Thank you very much. Good afternoon and a very warm welcome to everybody present on the call.

Along with me, I have Mr. Premchand Devarakonda, our Chief Financial Officer, and SGA, our Investor Relationship Advisors.

We have uploaded our results and investor presentation for the quarter and financial year ended 31st March 2026 on the stock exchanges and the company's website. I hope everyone had an opportunity to go through the same.

The quarter got off at a healthy start, supported by a summer season that outperformed. While March witnessed some temperature volatility and sporadic rainfall, the impact was well offset by a strong festive season across our South region.

Our sales mix remained broadly in the line with the same period last year, and demand was robust across categories and each segment delivering double-digit growth. Large appliances in particular benefited from the GST reduction and festive-led consumption tailwinds.

We also saw meaningful operating leverage coming through, resulting in improvement in our operating margins, even as we continue to add new stores to our network. On the store expansion front, during the quarter four of FY '26, we added four new set of stores, one each in NCR region, Telangana, and two in Andhra Pradesh.

I am also pleased to share that during this quarter, both our South and North regions delivered double-digit growth in both revenue and same-store sales growth. To provide a clear picture of our store portfolio, we currently operate 223 stores, of which 83 are over four years old and 140 are less than four years old.

From a profitability standpoint, mature stores continue to demonstrate strong performance with an EBITDA margin of approximately 7.3%, while newer stores are currently operating at 3.1%, consistent with their stage of ramp-up. We expect many of these stores to mature over the next couple of years and start delivering better margins.

EBITDA margins for quarter four FY '26 stood at 6.7% and 6.1% for FY '26. On cluster-level profitability, we continue to maintain a healthy EBITDA margin of 6.5% in our South cluster, which is good especially given that the majority of our new stores additions over the past two years have been concentrated in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Importantly, despite the entry of new players into these markets, we have been able to sustain our market share. On NCR, I am pleased to share that our operations there are now EBITDA positive on a full-year basis.

As store-level throughput improves, we expect better absorption of fixed costs, which should drive further margin improvement in the region over the coming quarters. Moving to category performance, in large appliances, the positive momentum we have been observing at the store level driven by GST reduction, festive demand, and new product launches has continued.

Washing machines were reporting strong double-digit growth in quarter four FY '26, which is particularly encouraging given that the category typically sees stronger traction during the monsoon season. The growth seen over the last quarter is therefore ahead of season norms.

Panels continue their double-digit growth trajectory at 13%, sustained by the tailwind from GST reduction. Refrigerators have maintained stable, with steady demand holding up even in the face of recent price hikes.

We are also seeing heavy traction building up in the newer and the emerging categories, such as induction cooktops, dishwashers, and air coolers. Coming to mobile phones, the segment recorded a strong growth of 28% in quarter four FY '26, supported by major new launches in January and March.

Looking ahead, we believe that the mobile category is entering the next phase of its demand cycle, driven by upcoming technology upgrades and the growing integration of AI capabilities into devices. Several OEMs are actively developing next-generation AI-enabled smartphones, which we expect will stimulate consumer interest and support growth in both average selling price and volumes.

On inventory, our days outstanding as of 31st March '26 stood at 73 days. We have managed inventory efficiently throughout the year, maintaining a well-calibrated mix of carry-forward and of new AC models, ensuring we were well positioned heading into the summer season.

Coming to FY '27, our priorities are clear. We will continue to optimize our supply chain and inventory management, with a sharp focus on cash flow generation and working capital efficiency.

We will deepen our presence in existing clusters while remaining selective about new geographies, entering only where the combination of consumer demand and unit economics meets our standards. Above all, we will continue to invest in customer experience, because that is what we have defined Electronics Mart's reputation over decades.

It will remain the foundation of everything we doing going forward. With this, I request Mr.

Premchand Devarakonda, our CFO, to update you on the financial performance. Thank you, all.

Thank you, Karan, sir. Good afternoon and warm welcome to all the participants.

I would like to start with Q4 FY '26 performance. Our revenues for the quarter stood at ₹1,913 crore versus ₹1,664 crore in Q4 FY '25, a growth of 15%.

EBITDA for Q4 FY '26 stood at ₹129 crore versus ₹107 crore in Q4 FY '25, witnessing a growth of 20%. EBITDA margin for Q4 FY '26 stood at 6.7% versus 5.6% to previous year's fourth quarter.

Pre-Ind AS EBITDA for Q4 FY '26 stood at ₹91 crore, with a margin of 4.7%. PAT for Q4 FY '26 stood at ₹40 crore, shown a growth of approximately 49%.

SSSG for Q4 FY '26 has been 12.2%. Now, moving on to FY '26 financials, our revenues for FY '26 stood at ₹7,183 crore versus ₹6,731 crore in FY '25, a growth of 7%.

EBITDA for FY '26 stood at ₹438 crore, and EBITDA margin for FY '26 stood at 6.1%. PAT for FY '26 stood at ₹107 crore, and for FY '26, SSSG stood at 5.3%.

Pre-Ind AS cash flow from operations for the year stood at ₹299 crore. With this, we can open the floor for question-and-answers.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity, sir. My first question is if I look at the overall numbers for Q4, one thing what actually was notable was that Hyderabad SSSG was into double digits, and this has been after a very long time that we are seeing strong SSSG into Hyderabad market.

