Thank you, Manav. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.

Today, along with me, I have Mr. Satish Sharma, Senior President and Director of Strategy and Business Development; our new CFO, Mr.

Saroj Khuntia; Mr. Sushil Mishra, our Head of Accounts; Mr.

M. S.

Bajaj, Special Advisor to Chairman and Managing Director; along with SGA, our IR advisors. Let me begin by introducing Mr.

Saroj, our new CFO. Saroj is a Chartered Accountant with more than 24 years of experience across corporate finance, strategy, treasury management, capital markets, taxation, governance, risk management, M&A, and finance transformation.

Prior to joining us, Saroj served as Vice President Finance at CG Power and Industrial Solutions. Earlier, he held CFO positions at Mahindra Accelo, Mahindra Electric Mobility, and Mahindra Retail, among other leadership roles within the Mahindra Group.

Prior to that, he was associated with IBM and Hindustan Unilever. Let me now begin my remarks on the quarter performance.

Q1 started on a positive note for us. We delivered our highest quarterly sales volume in OHT segment.

This performance is despite the challenges across many international geographies and end markets, as well as within the supply chain of the world. As guided earlier, we are closely monitoring supply chain disruptions and have taken price hikes along with increasing efforts towards a superior product mix to partially offset this impact.

Further, during Q1, we have launched our on-road products in the TBR and two-wheeler segment in domestic market. Let me start with highlights of our OHT business.

We continued the momentum of previous quarter. Into Q1, we reported our highest-ever sales volume.

We delivered 16% sales volume growth a year-on-year basis. This performance was led by decent uptake in our end markets and segments.

In Europe, we witnessed a stable environment. We are working with channel partners across the key markets to further up our market share in this large and key geography for us.

India performed exceptionally well in Q1, despite off a high base from last year. Our marketing efforts along with superior product range is helping us gain market share.

The growing infra capex in India is also aiding to our performance. In Americas, with the tariff rate settling at 10% levels, we have seen a better performance led by the USA.

With a sharper go-to-market strategy and stable end markets, we expect growth momentum to sustain. In Americas, we have a long runway of growth in the times to come, given the brand positioning for BKT and the focus on high quality products for that market.

For upcoming quarters, we would like to highlight geopolitical uncertainty with supply chain impacts on both availability of material as well as the costs; availability of vessels, containers, and freight costs as well. These, along with weather challenges in Europe and a sketchy monsoon which is expected in India, as key variables towards near-term performance problems.

I will now share some insights into our carbon black business. I'm happy to share that we have appointed Mr.

Ashish Kumar Datta as Business Head for Carbon Black, effective 3rd July '26. Ashish brings along with him 36 years of cross-functional leadership experience across chemicals, coatings, polymers, and spans for both domestic and international businesses.

He joins us from Lubrizol Advanced Materials, a Berkshire Hathaway company, where, as Business Director for South Asia and South Africa, he carefully carried full responsibility of P&L for the region's performance of coatings business for them. Over his career, he has held senior leadership positions in Toyo Ink, Valspar, DIC India, and Shalimar Paints, and began his career as a R&D chemist at Asian Paints.

A graduate of the Institute of ICT, Mumbai, with a degree in Polymer Technology, Ashish also holds an MBA from NMIMS and has completed executive education at Harvard. His strong grounding in chemical and polymer technology, combined with deep P&L and commercial leadership knowledge, positions him well to lead our growth in the carbon black business.

Let me now share some business highlights of this vertical. For Q1 '27, our carbon black business recorded decent volume growth on year-on-year basis, with third-party sales at around 10% of overall business.

In this quarter, we commissioned our phase two of carbon black plant, taking the total capacity to 360,000 KTA. For the energy circularity model, we have also increased our captive power plant to 64 MW.

Going forward, we expect geopolitical challenges to impact the pricing and supply of carbon black on the back of increased crude prices. We expect some price increases to offset the raw material inflation.

