in in the first few weeks of March.
Of course, we had to make some inventory provisions to ensure that whatever was the products lying in lying in the seas, if there was anything chilled products, we made some provisions on on on those line items so that we don't take a bigger hit going forward. Overall, the GP margin has gone down by 1.2% as a result.
Despite the fact that our GP margin compressed by 1.2%, you can see our profit before tax has compressed by only 120 basis points, which is 1.2 1.2%, mainly because of the fact that we the moment the war started, we we started looking at each of our cost cost elements of on on the P&L and making sure that we limit our discretionary spending, and also at the same time, of course, because of fact that we have depreciation, rental payout, which are fixed in nature. Wherever there is a turnover impact, there is a saving, but the same time, depreciation, rental continues to remain fixed in most of the most of the cases.
Our profit before tax has gone down by 120 basis points. Still, we are at 10% profit before tax on on revenue.
Our adjusted EBITDA, mainly because of the fact it went down by 190 basis points because our GP went down by 120 120 basis points. Also, there was an exchange loss of around around 5 million which we booked this year because euro and GBP, on a period-on-period basis, they depreciated against the dollar.
There was a one-off impact which came in the quarter. You can see the EBITDA erosion is slightly more than the GP GP erosion.
The profit erosion after considering the disciplined cost management, the erosion is only 120 basis points. Similarly, profit after tax has has decreased by 80 basis points.
Our effective tax rate has been 14.4% as compared to 16% in the last period. As a result, you can see our profit after tax has gone up from 85 million to 87 million.
I already discussed this free cash flows slide. Our conversion is 63%.
Our net debt evolution, you can see it went down from 387 million to 130 million net debt. If you exclude the lease liabilities, we are only the net debt is only 866 negative, which is effectively our cash balance, giving us a very, very strong platform to fund our growth not only locally, but investing in new opportunities and investing in our future expansion plans in Philippines, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
I'll pass it on to Sunil to discuss more about our outlook and the focus for the remaining period.
Sunil Kumar
Thank you, Mukesh. As I mentioned earlier, our focus now is to ensure we provide product on shelf on timely basis, and looking at what the best way optimizing the route and the voyage as well as the freight, that's what we are paying attention to.
The second one is, of course, we will be going ahead with the store opening as we have planned, as we have given the guidance, and we will be opening the stores. In this mid of the crisis in the month of March, we opened the JBR store, which actually showcase our confidence in the market as well as what we are expecting out of a new store openings into the business revenue.
As Spinneys e-commerce, we are also looking at the marketplaces. We are adding more stores to where a specific customer-based marketplaces, and we are allowing those customers to get products from our stores where they don't have any presence.
We will be opening our first store in last quarter in Philippines, as well as Kuwait we are looking at and we have identified the location in Avenue Mall as the first store, and we will be building that store from next month onwards, and hopefully we will be opening on first quarter of 2027. What is happening?
Mukesh Agarwal
Michael, the slide just seems to be stuck there. The last slide is the guidance slide, which Sunil can just talk through, and then we'll go straight into Q&A.
Sunil Kumar
The slide is not moving, unfortunately. It is not deliberate that we don't want to show the slide.
Some technical glitch, I guess. We haven't changed the guidance which we have given.
My view on why we haven't changed the guidance, because we will be very responsible if we change the guidance. What we will do as a business, we will do everything possible to achieve the guidance which we have given in the beginning of the year.
It came now. We will stick to that guidance because of the issue we are not sure about what may span around for the coming months, but what is in our control, we are focusing on what is in our control, which is how can we ensure the supply chain optimization, how can we look at the capital deployment if it is not necessary to get a return on investment immediately, and which are the areas where we can alternative sourcing for bringing the ingredients for a finalized products in our factories, and we are also looking at a sourcing capabilities wherever it is appropriate to get the products on shelf.
Those are in our control, and we are looking at in a efficiency mode, and we will be bringing those efficiencies which is in our control, we haven't changed any guidance. We will be opening for the question and answers.
Now we will be in a position to answer you in much more clarity.
Jean Jacque van Zyl
Thank you, Sunil. We will now hand over to Chorus Call to moderate the Q&A for us.
Operator
Thank you very much for the presentation. Now be moving to the Q&A part of the call.
If you are dialed in via the telephone, please press *2 on your keypad, that is *2 on your keypad. You may also ask a voice or a text question if you are dialed in via the web.
We have a text question from Mr. Nikhil Arora from Abu Dhabi Pension Fund: What is the like-for-like sales and GP margin in March alone for us to isolate the impact of the conflict?
Did Spinneys increase prices since March beginning, and if yes, by how much on average?
Sunil Kumar
I started my statement starting it is an eventful first quarter. Why it was an eventful first quarter?