Probably based on our channel checks, even Q1 seems to be extremely on a stronger note. How should we read this from a Hyderabad market for FY '27?

That's my first question. I will come to the second question, yeah.

Good afternoon, Manoj. As you correctly said, we also have seen a good SSSG coming in Hyderabad in the last quarter as well, and even this quarter the beginning has been really good.

I would attribute this majority of the sales coming in from a lot of benefits that has come our way, especially post September when the GST was dropped, the tailwinds that led towards a lot of improvement in categories like televisions, washing machines, dishwashers, and in the last couple of months we've seen refrigerators and cooling products also doing really good. Once you see a bump coming in from all categories, definitely you would see this kind of an SSSG coming through.

I would say that at the same time, there were a lot of big launches of mobile phones in Androids from Samsung, from Oppo, Vivo during the last quarter as well. Mobile phones also performed really well, cooling products are doing really good.

Aapko blended aap dekhoge toh aapko double-digit SSSG dikh raha hai jaise aapko quarter four mein dikh raha hai. That is a number I would say that has been attributed to all the product categories because everybody has performed, not just one category.

Sure.

Sure. Secondly, if I'm not wrong, when I look at the product mix, large appliances product mix has declined from 47% to 42% for fourth quarter, and despite that, the gross margins have remained very stable.

That's one more thing which we believe seems to be on the positive side. How should we read here and probably how should we look at the gross margins in the coming time?

Obviously, you were talking about the margin improvement, if you can comment over there.

Manoj, again, there are smaller changes that we had made internally across categories, even mobile phones, you're trying to do a lot of attachment there with accessories in order to improve our margins in mobile phones as well. Apart from the cooling product categories, for which there was a delay in starting off during that quarter because last year's Jan-Feb did really well versus Jan-Feb a little slow in cooling product categories this year.

You would see a mix of the margin being almost similar or getting a little better is because the throughput that came into other categories also was quite strong, and we're trying to improve our margins wherever we can. Even in mobile phones, accessories, adding up of new categories like built-in appliances, audio accessories, definitely these product categories have a higher gross margin, and that is helping us improve.

I don't know how long will it take for us to shape up those other categories, but making sure that all categories that we are selling is selling with a certain productive gross margin improvement there as well.

Sure, sir. Last question, if I may.

If I look at the cash flow from operations, sir, I think this has been the record cash flow generation that we have done in our history. Probably how do we plan to utilize it?

Do we expect to repay loans and probably help strengthen our balance sheet or probably any plans that you have for FY '27 and '28 for the utilization of this CFO? Yeah.

Manoj, the repayment of loans that we've taken against property, that remains the same, there'll be no repayment of that. That is going to be more organic.

Whenever there is every quarter or every month, whatever we pay for those loans is going to be a part of that. Our working capital requirement has definitely come down, cash flows have already been flowed in to reduce our working capital.

Now, once by the end of this quarter, end of quarter one this year also, you will see a much more higher improvement in our working capital cycles. The cash flows have all been deployed into other business and where the working capital requirement has definitely gone down to what it was during the same period last year.

Sure, sir. Thank you, sir, and wish you all the best.

Thank you, Manoj.

Yes, hi Karan, and congratulations on good numbers and thanks for the opportunity. Karan, summer season is expected to be strong this time around, and last year we know that the base is quite comfortable.

Can you guide us some bit on your growth expectation across regions for FY '27? It will be helpful.

Yeah.

Sir, if you ask me, it is too early to comment right now because see, Delhi the summer started a little late. Delhi's been a little warmer from the last one week onwards, whereas there was a little delay in summer starting off there.

AP and Telangana definitely have outperformed on our expectations, but we still have 45 days left for this quarter to end, and that is 50% of the quarter time still left on board with us. We still 10 days away in month of May and another 30 days in June.

I would say a good positive outcome, but what helps us during this quarter is that the cooling product categories, because our margins are higher there. If that outperforms our expectation for the next 30, 40 days, then you would definitely see a great result coming through.

Understood. Delhi so far has been slow to start, but at least in the southern part, if you could help us understand what has been the growth rate that can actually help us better sort of understand [how to approach this?]

?

Delhi again, see, because of the base, we had a smaller base last year, na? Wo base ke upar bhi agar market nahi perform kar raha tha, humne toh accha perform kiya hi hai Delhi.

Again, the value is very small on the total number of the company in terms of any category that we look at today. Delhi expectations are big.

Delhi we're looking at a good double-digit growth coming in for this quarter. Commenting on our existing Hyderabad number, I think will be too early, but South region has also outperformed than our expectation or than the market, and we've definitely gained our market share in AP as a cluster, Telangana upcountry market, where our competition was very stiff.

There again we've gained a lot of market share, and all clusters will give you a good number to go forward. You'll see a good growth coming in from a lot of stores that we've opened, which are yet to get matured.

There are a lot of reasons. The summer supported us.

The matured stores, the stores which are on the turn of getting matured, are turning around to our numbers that we're doing. We've improved a lot in mobile phones, especially our mobile phone penetration in AP, Telangana was a little poor.