Further, the demand continues to be robust in this segment. Moving on to our on-highway business vertical.

With setting the distribution network and channel infrastructure, in April, we went live with our go-to-market strategy. We have started supplies in the truck bus radial segment and are seeing positive response from the trade in this segment.

Our foray in this segment will help us diversify our product range, as well as take advantage of the opportunities on the back of infrastructure creation in India. Our two-wheeler tires product portfolio has been introduced with select products targeting domestic market.

Even here, we are witnessing encouraging reports and responses from end users. In June, we launched our 24x7 journey assistance program named as U-Forward, aimed at reaching to the end users of two-wheeler riders across India.

This initiative marks the company's move beyond product offerings to product on-road support services, positioning itself as a mobility partner throughout a rider's journey. To promote this initiative, we rolled out our first digital campaign featuring veteran actor Rakesh Bedi.

Very clearly, we are moving on our stated path of high quality and product differentiation strategy for our own on-highway portfolio, and we are witnessing increasing customer acceptance of this policy. Our entry into this newer segments is a strategic adjacency that complements our existing strengths.

Having seeded the business in Q1, we expect a gradual ramp-up starting in Q2. Having said that, on-highway segment currently continues to be small, and therefore, we will refrain from sharing revenues or volume details at this juncture.

At overall level, while macro uncertainties persist, we remain focused on the following: volume growth with margin discipline; leverage our carbon black capacities to improve efficiency and quality; and progressively scale up our on-highway business. Moving on to our new and ongoing capexes.

As a part of our ongoing capex plan, we have completed the following: a new line of carbon black facility which was commissioned in Bhuj, taking our capacity to 368 crore sorry, taking our capacity to 360,000 KTA at a capital outlay of ₹800 crore. Also, we increased the power capacity at Bhuj from 40 MW to 64 MW at a capital outlay of ₹125 crore.

All the balance capex projects, which are amounting to approximately 3,000 ₹3,000 crore, are progressing as per schedule. With this, I now move on to operational highlights.

For the quarter, our OHT segment volume stood at 93,770 metric ton, a growth of 16% year-on-year. Our standalone revenue for the quarter was stood at ₹3,409 crore, registering a growth of 24% year-on-year.

This includes realized loss of foreign exchange pertaining to the sales of ₹36 crore. The standalone EBITDA for the quarter was at ₹703 crore, with a margin of 20.61%.

The margin was particularly impacted on account of raw material prices due to geopolitical situation globally and its impact on supply chain. The impact was partially offset by certain price hikes during the quarter.

Further, India's contribution has increased to overall 40% of the volumes, which has impacted the margins slightly. Profit after tax stood for the quarter at ₹432 crore.

We expect better flow-through from EBITDA to PAT as we steadily scale up our volumes in on-highway segment and the benefit from the improved trajectory of our core OHT business. Our capex for this quarter stood at approximately ₹1,000 crore.

As on 30th June '26, the gross debt and cash and cash equivalents were approximately ₹4,690 and ₹2,965 crore respectively. Accordingly, we have a net debt of approximately ₹1,725 crore.

The euro rate for the quarter was around ₹102. The Board of Directors has recommended a first interim dividend of ₹4 per equity share.

With this, I conclude my opening remarks and leave the floor open for Q&A.

Congratulations Rajiv sir and to the entire team. Firstly, in the off-highway segment, India, Europe, America are showing improvement.

Can you highlight current market share in these markets and specific efforts you are focusing on to increase share? Also, please share dealer inventory levels, whether they are normal or higher than normal levels given the uncertain environment?

India market share is around close to 18-19%. USA is about 3% to 4%.

The end user levels of inventory is as per normal. There is no build-up or there is no shortage at the moment, it's a normal build-up.

Europe will be about 8% market share, that would be a fair estimate?

Roughly around that region, yes. Maybe 7% to 8%.