Because of the January, February, it was a continuation of what we achieved on the last quarter of 2026. In the March, suddenly we saw 3 days of an upscale panic buying, rather I should say, the shelves were empty.
Then it is normalized within 1 week time, the sales pattern got normalized. Now the issue when we were facing on those three the first week of March was to get the product onto the shelf, particularly the stock which we have got into factory production as well as the stockholding what we have it in our Kizad warehouse, and that was getting depleted, and we were looking at an alternative freights, as I mentioned.
We are looking at the credential range of products, and we are bringing those credential range. The cost was increased, which we know, the freight cost has increased from 71% almost on air freight, and other two, as I mentioned, from $1,500 cost moved into a $15,000 to $16,000 and 3,000 of reefer moved into a 25,000.
It was a cost pressure, but our objective and the purpose to ensure that we will give the customers an availability, and therefore we have achieved 82 to 88% of availability. Now I don't have a specific March number to give you, but it was a growth, as I mentioned on 26 last quarter, the growth was continuing, and the March when the incident happened, 3 days, it was not a normal buying pattern, and then it is normalized, and thereafter it more or less stabilized.
My take, because of the availability issue which we had more, but the customer confidence and the basket you have seen, that was still continuing, that's what one of the reasons why I said that the metrics which we measure was predominantly is on our customer traction, customer count, as well as the basket expansion. Two two particular core strength of Spinneys is the fresh food as well as private label.
You have seen that growth, and that growth was also reflective in the month of March.
Operator
Thank you very much. Just once again, *2 for any questions.
Our next question is from Dr. Javad Vaseghi from vazro.
Please go ahead, sir, your line is open. Hi, Mr.
Javad, your line is open, in case you are muted.
Javad Vaseghi
Could you hear me now?
Operator
Yes, we can hear you, please go ahead.
Javad Vaseghi
Awesome. Again, hi, good afternoon, everyone, and I'm Javad from Frankfurt, and thank you for taking my question, and of course, congratulations on a resilient Q1 and especially given the March operating backdrop.
Given Q1 was not only store opening story, as you mentioned, like-for-like sales grew around 7.4, and also online participation reached around 19%, and we had also the fresh and private label penetration both in the higher numbers. Now the question is, how should we read the 2026 growth bridge, specifically more as traffic and a store rollouts, or increasingly as mix and channel quality supporting margins?
Sunil Kumar
Thank you for the question. I wanted to reemphasize, as I mentioned earlier, there are three format stores where we have.
One is mall-based, second one is office-based stores, as well as community centers. The good thing is 88%, which we have mentioned in the press release, 88% of our stores sits in the community centers.
Once the offices are started functioning naturally it's almost now 3 weeks, and there was an disruption in between and the school started functioning normally, we have seen a same pattern where we saw it in January and February. The biggest chunk of the revenue drop is still on mall stores, which is a bigger size of the stores, of course, but that is purely based on the tourism.
If you ask me those stores, what we have taken a special precaution to ensure that is not affected by the cost or additional wastage, these are the two things. Normally happens a store doesn't get a revenue as expected, one, the wastage will normally go up, and the staff cost, which are in our control.
The rent stays as it is, electricity and water, the consumption, which stays as it is, all other small factors we consider and we are looking at it, and we have taken into consideration those cost-efficient model. We worked, I should say, from March itself, we started working, which the result is visible in the month of April as well as in the month of May.
Javad Vaseghi
Thank you so much, appreciate it.
Sunil Kumar
Thank you.
Javad Vaseghi
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. I have a few more questions coming from the text.
Next one is from Mr. Mike Sell from Alquity: Do you see any impact in community stores from expats returning to their home countries so there are less consumers?
Sunil Kumar
I'm sorry, I didn't get the
Operator
Do you see any impact in community
Sunil Kumar
One minute, let me read this. I can see that Do you see any impact in community stores from expats returning to their home countries?
Within the community centers, we have built-in actually in three community, or I said three phase here, which you understood it. The community centers, we have a local community centers, which is actually growing despite March disruptions.
It is growing, those community centers purely based on locals, Emiratis, which is growing double digit, I should say. The community centers were European-based and school neighborhoods, which had a drop because of the school distance learning.
Since the distance learning started, it had a drop. As soon as the school started operating, we have seen that coming back, not to the extreme, but we assume that many of the families probably not here, many of the people might have moved.
We can see that the gradual growth and the transaction into those stores coming back from April onwards.
Operator
Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Mr.
Shankar from FIM Partners: Thank you for your call. Can you please talk about the supply chain costs in April and May?
Have they started to normalize compared to March?