We've increased that also. Not only air conditioning, coolers, or refrigerators, but other categories have also outperformed in those regions.

You'll definitely see a good SSSG coming through from the mature stores from those regions. Fair enough.

Fair enough. Karan, I also wanted to check on the extent of sourcing that is directly from brands and that via distributors currently.

I wanted to understand is there a scope to increase our sourcing directly from brands, which might help in margin improvement going ahead?

Devanshu, most of it is anyways done directly from the OEMs or the brands directly, apart from few categories like accessories or small appliances where the values are very low. I think would not even contribute to more than ₹50 crore a year that we would buy from local distributors because of the inventory management of any other issue.

Apart from that, most of the sourcing now is done directly only.

Is this applicable also to mobile phones category or you're speaking more from a large appliances perspective?

I'm talking about the group, the whole group. If you're talking about a ₹7,000-plus crore revenue, only ₹50-odd crore comes in from the distributors going forward.

That also is reducing day-by-day. It has more to do with the logistics for the smaller products and all, like accessories, headphones, soundbars, where logistically it becomes a challenge to distribute to 200 stores.

Those local distributors are used in those regions. Apart from that, the majority of the products going forward also will be through a direct billing.

Anyways, if it's direct or indirect through big distributors, it doesn't change our margin anyways, because the brands directly get involved in giving us the margin. We enjoy the same cash discount, the same schemes that direct or indirect billing would enjoy because of our volumes.

It doesn't matter much to us now.

Got it. Last question from my end, Karan, you mentioned in your remarks that there is a sizeable difference between margins for mature stores and young stores.

By when do you expect these younger stores also to reach that 7% EBITDA margin that we sort of see in the mature store portfolio?

Devanshu, isme ye cycle hai. Abhi jaise for example, jaise abhi taqreeban samjho 150 store mature hona baaki hai jo char saal ke niche hain, theek hai?

Abhi wo usme se 20 ye saal ya 30 ye saal mature ho jayenge jo aapko 5-6% ka margin dena shuru kar denge EBITDA, magar aapke fir 20-30 naye bhi add ho jayenge na? That 100-odd stores plus will always be in the cycle of getting matured at any time.

At the same time, idea is that are the stores which are two years old, three years old, or 15 months old, are they maturing in terms of revenue and the EBITDA profitability? That is what we look at, and those stores are trending up really well.

Got it, Karan. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you.

Hi. Hi, team.

Thanks for taking my question and congrats on good set of numbers. My first is a follow-up on the first question on gross profit margin.

Basically, is there anything which is related to mobile phone price hikes and any one-off in the margins, or all this improvement after the mix change also the margin remaining stable is structural for us, and it will continue happening?

Yash, I hope it continues to be this way or get better than this, because that is what we're striving right now for. Because as I told you earlier, there is a deep bifurcation of every category, every brand, every SKU, I'm trying to maintain gross margin levels across all regions.

You would see a better improvement coming through, especially in the Telangana or Andhra Pradesh market, where the competitive scenario was very different, our stores were still getting matured. The blended gross margin was because of the competition was a little poor there, which now we're improving there.

You would see not only one reason for it, but multiple changes and a multiple in-depth push that we have across regions, across categories to better those margins up, not only at gross margin level, but even at the EBITDA level.

Got it. Got it.

My second question is more specific to RAC category, there has been a lot of price hike recently. How has been the absorption in the market and how has it impacted the demand, and anything we are absorbing on our end which will impact our gross margin going ahead because of this price hike?

Yash, two things. Firstly, we had an advantage of carrying our previous inventory from last year, so that helped us in the initial beginning days of the summer starting of this year.

Then we did do purchase, right, in January, February. We didn't pick up usually the way we would pick up, but anticipating a little demand, we already had picked up enough inventory at the older pricing.

For us, we will not see a huge change in pricing during the whole summer period. We still have some inventory left that is sufficing our growth as well as our requirement.

Whereas the same time, probably going another 20 days or so, we would be then picking up little more inventory if required. That would be at the newer price, but not with a major price increase.

I'm talking about 2% or 3% maximum, not more than that. We don't absorb any hike in the price.

It's all passed on to the customer. If there is an increase of ₹1,500 or ₹2,000 depending on the SKU, it is all increased in the selling price on the storefront.

That is how it is divided. Either the manufacturer would take a hit or we'll have to increase the pricing on the storefront.

Usually as a retailer, with our margin, we can't afford taking that price increase ka cost.

Got it. One last question, there has been some huge price hike in mobile phones.

Was it already in this quarter or it will reflect in Q1 more?

It has been happening especially for the entry-level product categories in mobile phones, but unfortunately or fortunately, we're not that strong in that ₹15,000 or ₹15,000, ₹18,000 kind of category. Our ASPs are upwards of ₹35,000, ₹40,000 for mobile phone today.

Wahan par upar wale par agar aap dekhoge iPhone ka price nahi increase hua, Google ka price nahi increase hua, Fold, Flip ka price nahi increase hua, S20 Ultra, 26 Ultra, ye series ka price increase nahi hua hai. Majorly aap dekhoge toh Vivo, Oppo, Realme, Xiaomi, inke jo ₹20,000 ke niche wale models hain, wahan pe zyada price increase dikh raha hai aapko.