Thank you, sir. For Q1, can you indicate the commodity impact and the price hike which was taken?

Also, if you can indicate the expectation of commodity inflation impact in Q2 and how much more price hikes you are planning?

We have taken on a price hike of about 5% scattered across the various quarters various parts of the quarter. You will see the full pass-through coming in this quarter.

Going forward for the price hikes, we are yet working on the market scenario. We have not yet announced anything further than that at the moment.

Raw material basket or commodity inflation for Q1 and Q2, how much would that be? Because some of the mass market companies have indicated impact of as high as more than 20% raw material basket increase.

Partly it has come already in Q1, and partly will come in Q2, and some will go in the Q3 also. Around 5% on raw material will be in the Q3, which will be impacting on our sales price approximately 3%.

Partly of that will be offsetted by the price increase already taken by us, which will be the fully applicable on this quarter.

Just a clarification, 5% of revenue will be the impact in Q2 for— 5% of the raw

5% price on the raw material price has increased by 5% on the cost basis of the raw material. The impact on the sales price is approximately 3%.

Out of that, we are expecting 2% it may impact 2% our margins in the coming quarter.

Coming quarter, understood, sir. Just the last question, for FY '27, what is the hedge rate for EUR/INR?

You started the year with 102, whereas spot price is higher at 110. For full year FY '27, should we get a better rate?

It can also act as a support to your margin?

We're expecting a better rate, but we do not share the exact rates.

Noted, sir. Can you share Q1 freight rate as percentage of revenue?

Around 5%.

It used to be around 5%. Thank you, sir.

I'll come back in the queue and wishing all the best.

Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Just firstly, sir, on the Europe demand, this quarter was a good growth.

Just can you elaborate more what is driving the improvement in demand, and do you expect a good double-digit growth to continue for the rest of the year, sir?

To begin with, the base last year was lower, so that is one thing. Then, of course, they have had a good monsoon, good season, which is also impacting their agricultural segment.

Got it, sir. Sir, just any update on the refund of the US duty, sir?

Anything came this quarter, sir? It's

too early to share details on that. We'll keep you posted as and when things progress.

Got it, sir. Finally, sir, on the capex side, what is the estimate for this year, sir?

Additional about between ₹1,500 to ₹2,000 crore.

Totally around ₹2,500 to ₹3,000 crore, right, sir, for full year?

Yes.

Got it. Thank you so much for this.

Hello. Hi, sir.

Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on a good set of numbers. Sir, first question on Europe.

While we see that the last year's base was quite weak and we did grow strongly in the first quarter, but increasingly, I think there are these talks about the adverse heat waves impacting the crop. Do you see any risk to this growth with this adverse weather, because in the past we had seen sometimes impact from these events?

It's too early to take a call whether it would have an impact because they've also had a good monsoon to counter that. Too early to make those kind of comments.

Understood. Understood.

In terms of the freight increases, have we seen the entire impact of the freight increase in the current quarter, or do you think the freight rates can move up further in the coming quarters and you need to maybe pass it on also with a price hike?

If the scenario continues like this, where we had a dip in the middle and then again back up, we thought it would have subsided. If the scenario continues, there may be some increase which will come across and we will see how best we can pass it on.

Okay. Okay.

As of now, the visibility is that it remains at similar level as in first quarter. You don't see any big change now in the current quarter.

We may see some change if the scenario continues the way it is now with the stop in the peace process. We may see some impact coming in.

Understood. Sir, lastly on this capex side, did you mention for this FY '27 we will have about ₹3,000 crore of total capex spend?

Yes, ₹1,000 already spent and between ₹1,500 to ₹2,000 additional to be spent in this financial year.

Okay. In the past we had shared, I think, maybe about ₹4,000 crore over the next three years in terms of capex.

Does that mean a large part is front-ended and it should come down meaningfully next year, or how do you see the capex spend now given this plan?