Sunil Kumar
Shankar, in fact, the cost is still as it is, which is visible for anybody, the cost hasn't dropped down. What we have done is we are looking at the container mix and we are looking at the ticket size products, whether we can put together and bring that cost into an average single unit into an acceptable manner.
The other thing, luckily we have our Spinneys sourcing offices across, and we have our own factories, and we are building the ingredients wherever we can bring it in a way whether it can be by road instead of air and instead of sea whether we can bring it by road or air. Why it is an important factor?
Because normally a sea container to get on to the shelf, it may take from different countries depends, but normally take 25 to say 45 days, whether it is Europe, UK, or Australia, it will take normally 45 to 60 days, US, it will take normally 45 plus 50 days. Then you are actually losing an opportunity to get on to the shelf, and we are looking at that option by air as a credential range, and we are looking at if it is not a price-elastic commodity, essential range, we are looking at whether we can pass to that cost into that SKUs, which we are looking at it without pissing our customers off, and we are managing as a basket together.
It will not be visible for an one SKU level, but we are looking at a category as well as a subcategory-level inflation.
Operator
Thank you very much. Our next question is from Ms.
Elena Jouronova from J.P. Morgan.
Please go ahead, ma'am, your line is open.
Elena Jouronova
Yes, thank you so much. On the gross margin in Q1, I have a question.
Can you quantify what was the drop related to the inventory provisioning, and what was the impact of price investments? Hi.
Mukesh Agarwal
Hi, Elena. See, the impact is coming from there's a slight decrease in input margin due to the fact that there was a increase in cost of the freight and also because of some of the wastage since the lower sales base in the month of March once there was impact on the sales, especially in the mall stores.
You see an impact on the wastage, which goes up, and also for all the chilled products which were on high seas and we're expecting delay because as they near expiry, we also made a provision in the books.
Sunil Kumar
There was a net impact if you look at balance sheet-to-balance sheet movement from 31st of December to 31st of March, which is clearly reflected in the financial statements which have been shared yesterday. The impact is around 7 million on the inventory provisions.
Elena Jouronova
Okay, 7 million on inventory, and then the rest supply chain costs versus price investments, roughly equal or how can we think about it?
Mukesh Agarwal
Then also as I said, also increase in wastage on the fresh products, because if there is less sales on the fresh products, then they have to go to the wastage.
Elena Jouronova
Yep. Now that's clear, but am I right in thinking that we've seen the biggest magnitude of your gross margin pressure in Q1 because from Q2, we're seeing normalization, the provisioning was already there, you've adjusted the range.
Am I right just directionally in thinking that we've seen the worst for your gross margin this year?
Sunil Kumar
Elena, in the March, in the month of March, there is a mix of category shift. What I meant by that is, your meal solution is a high margin accretive.
For example, if you are in DIFC, we used to have nearly 100,000 dirhams sales per day, and that moved into a 15,000 dirham sales, and likewise Terminal 1, DAFZA, Pfizer, as well as some of the Wafi, wherever we have a higher percentage of revenue coming from meal solution, which normally gives us an above 50 to 60% margin. That mix changed because, of course, because the offices are not working, and there are offices completely stopped bringing people into the offices, etc., it has an effect.
It is not one particular reason of cost, a freight cost increase, but it is a mix change, that's what we saw. Second, in March, as soon as the biggest panic buying happened, after that, the customers became a bit of a behavioral change because they are looking at it in the essential products rather than a high margin accretive products range they were hesitant to buy.
I understand why, because that is in a bit of an crisis time, we have seen it in the past, exactly the same pattern. What I wanted to say, from April onwards, it has started coming back, and we have seen the higher ticket size products, which gives us a higher margin, has been working well since, say, second week of April onwards.
Now the other thing, one more thing I wanted to say, some of the stores where it was dependent on the tourism-based boats, they used to come to the stores and buy high products for in Marina, I'm talking about Marina Mall as well as Marina Spinneys, Golden Mile. There are four, five stores which was purely on the bulk buying for the boats, and that also completely stopped.
I was looking at the basket size in the month of March, and there are 3,000 to 6,000 basket size has a big drop. What we noticed at the same time, there is an 50% of the transaction coming for a smaller basket, and the smaller basket means their breakfast, lunch, or dinner, that has also dropped.
It came back immediately. The offices started functioning, schools getting to the children into the school, that behavior, I can see that it's coming back from April, second week of April onwards.
Thank you for the question.
Elena Jouronova
This is good news. Thank you for the answer, appreciate it.
Can I just ask one more question about inflation in your basket? What is your current expectation for how it's going to change in Q2, Q3?
By how much inflation on the shelf can accelerate?
Mukesh Agarwal
Okay. Elena, see, if I look at the current trends since March, overall cost inflation has been in the range of 6 to 7%, and post-March, as Sunil mentioned, other than the essential products, we have around 500-plus product lines we have decided not to pass on the increase to the customers, but for other products which could be premium or any sort of value-added products, we have decided to pass the increase to customers.