Got it. Wo humare liye itna important nahi hai.

Makes sense. Correct.

Correct.

Correct.

Thank you.

Thank you, Yash.

Hi, Karan. Hi, team.

Good afternoon.

I have a couple of questions. How are we seeing the store addition for the next year or next couple of years?

Number one. Which are the geographies where we'll add these stores?

A similar question to this is, are we looking at any new geographies to foray into, and by when should we get into those newer geographies?

Okay. Veenit, we are currently concentrating on NCR, AP, and Telangana.

Organically, we would be looking at anywhere between 12 to 15 stores in this region. We will be opening up at least four to five stores which are getting ready in Delhi region and adding up another three or four new contracts in that region as well.

Probably this year we might add seven to eight more stores in Delhi NCR region and a similar number down south. This would be organically happening as we talk.

We'll be opening some stores this quarter in the coming times as well in this financial year. For the second question of yours, for the new geography, we've shortlisted few areas, out of which very strongly we would be entering East and starting our base with Calcutta in the eastern market organically.

Here we plan to open at least by say either the end of quarter two or the beginning of quarter three so that we can capture on the Durga Puja, Dussehra, Diwali period there. We would at least start off with five to seven stores in that region by the end of quarter two or the beginning of quarter three.

Calcutta would be our new base for East, and from thereon we will start expanding organically in the eastern part of the country.

Understood. More like 20 store additions is what we plan for this year?

More or less, yes.

Understood. Should we assume a normal sort of a CapEx which we do on a per-store basis for all of these, something in the region of ₹3 to ₹4 crore?

All our store sizes, everything, all that remains in line only. Even the newer regions, we at least plan to open 8,000-10,000-square-feet stores.

Some might be 7,000, 6,000, some might be 10,000, 12,000 also, but the average would be 8,000 to 10,000 square feet is what we look at with a similar CapEx, the similar product mix. No changes there.

The idea is to remain stick to our basics what we are doing.

Understood. Just one more question from my side.

Now, when given the inflationary environment we are in where essentially all the product categories are seeing significant price hikes, how does it work for us? Do we still work on a percentage margin basis or given pricing is going up, we're okay lowering our percentages a bit and focus more on absolute EBITDA growth?

How does our thought process work in that scenario?

Definitely, percentage becomes the basis for our calculations, irrespective of the price that you operate at, right? If it is a ₹1 lakh phone, I can't expect, okay, theek hai, main ispe ₹1,000 kama lunga, aur ₹20,000 ka phone rahega toh usme yeh nahi bolunga ki main 5% kama lunga ₹1,000.

Usually, it is a math of the percentage that we look at. What we look at is that because there are fixed expenses that we have to bear, their marketing expenses, manpower, a lot of other things are in terms of fixed to us.

We at least make sure that when we look at profitability, we look at now at a deeper level where we look at profitability per store, to look at the productivity, how to increase the productivity. Because it can't be a varied price between the categories in different stores, but it can be a varied pricing strategy for clusters.

Like I can offer probably a Daikin AC at a higher or low pricing, say, Delhi versus a Andhra Tier 2 town. Then that can be only a leeway of 1% or 2%.

I can't go drastic. I can't be higher than the market or way lower than the market as well.

It is going to be a balanced act. We look at least a certain percentage of gross margins that we retain on a product categories that we sell, because mobile phones would be different to large appliances to say kitchen appliances to say a Daikin product to an accessory product or a warranty product, right?

There it differs category-to-category.

Understood, Karan. This is helpful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Veenit.

Yeah. Hi, Karan.

Congratulations on good results. My first question, sir, is on ASPs, right?

One of the struggle we all electronics retailers have is that the ASPs go down 5% to 15% every year, and this is what has been happening in the last three, four years. Now it looks like the underlying deflationary trends may be changing towards inflationary.

Any comment on how do you see ASPs moving?

Rupesh, as you said, see, there is a very thin line between how say an online player or a mom-and-pop store versus a premium modern retail store would look at ASPs. As you said, few markets look at this problem differently.

We being a premium seller, we've always seen our graph of ASPs going up across categories. The value and the bill cuts might be a little different because you're talking about increase in a lot of newer low-price product categories like accessories, audio product categories, which have increased a lot for us.

The ASP on the bill cut, you would see a little different scenario versus the individual ASP increase. Basically, AC ka price badh gaya, TV ka price badh gaya, ya mobile ka price badh gaya, toh automatically aap ASP toh automatically badh raha hai.

Agar aapne same volume bhi becha last year se, toh ASPs have gone up at least by 5% to 6% this year on an average. Star rating badha AC mein, toh last year 1.5-ton ka 3-star versus ye saal ka 1.5-ton 3-star is higher by 5%, for example.

Toh aapne same volume bech diya agar, toh aapka ASP 5% badh gaya wahan par. Otherwise, a lot of improvement in technologies, a lot of ASPs going up for jaise 55-inch, post GST drop, people who were buying a 55-inch have started shifting to a 65 or a 75-inch because it became more affordable.

Automatically aap bada size le rahe ho, toh aap bada wahan pe dekh rahe ho ki aapke ASPs change ho raha hai. Same thing with washing machines, refrigerators, accessories, every category.