If you put the numbers together, you will come to that conclusion. Total ₹3,000 crore is left to spend, and if we are spending ₹1,500 to ₹2,000 in this financial year, balance would be, of course, descending.

Understood. Understood.

Got it, sir. Lastly, on the India off-highway business also has, I would say, grown very substantially in the last few years.

Do you see further scope of increase? On-highway will be a added factor now to India also, we understand.

If I just keep that aside and if I look at only the off-highway segment, do you see there is possibility of much stronger growth continuing even in this segment also for India in the next few years?

Yes.

Any idea, sir, where it is coming from? Is it market share gains, or is it more about product gaps which we were not serving earlier?

Some color there about how and why it is coming through?

You'll have to break this down into two parts. If you look at it as a percentage base, if the exports pick up the way they used to be, then you will see the numbers come down.

Overall, on a standalone actual number basis, India will continue to grow. There are yet pockets within the off-highway space which we need to cater to, which we are working and moving in that direction.

It's a mix of product mix, mix of new segments within the off-highway space which we are not catering to.

Understood, sir. Thanks a lot.

I'll come back in the queue.

Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on a great set of numbers. Sir, I just had a clarification on the capex.

If you look at the plan till 2030 to get ₹23,000 crore of top line, what would the total capital expenditure be, just to clarify on that?

Capex is ₹6,800 crore. Out of that, we have spent roughly ₹3,800 crore.

₹3,000 is balance. Out of that, we are estimating in this financial year to spend between ₹1,500 to ₹2,000 crore.

Okay. Thank you so much, and good luck.

Hi sir, thank you for taking my questions and congratulations for good set of numbers. Sir, I wanted to understand about the dynamics in play in the Indian market, particularly in the—

Sir, your voice is coming very muffled. Sir, your voice is coming very muffled, can you—

Is it okay now?

Is it okay now? A

Very muffled.

Hello.

Hello.

Is it okay now?

Better. Go ahead.

Yeah. Sir, I wanted to understand about the dynamics in play, especially on the Indian business side, because we have recorded very significant growth over last three quarters in India, particularly coming from the agricultural segment.

Then also, our OE mix is remaining broadly the same. Just want to understand what is driving this growth and how do we see this growth going forward?

Is it coming from the tractor business, or is it coming from the construction and infrastructure business? Can you please help us with that?

It's coming from all the sectors: industrial, construction, as well as agri.

Okay. Is it, sir, replacement or on the OE side?

Is it combination of both?

Mainly replacement side. Also, on the mining sectors also helping us aid this growth.

Okay. Secondly, sir, wanted to check, because of the price increases, was there any impact of the pre-buying, especially in the case of Europe, because of the price is increasing?

Because—

Sorry, we can't follow your question. I'm sorry, can you repeat it?

I wanted to understand, was there any pre-buying from the dealers in case of Europe because of the price increases? I think one of the peers highlighted that there was some pre-buying happening in Europe.

Just wanted to understand on that.

No, we don't see any pre-buying in that sense. As I mentioned earlier, the levels are normal, we don't see that.

If somebody's done, it would be very minimal in our knowledge.

Sir. Thank you, and all the best for coming quarters.

Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

My first question is on the US market. Have customers started building inventories following tariff-related disruptions?

Are you seeing any meaningful change in the competitive intensity? Since the overall share of US has gone down to around 11% and 12% in overall revenue share, can we expect this to again increase to around 15-16%, as were there historically?

Hello? Sorry.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, in the USA we expect the markets to go back to, as you rightly said, 15-16%. I'll repeat my opening remarks where I'd made a statement: In Americas, we have a long runway of growth in times to come, given the brand positioning and focus on high quality products for that market.

We expect this to be a growth area for us. Also,

as the US share increases, but in the domestic side, on-highway tires scale up, how should investors think about margin profile versus core OHT businesses going forward in next few quarters?

