Eternal Limited

Eternal Limited

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Feb 11Next Earn

Q1 FY2027 · Earnings Call TranscriptJuly 22, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, a very good evening, and welcome to Eternal Limited's Q1 FY27 earnings conference call. From Eternal's management team, we have with us today Albinder Singh Dhindsa, Akshant Goyal, and Kunal Swarup.

Before we begin, a few quick announcements for the attendees. Anything said on this call which reflects outlook for the future or which could be construed as a forward-looking statement may involve risks and uncertainties.

Such statements or comments are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results may differ from those statements. Additionally, please note that this earnings call is scheduled for a duration of 45 minutes, and we will be starting directly with the Q&A section of the call.

If you wish to ask a question, please use the raise hand feature available on your Zoom dashboard. We will announce your name on the call and unmute your line, post which you can proceed with your question.

We will wait for a minute while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Gaurav Malhotra from Axis.

Please go ahead.

Gaurav Malhotra

Hi. Good evening, everyone.

Congrats on a good set of numbers. Just had a couple of questions.

Firstly, you seem to have raised the long-term guidance in quick commerce from 5% to 6% towards 6%. What gives you this confidence to do this now, especially when there is sort of competitive intensity in the sector?

Akshant Goyal

Hi, Gaurav. I think this is basis what we are seeing in the business.

I think what we're trying to communicate here is that over time we have increased the capex per store in our business, right, and some of these investments are leading to increase in efficiency in the business. It's also a function of increase in average store sizes, etc.

All these investments are clearly lining up in a way where we have now higher visibility on the margins, and we think at this point that we're likely to end at the higher end of the range that we had guided earlier, and hence the communication.

Gaurav Malhotra

Understood. Okay.

The next is, you mentioned the sort of the older cohorts spending 3x, versus 3 years 3x versus 3 years back. Just wanted to get a sense of the split between how much of this is related to order frequency and how much is it related to the AOV growth?

Akshant Goyal

Gaurav, we don't share that data, but directionally most of it is frequency growth. I think with passage of time, for a customer cohort we see that AOV kind of stabilizes.

It grows, but only slightly, and most of the growth comes from frequency growth.

Gaurav Malhotra

All right. Just one last question.

How much of this growth which you're seeing at an aggregate level in Blinkit, how much of it is coming from existing cities versus geographical expansion?

Akshant Goyal

I think most of it is from existing cities.

Gaurav Malhotra

Okay. Okay.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vivek Maheshwari from Jefferies.

Please go ahead.

Vivek Maheshwari

Hi, good evening, team. My first question on Blinkit, two parts.

On your response in question number 8, you have mentioned two points. If you can please elaborate on that.

You have started with the statement, no competitive intensity remains high, but it has become more predictable. Can I request if you can elaborate on this?

Do you also think that this is, let's say the first quarter has been the peak of competitive intensity or the phase where the highest competition is at this point of time?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

Hey, Vivek. First quarter so far it was the peak of competitive intensity that we have seen till date, both because number of players were higher and everybody was more aggressive.

When we look at competitive intensity and the way that it has evolved over the last few quarters, what we're seeing is that most of the competition is coming in providing subsidies to customers on products and also on delivery fees. That is what has become more predictable, that most competitors are going towards grocery subsidizing, which we are fairly clear in what we do in that and what is the kind of impact that this has on the business.

We don't think that there is a lot of wiggle room for people to go much, much deeper than what they are currently going, because that would balloon losses fairly significantly. That's what we mean by it is fairly predictable now.

Vivek Maheshwari

Interesting. Got it.

The second part also, if you can elaborate on this. You have mentioned pricing-led growth requires sustained cash burn and leads to systemic trap.

They can't easily walk out of. Can you just elaborate on this piece also?

See,

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

we are fundamentally a supply creation business. If you channel your supply towards providing discounts to customers, then that's what the business becomes.

Every time you want to pull away from that, there is nothing else to offer to the customers, because that's what you got the customers in the first place for. There is no pull back in this, like we also explained that there's no pull back that you'll pull the discounts and the customers will stay, because you got the customers by promising them a subsidy.

Then they'll try to move to the next platform or the next platform, or they will drop out of the category. We don't see a recovery for platforms from this trap if they are acquiring customers by giving a lot of subsidies.

There is no path to recovery of saying that they'll be able to retain those customers when they pull back the subsidies.

Akshant Goyal

Vivek, just to add, I think this is also coming from our own experience in the past. I think a couple of years ago, when we were building out this business, we were in many major cities, number three or four player, right?