The RSP inflation or RSP increase may not be exactly in line with the overall cost increases for certain categories, but as Sunil mentioned, the product mix is also changing. It is coming more favorable for us because there was significant impact on the meal solutions, for example, as a category in the month of March when everyone was working from home, but that is now recovering.
Thank you.
Elena Jouronova
I'm sorry, but this retail price increase for the other products which are not within the 500 SKUs, you've already started taking prices up in March or only in April?
Sunil Kumar
To a certain extent, Elena, because as I mentioned, I was looking categorically and careful and conscious that I don't want to piss customers off when they see a pricing, we are looking at a subcategory-wise. For example, stone fruits, how much inflation I can charge into the customers, like table fruits, how much I can add in, chicken protein-wise, white protein as well as red protein, how much I can afford to charge to the customers, and what we are focusing on, how can we get the sourcing differently and together without compromising the quality of the product, and how can we source it better, that's what we are looking at it.
I'm happy with the numbers what I have seen it in April, and it is better than March, it is moving, now I can see it in May. I should not be giving you guidance on May, but I can tell you that I'm more than happy to see the numbers are coming back as I expected.
Elena Jouronova
Sunil, can I just clarify something? When you say that you are very careful in passing on pricing not to piss off consumers, I would have thought your consumers are less price sensitive to staples, how are you doing this?
Are you taking prices up to then follow the volumes of a certain SKU, are you managing it so that you don't have a like-for-like volume drop, or what's the thinking behind that price pass-through strategy?
Sunil Kumar
Elena, as I said, as I mentioned earlier, the customer's behavior change, they may not be a price-sensitive customers, but when the crisis comes and all the media saying that the freight has gone up and the inflation is going to come, and everyone will be watchful on the product range. I have to be very responsibly look at those aspects, understanding a non-sensitive customer on the products, but it is a responsibility that I don't want to just do a blanket approach towards the business and bringing those costs directly into the customers.
Of course, some of the range which there is no price elasticity at all, which we have charged to the customers, but it is a kind of a scientific approach we are looking at to get that margin, what we expected on the going forward in this crisis time, and at the same time, we understand the customer's behavior pattern may have changed because of they are looking at the prices, etc. We are looking at the tiering of the products, we are looking at within the tiering, what we can increase and what we cannot increase.
Thank you.
Elena Jouronova
Thank you. Sorry, can I ask one more question, your online strategy?
Sunil Kumar
Elena, this you're not giving a chance for others.
Elena Jouronova
One last question, which is interesting for all.
Sunil Kumar
I have a couple of other questions.
Elena Jouronova
I can come back in the queue, that's fine.
Operator
Thank you, Elena.
Sunil Kumar
We will be in a position to answer your questions. You can contact IR and we will give you, or we can have a coffee, of course.
Operator
The next question is from Mr. Ahmed Kamal from Azimut Group: Is there any change to dividend plan?
Sunil Kumar
No, there is no change in dividend policy of the company. We'll continue to propose the dividend, that's for the board and the shareholders to decide.
We'll continue to propose the dividend policy as per our dividend policy, yeah. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The second question from Mr.
Ahmed: Is the company planning to do any increases for SKUs that are not under government price control measures?
Sunil Kumar
As I mentioned, I've been trying to explain to Elena, the customer's behavior, not necessarily they are sensitive towards pricing, but this crisis time, because of the inflation, everybody is looking at watchful on the price in the supermarket. Now we are looking at in a category, subcategory-wise approach, where we can increase the price, where we cannot increase the price.
Of course, whatever the SKUs we have decided, not because of the government, but because as a company, we wanted to ensure that key essential products we will not be touching the price, even if the cost has increased. Rather, we will be looking at a different sourcing, whether it can bring it by the cost-effective model.
We are looking at that option, and wherever it is not a price elasticity, it is not a concern for the customers, we are charging that cost into customers.
Operator
Thank you very much. Looks like there are no further questions at this point.
I'll be passing the line back to the management and IR team for the concluding remarks.
Sunil Kumar
I wanted to say thank you very much, first of all. A crisis time, we have investors who understand the complexity as well as the dynamics of the situation.
It is a business which have been always resilient. You have seen since I've been a CEO, I have seen many of these crisis and we have overcome successfully those crisis.
Of course, whatever within our control, with the best interest for the customers as well as shareholders, we will do our best to achieve what we have given as a guidelines. Thank you very much.
Jean Jacque van Zyl
Thank you. Thank you, everyone.
Operator
Thank you very much. This concludes our conference call today.
We'll now be closing all the lines. Thank you, and goodbye.
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