People who buy a earbud today, for example, earlier were buying a sasta say ₹5,000, ₹6,000 ka headphone, now are buying a ₹15,000, ₹20,000 ka headphone. Every category is seeing a definite increase in ASPs.

There is not even one single category across the board where we would see a reduction in ASPs.

Just to summarize, generally, for example, TVs, we see 15% price decline across years is very common. Even with the phones, it's same, right?

After one year the older model goes down quite a bit. What you are saying is on an average in every category, TV, phone, AC, refrigerator are still a bit different, more electronics.

There you are saying even there the ASPs have gone up this year and they might go up over next two, three years.

Correct. Jaise aapne abhi correct example diya, sir.

Jaise aap market ki baat kar rahe ho, toh jaise kaafi retailers hain jo focus on entry-level product categories or majorly older models. Toh wahan par ASP change ho raha hai, wo mujhko idea nahi hai.

Jaise abhi iPhone 17 hai, toh hum log iPhone 17 hi bechte hain, for example. Hum log toh naye models aur latest models hi bechte hain saare brands ka.

Toh wahan par aap kaise bhi improvement in ASPs dekhoge hi. Jaise agar aap dekhoge ki jaise aap bol rahe ho ki last year ka iPhone 15, 16 hai, toh wo toh market mein kam price pe chalega because 17 is come, no?

My mix on that product category is very low, but where a lot of other retailers might be predominantly selling only 15 or 16. I would be selling only 17, 17 Pro Max.

For me, the product mix is more premium always.

Okay. That's clear.

The second question is the rate of store opening has come off quite significantly in FY '26 versus FY '25. I think it's 23 this year versus 40 last year.

I think that is what has come into the cash flow from operations. Is there some change in strategy, because I remember in one of the discussions that what you had said is ki jitna CFO whatever cash flow from operations we generate, everything will be reinvested back into the business.

That is what we were looking at or thinking few years ago. Is there some change now in that strategy?

No, sir. That remains the same.

Sir, it is more to do with the penetration that you would have in a certain market. Like Delhi was a new market, we now had majority of the stores opening up in Delhi.

For example, this year also, when we plan to go to newer regions and automatically with the organic existing region like NCR and South, you would be adding up a new cluster all together. Toh aap dekhoge ki wo improvement dikhega aapko.

We have a requirement of opening stores, we would definitely do that, but we're not shy away from that. Until unless we don't feel there is a potential in the certain market to open and expand further, we would slow down that.

Agar aap Hyderabad dekhoge, Hyderabad on an average ek-do store hi khulte hain har saal, either we relocate our smaller stores to bigger ones or we find a new geography in Hyderabad. Because it is already a older market for us, already penetrated with good number of stores here, we don't see more potential of opening stores like 10, 15 a year, no?

Toh waise fir hum log Andhra mein khola, toh Andhra mein 70 store ho gaye, abhi 45 store ho gaye, 60 store the last year, 55 se fir hum 70 pe aaye, 70 se 80 pe chale jayenge, 100 store ho jayenge wahan par, theek hai? Usse zyada potential nahi hai.

Fir wahan par fir organically, jaise Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, ek-ek bade towns mein aapka ek-ek store khulta rahega. Jaise Delhi hai, Delhi mein aap Noida dekh rahe ho, wahan expansion hoga, Gurgaon dekh rahe ho, wahan expansion hoga.

Periphery is more than the city. Aap NCR ke around wala market dekhoge jo bhi expand hoga hamare liye.

What you're saying is in our Telangana, Hyderabad, AP, NCR, in all four geographies, we have reached now enough scale and incremental store opening run rate will now be low. It will not fall away the requirement to open up, but on average it looks like it will be now low.

Correct. Jaise organically agar aap dekhoge toh between the existing older clusters, we would be opening around not more than 20-odd stores this year.

Baaki 20 plus jo naya geography mein kitne khulenge samjho aap koi nayi geography ja rahe ho toh wahan par aapko 20 store toh kholni hai. 20 mein aapko 10 ye saal mil gaye, 10 agle saal milenge, toh something like that.

Agar aapko 20 ye saal hi mil gaye, toh aap saari 20 ek saal ek sath hi khol doge na?

Okay. Understood.

North cluster, any margin trajectory for FY '27, FY '28 it's profitable now, congratulations on that. Maybe FY '28 you see it'll be around South cluster margins, or it will take longer?

Not by '20, not this financial year, sir. You'll have to give me at least 20, 24 months more, because

FY '28, I'm asking '28, FY '28.

Yeah. By FY '28, we should at least not the same number as South, but at least a 3% to 4% higher number than what it is currently.

Perfect. There is this mature versus non-mature slide.

What I understood is what you are saying is that 30 stores, for example, on average will move from non-mature to mature, and then newer, whatever you open newer will get into non-mature, correct?

That is the rough

understanding. Exactly.

Correct.

Maybe in '28 in '28, is it fair to assume that mature/non-mature mix will move to 50-50?

Not really, sir. Suppose in '28, if suppose I enter to give you an example, but don't catch me for that, but suppose if I enter UP as a market, theek hai?