Our initial approach in those markets like a typical e-commerce thinking is that, look, let's start discounting and get customers, and over time the investment will pay off, right? That didn't work for us initially in some markets in the south, right?

Eventually what worked was working on the infrastructure growth which Albinder mentioned, and we have the outcomes in front of us. Now we are the leading player by NOV in most of these markets, right?

We strongly feel that discount-led growth is not sustainable in the business. That is what has become predictable, and so we are able to more confidently plan our next few quarters on what we need to do.

Vivek Maheshwari

Got it. Just last one on the same point.

You already have a number of MTUs which is comfortably over 30 million. Let's say, I'm sure the industry is growing so rapidly, if you have to double this number, let's say 30 plus 30, do you think with the current strategy, not discounting at the time where the intensity is very high in the market, does service quality and whatever you stand for will still be able to allow you to do that?

Or there will be a cohort of customer which will be price-sensitive, and therefore getting incremental customer from this stage will require more probably discounting on your part?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

Vivek, our strategy in these things is that it's not like we don't give customers value as well. As our platform has gotten bigger, our profitability has gotten better, there is a certain amount that we keep reinvesting back into making our product prices more competitive, giving customers actual value, which allows us to also then be able to tap into deeper customer cohorts, which might be more price-sensitive than the current ones that we currently have.

That process will continue. That's a gradual process, where as the platform gets bigger, we pass on more benefits to the customers.

It allows us to tap into a larger market, and I think that is where the additional MTUs will come from as well.

Akshant Goyal

Also, Vivek, we don't think this level of discounting is sustainable, as we said, right? We expect this to not continue beyond the near future, right?

We do think that this will come off, and therefore, the pressure on us needing to discount just to maintain competitiveness on price will go down, right? Even with that, the prices can come off with scale, but that's then a choice that we make to pass on the benefits of scale to customers rather than actually trying to compete with price on someone else.

Vivek Maheshwari

Got it. Thank you.

Wishing you all the very best.

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Aditya Soman from CLSA.

Please go ahead.

Aditya Soman

Hi. Good evening, and thanks for the opportunity.

Two questions. Firstly, on Blinkit, we saw a lower AOV now for two quarters in a row while we've seen very strong order growth.

Can you just explain what led to this drop in AOV? Last quarter, I understand there was an element of seasonality, but we've seen that drop a little bit more.

Just maybe related to that, with sort of the delayed monsoon, what has been the impact if at all on the business, or any changes in the mix or anything of that sort? Secondly, on food delivery, now the absolute number of monthly transacting customers you're adding is actually increasing every quarter.

Now is this a function of sort of new customers coming to the fold or just a faster conversion from the ATUs? Also any sense on frequency here in food delivery?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

I think on Blinkit the AOV drop is still sort of in the same range as we were last year, but most of this drop is usually just related to small changes in the patterns that happen during the quarter. Overall in terms of the throughput and the category to change the AOV.

Right? Some of it can just be related to lower product prices because there is a lot of competitive intensity, which also forces us to price match on a lot of things.

Those can also have an impact on lowering AOV.

Akshant Goyal

Generally, Aditya, we're not expecting the AOV to grow from here, right? If you look at year-on-year, it's flat, right?

That accounts for seasonality for Q1, right? We expect broadly AOVs to remain in the same range, right?

In Q3 they might climb up again because of seasonality, but broadly ballpark we don't think they should move up in a meaningful way.

Aditya Soman

Understand. The right way then to understand this is the focus remains on sort of order growth, and maintaining AOV at the current level, which is already profitable.

Akshant Goyal

AOV is more an outcome, right? We don't drive that.

I think the mix of the categories and the products and the assortment that we have leads to that AOV, right? Eventually what is important is the NOV in the business and the margins, right?

As long as they move in the right direction, we don't worry too much about AOV because there could be smaller categories of products which have high margin, and vice versa, right? Beyond a point, AOV doesn't dictate the margin structure too much from here on.

Aditya Soman

No, very clear. Thanks.

On the food delivery question.

Akshant Goyal

On food delivery, I think the increase in MTUs is a combination of both addition of new users. I think we've seen acceleration in new users that we've added to our platform in the last three or four quarters, right?

With the categories growing as well as it's a function of more customers transacting more frequently, right? Both of them are playing a part in the growth in MTUs which you're seeing, which is driving growth.

Aditya Soman

Very clear. Just to be clear, this does not include Bistro, right?

Akshant Goyal

No, there is no Bistro overlap in our disclosures, right? Neither in NOV nor in the bottom line.