Under the current volatility, we can't make any comments on future-going statements. Sir,

last question is majorly on the capex. As the major capex cycle maybe behind after these years, should we expect from FY '28 stronger free cash flow generation and higher capital returns?

I can't comment on those things because board has to take decisions on whatever the board decides.

Sir. Thank you.

That's it from my side.

Yes, hi. Good morning, Rajiv and team.

Am I audible?

Yes, sir.

Great.

Yes, sir, you're audible. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Rajiv, my first question was on gross margins.

Apart from raw material, is there any other impact because OEM has increased quite a lot this quarter. I'm assuming they are a little lower margin compared to replacement.

Is there any impact on the margins from there, apart from raw material? No,

no.

Okay. Rajiv, my second question is on the two-wheeler space.

You did allude to service being an attractive component to enter and differentiate. Any more color on that at this time you want to share, or it is too sensitive from a competitive angle?

I'm trying to understand from a customer buying decision, how much weightage would service carry versus pure product? Hello?

Oh,

Yes, am I audible?

My question was on the two-wheeler space.

Yes, hi, Rajiv. My question was under two-wheeler space.

I'll just repeat the question. I was wanting to understand: you alluded to positioning yourself as a service provider more than product from a differentiation perspective.

Just trying to understand from the feedback that you've got, how much weightage does service carry when a customer is deciding when to buy a two-wheeler tire? In his decision making, how much weightage does service carry?

Would you have some feedback on that from your marketing team, which is helping you differentiate more on the service apart from also product?

Thank you, Lokesh, and I am glad that in the end you said "also product," because otherwise I would have probably—

No, that is number one. We don't doubt BKT on that.

That is assumed.

Thank you for that confidence on the product side. Yes, over and above the product differentiation, this is a unique experiment that we have done, in the sense that we want to stay with the life cycle of the customer.

We don't want to forget that once he's bought our product and we are off his mind space. Therefore, we said that we can cure your rides in the years to come so long as you are on our product, we are by your side.

It's a customer lifecycle management in that sense. The response to this, I would say, is quite good.

The number of customers opting for this offer is matching our expectations. Therefore, I think it will only go from strength to strength.

The early response is pretty strong.

That's really nice to hear, sir. That's it from my side.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks, sir.

Just wanted to know the India revenue mix as per your presentation looks for the first time even higher than Europe revenue mix. That's a great change.

Just wanted to know, this India growth, was it equivalently driven by agri and industrial, or if we see industry tractor growth being almost 25% year-to-date, it was more to do with that along with market share? If you can explain that, sir.

Sorry. Mr.

Basudeb, please continue. We lost the question.

Sir. I was asking that great to see India revenue mix being even higher than Europe revenue mix for the first time in a quarter.

We can see tractor industry wholesales are up almost 25% year-to-date. What resulted in this almost 35% plus India revenue growth?

Was it industrial, agri equally, or it was more of sustainable carbon black revenue addition on a continuous basis?

This was mainly from the off-highway space of tire market. Within,

you mean industrial?

Both. All three: agri, mining, and industrial construction.

That's great to hear. More of sustainable, directionally, rather than something one-off

as such.

Earlier, I recollect when India mix used to be sub-20%, that India margin used to be relatively lower than the export margin. Now, how that progress has been happening?

Is it pricing directionally improving, or how the margin differential is panning out now?

As I said in my opening remarks, it is marginally lower and that has had an impact, but it is marginally lower, not as low as it used to be earlier.

Sir. Thanks.

Yeah. Hi, am I audible?

sir,

first of all, congratulations on a great set of numbers. Regarding the US tariffs, they've started refunding quite a lot of the tariff money.

I was just wondering whether we have applied for some of these refunds and have we initiated the process?

As all companies have, even we have, but it's too early to make comments on when the returns and all are going to come.

We've already started applying for the refunds, right?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you again, sir, for the opportunity. Question to Satish sir.