Toh UP is, say, a 50, 70-store kind of a market, right? Toh agar mujhe 50, 60 dukan kholne hain aur mujhe say FY '28 mein if I feel I'm getting 30, 40 properties, probably in one year I might open 30, 40 properties there.

Theek hai? Then that kind of an expansion happens in a bigger state.

Suppose if I have to go to Goa or if I have to go to Dehradun, I will open only one store each in a newer cluster. Depending on the cluster that after Calcutta that we would enter into, that would define this.

This is actually, if you ask me, it is something that is secondary for us. Primarily, what we look at is the productivity of the existing stores also.

That is more important ki ye jo 140 jo non-mature stores hain, how are they trending, though they might be aging towards mature stores, but are they delivering revenue and profits as per a mature store is required to do? That is more important for us.

Clear. Just one one one final question.

NCR market had its own nuance and you had to buy properties, and which has kind of suppressed our depreciation and suppressed return ratios. Is Kolkata also has a similar nuance where you have to buy properties or Kolkata expansion will largely be leased?

Sir,

see, it is going to be a mix of both. For this financial year, I don't look at more than a ₹50-odd crore investment happening in real estate there.

Probably over a period of time, we might end up doing not more than ₹100 crore of acquisition there in the next, say, 12, 14 months.

Clear. I don't know how many of our stores are franchisee, but any color on that and how do you see the percentage of franchisees moving up?

Is it going to move up over the next two, three years?

Sir, we only company-operated stores only, we don't have a franchisee model currently. We would be sticking to this current model only where we only open stores and operate them, sir.

Franchisees will give you significant capital efficiency, right? What prevents us from going into franchisee model, even experimenting, for example, let's say?

Definitely we can look at it, but franchisee to me sounds more like an affair that one would have, a married man. I would rather stick to my wife rather than having an affair outside.

I'm happy doing that. I would consider it that way.

Given we definitely keep on internally discussing it, but if given on an opportunity if we have all the support from our OEMs and we feel that certain region or geography requires a franchisee model, we'll definitely explore that, sir.

You're saying you are afraid that consumer experience might go down if you go franchisee route?

Consumer experience, sir, there are a lot of nuances that are involved in our business on a daily level. There is a lot of control that is needed.

There are good to it, there is bad to it as well. Right now, as you said correctly, one major advantage that you will have is our capital allocation will be much lower and growing in a franchisee model versus what it is today.

For a long-term strategy, the mindshare has to be of our partner also coming on board to what our requirements are, it's just not only about the capital investment by the franchisee partner, but we need a lot of mindshare of them, because there is a lot of seasonality involved, there are a lot of ups and downs in seasons, in quarters. The expectations have to be very varied compared to what a regular franchisee partner of any big brand would have.

Okay. Thank you for being so candid, sir, and

thank you

for answering all the questions. Yeah.

Thank you, sir.

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

Karan, my first question is on the EBITDA margin side for North cluster. If I remember correctly, you had said at ₹1,000 crore, we can do 3% to 4% EBITDA margin and is that correct and should we be looking at that number in FY '27 or '28 if you can present here?

Akhil, you're absolutely right. I think the last discussion we had come out to that number.

FY '27, I hope that we achieve that number in FY '27 itself. But '28 is definite for sure.

The way we're trending, we closed FY '26 at ₹585-odd crore for NCR as a region. The additions of stores, the stores getting matured, we see a bigger traction, plus FY '26 definitely was a bad year for summer.

Then we anticipate that this summer at least is going to give us that bump organically, and then we're increasing our market share there. So '27 is also going to be a good year than what it was in '26 compared to '26.

So 585 versus say we end up doing ₹800-plus-odd crore in FY '26, that is the target that we're looking at. Then with a good summer or a good festive period, we would definitely look at a slight bump there.

Then if we achieve that kind of a number, we would look at an EBITDA margin of at least 2% to 4% kind of a number there. That is the least that we have in mind for Delhi as a region.

Is it then fair to assume that in Andhra and Telangana upcountry, we would be doing at least 3% of EBITDA margins given both of these regions have now crossed ₹1,000 crore plus revenues?

If you look at Andhra and Telangana, that EBITDA margin is much better than that number that you just said, 3%, because, sir, yahan par setup hi alag hai na pura compared to what Delhi is at. Yes, not only this year, but last year also we crossed that number there.

We're on a good track. If you look at the cluster-wise number in Andhra and Telangana, we would definitely from say about 1,100 and ₹1,100-odd crore in Andhra and then ₹1,000 crore in Telangana, we would definitely look at a higher single digit or a SSSG I'm talking about, with the new additions of stores it would definitely be a little more higher number.

Both the clusters would definitely contribute to anywhere between ₹2,400 to ₹2,700 crore in the coming year.

Okay. Sir, and just to clarify, when you say things are different in NCR versus Andhra and Telangana upcountry, it's to do with the buying out the property versus rented property, or is there anything else basically which gives us the distinction?

Sir, rental property, interest aur depreciation toh niche aa gaya na? Mai EBITDA level pe bolu agar toh kharche jo hai marketing ho gaya, manpower cost hai, toh ye jo aapka competitive scenario hai, toh aapka gross margin are a little lower there versus your gross margin here, productivity per store.