Aditya Soman

Correct. Yeah.

Akshant Goyal

Very clearly segregated. The Bistro business is also in a separate entity, I think the segregation of accounts is very, very clear, and there's no overlap in this food delivery business.

Aditya Soman

Perfect. Very clear.

Then maybe lastly, since we're on Bistro, if you can give a sense of how many kitchens you have now and what the current state of the business is.

Akshant Goyal

I think broadly, we're adding about 10-odd kitchens a quarter. That's the pace of expansion there, right?

What is encouraging is in some of our older kitchens, we're seeing a lot of progress in throughput, and we feel like we're getting the mix of right assortment, menus, menu pricing, and operational infrastructure and efficiency right, right? I think as we iterate and make that better, we will see the business becoming more profitable, right?

We can be then more aggressive on expansion as we build that confidence. It's the same mindset we had while we built out Blinkit, that you get the things right, basic processes which need to be fixed, and as you do that, that allows us and gives us more room to more aggressively expand in the future.

I think we'll be cautiously expanding for now, but at some point it can accelerate once we are more confident about the business.

Aditya Soman

Right. No, that's it.

Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Swapnil Potdukhe from JM Financial.

Please go ahead.

Swapnil Potdukhe

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

My first question is on Blinkit. See, you mentioned last quarter that there will be some bit of seasonality in the Blinkit business, and that will help you grow meaningfully faster.

You did deliver 21% Q-on-Q volume growth. Now, I was looking at your historical data as well.

It seems that between 1Q and 2Q, typically grow between 18% to 20% in volume terms. In fact, last year, you grew 26%.

Will it be fair to say that we should be looking at a similar kind of a growth in 2Q as well and broadly in line with the historical range, if not more?

Akshant Goyal

Sorry, Swapnil. We don't want to comment on the quarter right now.

No guidance on that.

Swapnil Potdukhe

Okay. Okay.

The second question is with respect to your take rates in the Blinkit business again. You have seen some decent improvement in the take rates, but that doesn't seem to be flowing down to your contribution margin.

Now, is there any particular reason that is hurting you here? Because ideally, a decent proportion of your take rate increase should flow down to contribution margin, right?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

There was some increase, Swapnil, in the cost of doing business in the quarter because there were a lot of states which implemented increase in minimum wage, so that was one factor. Also, we are also opening now larger stores, some of that contribution also comes from earlier stages of these stores, the contribution is lower than when we open smaller stores.

Kunal Swarup

See again, Swapnil, it's a seasonal business, in Q1 the last mile costs are also usually higher, right, because of summer and heat and various other factors. If you look at year-on-year, you see that a large part of gross profit increase or take rate increase has translated into contribution increase, right?

On a, I think, longer term the right metric to compare with is the Q1 of previous year, and it could be different for quarter-to-quarter depending on seasonality. The margin could be higher because of mix change also, right?

Those things are also, in addition to what Albinder said, I would like to note.

Swapnil Potdukhe

Got it. The other question is with respect to your capex guidance that you had said.

You say, per store basis, one should look at around ₹2.5 crores of capex. You added around 200 stores this quarter, but your capex was ₹700 crores.

There's a meaningful difference between what you are suggesting as typical capex versus what is there in your cash flow statement. Can you just help us understand?

Akshant Goyal

I think we should look at this number more longer term, Swapnil, because I think there is lumpiness in investments here, because while we are presenting the information as capex per store, but a large part of the capex is in warehousing, right? That investment is lumpy.

If you will therefore look at last 6 months, 9 months or longer term, our capex and look at the capex per store for that period, you will find it is lower than ₹2.5 crores. Right?

We expect therefore that to continue going forward.

Swapnil Potdukhe

Right. Just the last one on your NOV retention data that you mentioned that over a three-year period typically cohort of customers see 3x increase.

Now, when you give this data, this data is for only those customers who you have retained, or this includes customers who may have left the platform and never come back after three years?

Akshant Goyal

It's for the overall cohort, right? If you're acquiring 100 customers in a quarter, the percentages are for the entire 100, right?

If 40 of them never show up again, then the retention is only 60%, right? And

Swapnil Potdukhe

Despite that 3x increase is what you are

Akshant Goyal

seeing? Yes, for the cohort that has remained, therefore the growth is much higher, right?

At a full cohort level, the numbers are what we have presented here.

Swapnil Potdukhe

Got it. Thanks a lot for the opportunity, and all the best, guys.

Akshant Goyal

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Jignanshu Gaur from Bernstein.

Please go ahead. Hi, Jignanshu, are you there?