Sir, if you can talk about the on-road efforts, how do you see this year FY '27 and '28? Annual report indicates that 70 distributors have been added.

How many more additions are required? What would be the market coverage?

How do you see the target in terms of increasing the coverage? Also, the brands which you have launched in trucks and two-wheelers: Loadmax, Milemax, and on tires, if you can indicate the initial feedback for these products, that could be helpful.

Thank you.

I think there are lots to unpack in several questions that you have asked, but I'll give you an executive summary, which is to say that we have had a very encouraging response to the first quarter of our operations. This first quarter was more about setting the systems in place, getting the machine to run the way we wanted it to run, get the products out in terms of what you would typically call as seed marketing.

That's what we have done in the first quarter. The ramp-up of sales and ramp-up of production is going to go as per plan.

We do not see any surprises or rude shocks in that sense. From a FY '27, FY '28 kind of a thing that you asked, I think the vision statement states that ₹5,000 crore revenue from on-highway tires by 2030, we're standing on that figure.

I think that should be achieved. That's what I would like to say on the path of growth of on-highway.

We continue to release more and more products. Many of the brand names, I'm happy you have taken, which tells us that you follow us closely.

Thank you for that. We continue to launch the portfolio.

It'll be a year of building the portfolio, you should say, FY '27. In FY '28 onwards, it'll be serious business.

Yeah.

Thank you, sir. That is helpful.

You're taking the distributor approach, how much would be the market coverage and how do you see that expanding?

Market coverage is not selective. It's pan-India.

We have sliced and diced the country quite intelligently. All the distributors have been appointed for all the categories, including for cars.

Now would be the adding the number of dealers as per the sales ramp-up. We would not be overaggressive in appointing the dealers by the distributors.

It would be as the production ramps up, we will keep on increasing our footprint through the route of dealers.

Noted, sir. Thank you.

Another question from my end to Bajaj sir. Sir, employee cost in the quarter has gone up to ₹153 crore, 18% increase YoY.

Would this be because of the minimum wage increase impact in Gujarat? What has led to this increase and how do you see it sustaining going forward?

That is a permutation combination of two-three things. One is, as you rightly said, the increase in the wage act.

Apart from this, we have give the increment also to our staff, and we had increased the staff for the new business also.

Got it, sir. Thank you.

As the turnover of the new businesses start kicking in, this will again normalize.

Noted, sir. Thank you so much.

Hello. Good afternoon, sir.

Hello?

Yeah. Sir, wanted to check, since we have Indian business coming to 20% by FY '30 and we have appointed distributors, how are we dealing with dealer margin because we have a lot of established players already who have large market share and large cash on their books?

Are we giving more dealer margin? What is our strategy there over next four years?

Disha, sorry, we do not share our margin figures with the channel.

How are we planning to gain market share with all these established players?

Through a great product strategy, which I have in many calls explained many times. I think that's a very longish answer, it's very difficult to explain all over again.

Sure. Sir, this 24% sales momentum led by volume and value, do we plan to sustain it in coming quarters because we have the order book also in our hand normally?

What is your view on that across our whole company?

We don't give forward-looking statements, and we'll refrain from doing the same.

Sir, based on the order book, will this momentum, according to you, if the things remain same—

Ma'am, we do not give forward-looking statements. Please, I would request you to refrain from continuously asking.

Sure, sure, sure,

sure. Sir, in terms of margins, since Indian business is going to be 20% going forward also over 5-6 years and then it will also grow, Indian business, our margin profile, will it tweak a little bit or what is your take on that?

I'm repeatedly saying, please do not ask forward-looking statements. We will refrain from it.

Third time I'm telling you, please refrain from it.

We'll

not make comments. I'll keep on rejecting the comments.

Okay.

Great. All the best, sir.

Thank you, everybody, for taking out the time and joining us. I look forward to meeting you all in the next quarter.

Thank you.