Toh ye sara milaoge toh aap thoda wahan different aapko definitely improvement

toh dikhega hi dikhega. You're saying competitive intensity is higher in NCR geography basically vis-a-vis South?

See, Delhi mein not only jaise your competitive intensity with bigger guys like Croma, Reliance, Vijay Sales aap lad rahe ho wahan par, whereas yahan par aap mom-and-pop se lad rahe ho. Toh thoda aapka margin discounting structures aur product mix aur saath mein the other expenses, even manpower or marketing cost, rental cost, ye saare bahut differ karte hain na fir.

Got it. This is clear.

Second, would you be able to give the store count for Hyderabad and the sales for Hyderabad?

Sorry, sir, can you repeat your question?

Sales and store count for Hyderabad basically.

Okay. Sir, FY '26, currently we operate around 72 stores in Hyderabad city.

Okay.

For FY '26, the revenue generated out of these stores were ₹1,422 crore, ₹4,122 crore approximately.

Got it. There is huge difference in the productivity, obviously, Hyderabad being our core geography, accept that.

Correct. Absolutely right.

I wish all the stores in the country wherever we open start performing like Hyderabad.

Yeah. Great.

This were all my questions. Thank you so much and best luck for coming quarters.

Thank you, Akhil. Thank you very much.

Thank you for the opportunity. My question is, could you just share how demand trends have been so far in the current quarter?

Sorry, sir, I didn't get your question. You want to understand the trend for quarter one?

Hello? Hello, Pawan?

Hi, sir. I hope I'm audible.

Congrats on the good SSSG delivered this quarter. If you can, sir, I joined little bit late, might be repetitive, but on the SSSG for the Q4 for the South versus the North, Delhi-NCR, you can bifurcate the volume versus value, that would be helpful.

Okay. Sir, one second, go back on the previous slide, store count.

Sir, in terms of store count, today in South we've got 72 stores in Hyderabad, 69 stores operating in Andhra Pradesh, and around 46 stores in Telangana region. This contributes to around ₹6,000-odd crore of revenue, ₹6,000-plus.

Around ₹5,500 crore comes in from this region and around ₹590, ₹590-odd comes in from Delhi as a region which operates currently as 36 35 stores, out of which six stores were opened in this financial year, the last financial year in FY '26. If you look at it, this is the split that we have today between North and South in terms of store count and revenue that we generated from these regions.

Yes, sir, that's helpful, but I was specifically asking SSSG.

The

SSSG, what was the contribution from volume versus value? Because I see that the North cluster Delhi has done 18.6% SSSG in Q4.

Just

was wondering what is the volume contribution versus the value contribution?

Okay. Sir, you want the volume contribution, you said?

Ballpark would do, sir. Just wanted to see volume side.

I don't have exact volume category-wise, but in terms of the revenue that we generated, to split the volumes would be in the similar percentage of the revenue that we generated out of different clusters. Telangana definitely would be one of the highest volume generators for us.

Almost 70-odd percent comes in from here, and then another 10% comes in from Delhi, and around 20 18-odd percent comes in from AP and Telangana, sir, the upcountry market. That is how the split is more or less.

No, that is what is the contribution you're saying, no? Delhi, sir, your like-to-like store sales has grown by 19%, right, in Q4,

and

yeah. In that, sir, 19%, what is the contribution of the volume?

Is it more volume-led or more value-led in the Delhi region?

Sir, I didn't understand the last part you said.

This 18%, 19% that growth on the mature store that we are currently showing, so that growth was led by volume or value, sir, for the quarter?

Achha, okay. Yes, it is a mix of both.

I'll just give you the exact number. One second.

Give me a second, sir. I'll just open that report up for you.

If you look at Delhi, sir, across categories, if I give you a detailed number, say, mobile phones would be, say, at say 70% value growth, whereas the volume would be around 50%. That is the number, because the base in Delhi was practically less.

If I look at televisions, value growth there would be around, say, 18%, with the volume growth also would be around a similar 17% kind of a number. The maximum jump that we would see over overall categories would be for categories like kitchen appliances, audio devices, where the value and volume growth were upwards of all 30%, 40% kind of a number.

Overall contribution

will be much lesser to the top line there.

No, got it. The numbers are higher in Delhi region because of the smaller base, whereas your Telangana and Andhra Pradesh stores are already kind of way ahead in terms of your sales numbers, I assume.

Hence, the growth is still impressive, the SSSG for the quarter for the South cluster, but Delhi, it is more to do with our base, right? You are also seeing a lot of volume and value growth in the Delhi kind of.

Absolutely. Because the base itself is quite low right there.

Right. Sir, in terms of the base and how you're ramping up, because in past few quarters, we've seen that clearly the competitive pressure in Delhi was way higher,

and

the ramping up took a longer time for us, and we had to do additional marketing as you described earlier as well. Sir, in terms of this ramping up and all, and do you think that from here, we can at least improve our per-store sales for FY '27 in the Delhi cluster?

Can we sustain the Q4 SSSG? That's what my question is, specifically in FY '27 for Delhi, specifically, because we know that South you have a good presence, but for Delhi cluster, can we sustain this kind of 19% level of growth like-to-like basis?

Sir, two things again here. No, last year, see, summer didn't support us that well across the country.

This year automatically looking at a much better number because summer is supporting you. That is more organic, right?