Seems like we're facing some technical difficulties. We'll move on to our next caller.

Next line of question is from Vijit Jain from Citi Group. Please go ahead.

Vijit Jain

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

Congratulations on a great set of numbers. My first question, you mentioned you plan to add gourmet stores in these Tier 1 cities, right, as you focus on assortment in these cities.

Does that mean split orders in metro cities in the future, or you're thinking of these stores as generally housing more expensive assortment, but housing everything? That's my first question.

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

It's a combination of both, Vijit. Depends on the kind of real estate that we get.

Gourmet stores have different infrastructure requirement, if we are able to fulfill it within the same stores, like I've said, we are opening larger stores, we have the ability to do that as well within some stores.

Vijit Jain

Got it. Is there any consideration that split orders is not a good user experience?

Is that the case at all, or in your experience that has not really been a factor at all?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

See, as a platform, we do want to make sure that we're not tilting too much towards split orders because of the customer experience could be not as great. Far, we have not experienced that in practicality.

I think customers value the availability of products more than the split orders.

Vijit Jain

Understood. My second question is, in that comment on competition, I know one of the previous callers already talked about it a little, but you also said that discounting you believe is even less effective in quick commerce than e-commerce.

I wanted to just double-check. You say that because quick commerce is a higher frequency engagement and that habit formation and expectation of discounting becomes more entrenched here?

Is that why you're saying that, or is there more to it?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

No, I think the difference is I think on the real estate available, right? Quick commerce, you're working off smaller store sizes, right?

You have a limited shelf space, right? If you are discounting in categories where the margins are low

Vijit Jain

and

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

you discount on them, then that's all that sells from that store, right? You don't have space to actually really increase assortment, or even if you increase assortment, the reliability of that availability is not there for the customers, right?

I think that's the fundamental difference. In e-commerce, you have large warehouses, right?

You get more customers looking for grocery items that are highly discounted. Theoretically, you can still offer and fulfill wider assortment, right?

Here the constraint is the store size, and that's why I think it's different in case of quick commerce.

Vijit Jain

Got it. Understood.

One last question. That comment on EBIT margin of 4% and adjusted EBITDA margin of closer to 6%, I want to be just clear because you say EBIT margin of 4, not adjusted EBIT.

Are you including ESOP expenses when you say EBIT margin of 4, or are you including something else?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

There is ESOP expenses, and there is depreciation, right? We are accounting for both of them.

Vijit Jain

Okay. Then you get to a GAAP EBIT margin of 4% as long term.

Got it.

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

That's right.

Vijit Jain

Understood. If I can just squeeze in one last question on inventory losses.

You say that it's about 1.8% of NOV, and largely driven by perishables. Practically speaking, does this go down from 1.8%, or it's a harder problem to solve, aside from of course the mix changing?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

It has been fairly asymptotic so far, we don't expect it to be materially much better.

Vijit Jain

Got it. Do you net it at the gross profit level?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

That's right. That's what we mentioned also in the letter that last line of question 6, that we

Vijit Jain

Okay.

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

All the losses are netted off from gross profit, they're part of COGS in a way, right? Gross profit is net of inventory losses.

Vijit Jain

Understood. Thank you so much.

Those were my questions.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Yogesh Aggarwal from HSBC.

Please go ahead.

Yogesh Aggarwal

Hi, just couple of questions. Firstly, can you provide some color on the growth differential across bigger cities and the smaller towns in Blinkit?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

Yogesh, obviously the non-metro cities are obviously growing faster because they're also growing off a smaller base. The percentage growth rates obviously will look much higher over there.

Also whatever competitive intensity we see, we see mostly starting off within grocery in the top tier cities. There is some impact of that over there, although we are still seeing robust growth in the Tier 1 cities.

We think there is some share shift also which happens over there, which lowers the number that we end up seeing.

Yogesh Aggarwal

Right. Thanks.

Just the other one based on the new economics for the stores, I think now since they are bigger stores, you're looking at 2,100, 2,200 OPD per store per day. Is there a possibility to modify the existing stores for them also to do 20 a similar level of throughput going forward, or we are close to peak there in terms of size and throughput?

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

No, that's as a regular exercise, we've been upgrading a lot of the existing stores also to find more optimal properties which are larger and move to larger store sizes.

Yogesh Aggarwal

Right. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ankur Rudra from JP Morgan.

Please go ahead.

Ankur Rudra

Hey, thank you. Looks like a nice growth recovery in QC.

Do you think you're back to regaining share in the market, or is the industry growth resilience better than expected in the quarter?