If you ask me, we have no other option. We are in Delhi right now.

We've invested so much. We have to make sure that we start delivering numbers, right?

There

I think there has to be a reason for us not delivering it, right? We have to figure it out, fix that problem a quarter-on-quarter, month-on-month, start moving from thereon, fix issues, whatever the issues are, either from our end, from the OEMs, from the store level, customer perceptions, marketing issues, whatever it is.

We have to move on day-by-day. It is always a new cluster.

On that, sir,

if you can elaborate, that would be really helpful. We just hear that the regional competition, regional stores and local store competition is very high, but also the customer perception in Delhi is very different compared to, say, South.

They don't trust probably the bigger format stores and all. We don't know, we are just speculating.

If you can elaborate more on what went wrong or what was the market study like and what did you experience, what has been your learning so far in the Delhi market, from customer point of view and the competition point of view, that would be helpful.

See, now, sir, even if I have done a mistake, I'll not agree to it. I think we have done everything right, that's why we're sitting here.

This is just to start on a lighter note. On a serious point, every market, even Hyderabad today, there is a new learning that we go through every day.

It is not that because we are sitting here at a much higher market share or we are the leaders here, it doesn't mean that we don't change our customer experience, introduce newer product categories, or don't understand what the market is operating at, what the demand on the storefront is. What we have to understand on a daily basis is that are the positioning of our brands right?

Are the pricing right? Are the stores' location right?

Every small detail in retail matters a lot, right? That is very important for us to understand that why a customer is coming to our store in Hyderabad and why not in Delhi, right?

There has to be a reason for it, and I don't think our conversions are good, but our footfalls are lower. We have to increase on our footfalls in Delhi.

The market size is so big. How do we move customers from, say, not only from the modern retail stores, but even from a mom-and-pop distribution market to a modern retail format?

We are opening stores relevant to sizes or markets where either our market leader is mom-and-pop store or a LFR format store. We have to look at those things.

We have to concentrate on a lot of marketing. We have to start educating our customers a lot that we are available in this location with these many products or brands.

Pricing, if you ask me, in any of the markets, there are a set of customers who are price-sensitive. A lot of customers who want service.

Customers who believe in faster deliveries. Customer whose store ambiance matters a lot, or the range that we offer, especially the premium range, matters a lot.

There are a set of different customers everywhere. You got to make sure that you have a bouquet of different experiences and offerings to your customers so that you can improve your market share in that new market especially.

Got it, sir. On that note, we are also expanding to Kolkata, right?

Shouldn't we just pause on that and just try to focus on improving the profitability on the North cluster first and before moving into Kolkata? Because that market is also kind of pretty much fragmented and might surprise you in terms of again ramping up and getting market share.

What are your thoughts? Or do you think that you have some advantages in Kolkata, and so that's why you are foraying into that micro-market?

Sir, ek toh kya hai na ki see now the stabilization wala kaam ho chuka hai Delhi mein. It's going to be more organic journey from here on.

Then we can't expect that Delhi is going to keep giving us 50% year-on-year growth, right? It has to be more organic.

It has to be more trending with what the market demand is.

What is the growth and margin outlook for Delhi for FY '27?

Sir, at least for that particular cluster, we'll be at least looking at 25% to 30% kind of a growth from the existing ₹590 kind of a number. Margins, sir?

Right now, I would consider that 0.2%, 0.3% kind of an EBITDA margin, which would definitely increase to 2.5%, 3% kind of a number.

These are all Pre-Ind AS we are discussing, right? Pre-Ind AS EBITDA numbers.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Sorry, sir.

I just interrupted you.

No. Till the time we enter a new market also, see I can't expect that Kolkata is going to turn, shape up from day one onwards, right?

It is going to take a little time till the time you open 15, 20 stores, we understand the market better. It's going to be an organic learning.

That will at least take us from the day of opening, it'll take us at least a year or two to understand, set up things better, right? Till the time we do that, there always have to be a new cluster for us to explore from here on.

Delhi is now started stabilizing. We'll see better result coming from Delhi on this onwards.

It is just a improvement from our existing base, whereas creating a new market would always take some time, right? Even if we start off by quarter two, quarter three this year, we would at least take some time to get in the right people, the right brand, the product mix, the pricing, competitor scenario, right marketing.

A lot of the learning happens only after because it's not that you go blind to a market. You understand the market, you do a lot of your research, have your people on the ground, get the right team in, and then you launch a store in a new geography.

From thereon, the learning happens on a practical ground level where on a daily basis you understand customer requirements, pricing, marketing, everything. Then you improvise from thereon.

That cycle is, say, 12, 14 months cycle for you to get things right on the floor, and then from thereon you move ahead. That is how things work for us at least.

We plan to get into a new market. Kolkata came in our way.

That's why we entered Kolkata. A lot of other markets also that we would like to explore in the future, for which once, say, Kolkata stabilizes, then we will enter those markets.

Got it, sir. Sir, that's all from my side.

All the best.

Thank you, Hitaindra.

Thank you. I would like to thank all of you for joining into the call.

I hope that we were able to answer all your questions, and for any other queries, you may get in touch with our team or SGA. They will be happy to address all your queries.

Thank you once again.