Akshant Goyal

We don't know, it's speculative, Ankur. I think we are more focused on what we can rely on is our data.

As we mentioned, for us the tracker is customer retention, which I think is better than what it has been. From our vantage point, therefore, if the market is expanding faster than us, really doesn't matter to us.

Ankur Rudra

Got it. Just in response to Vivek's question, you mentioned that you have been passing on some benefit of scale as value to customers.

How do you distinguish between giving customers value versus discounting you see from your peers?

Akshant Goyal

We usually don't look at whatever discounting is happening from the peers beyond a certain point. Our baseline is usually what we think product prices can be sustainable in the long run, and that is sort of what we index towards.

The idea is that if our business is generating more efficiency and we can actually lower those prices even further, that is when we actually take those price decreases. We want to sustainably stay at those prices for the foreseeable future.

We usually don't discount for a shorter period of time just to get some customers.

Ankur Rudra

Got it. As a follow-up, it was a nice surprise to see a very nice sharp increase in MTUs in quick commerce despite a lower spend in marketing and fewer store adds.

Is there anything you did differently this time to increase the MTU addition here?

Akshant Goyal

Not really. Okay.

Ankur Rudra

Just last question on food delivery then. Can you elaborate how you have responded to Toing and Only, given you have accelerated this quarter and doesn't appear like there's been any share loss despite lower customer fees from these formats?

No,

Akshant Goyal

I think so as we have mentioned also, Ankur, in the response to question 3, that we're trying to be price competitive in certain markets where these platforms are more aggressively spending, right? Far, that's been enough to be able to make sure we are able to defend and not lose share to these platforms.

One of the big things that we did was actually last year when we dropped the eligibility for free delivery for a Gold member to ₹99 instead of ₹199. That's one example of how that reduces the cost for a customer which is seeking a low value order.

Ankur Rudra

Understood. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhisek Banerjee from ICICI.

Please go ahead.

Abhisek Banerjee

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

Again, great set of numbers. Just on the capex per store bit, you have given ₹2.5 crores now versus ₹1 crore earlier.

Is that ₹1 crore strictly comparable in terms of does the new store include warehousing capex also in that ₹1 crore number?

Akshant Goyal

That's right.

Abhisek Banerjee

Okay. On the net working capital side, right, you have actually managed to reduce it to 12 days, right, but when you were actually going to the 19 mode, I think the thought process was that if you increase your assortment, it can actually increase from that 18 days number.

What has kind of helped you reduce it further? Is it just terms of trade or something else?

Akshant Goyal

I think see, 12 days is what we are saying here is a steady-state estimate right now. Currently, as we mentioned in question 5, we are at 14 days, right?

What has changed, what has helped us reduce it from 18 to 14, and what we think will take it to 12 further is largely, I think, on account of lower inventory days than what we initially thought we'll need to carry, right? That I think as we've the replenishment and the throughput from the stores and the supply chain has been able to we've been able to achieve a lower inventory days number in the business, and I think that's been the main driver of this reduction.

Abhisek Banerjee

Understood. With regards to your OCF, right, there is a tax reversal which has come in, which is why the OCF number is looking high this quarter.

Is that kind of a sustainable level going forward? Also, if you could give some color on the taxation bit, that would be really helpful.

Kunal Swarup

Abhisek, this is Kunal here. The tax refund was on account of a refund because there were certain expenses which were ambiguous on whether they'll be allowable.

We had deposited higher advance tax, and so there's a refund towards that. That's normal course of business.

I think such things may come up once in a while going forward as well, but nothing structural.

Abhisek Banerjee

Got it. Could you also give some color on the Nugget business?

Exactly what is it that you are doing there? If you could put some clarity on that.

Akshant Goyal

Abhisek, I think we'll share more about it in the coming quarters. I think we are still in some ways in a little bit of stealth mode here, right?

It's a enterprise AI product and business, and I think we are seeing good traction in that, but it's an evolving market, as right, the entire AI space. I think we want to take a couple of more quarters and build our thesis more strongly around this, and then we'll share more about this business going forward.

Abhisek Banerjee

When you say expenses, is it because your losses have kind of increased there, is it only on manpower, or is it on buying GPUs and enterprise software and that? If you could just give some color on that.

Akshant Goyal

Largely manpower.

Abhisek Banerjee

Right. Great.

One question then not really a quarter question, but since you have already spoken about how there's no really point getting users beyond a certain number of MTUs, right? Could you give us some color on what does the Pareto ratio kind of look like in QC?

We already know that it's very steep in food delivery, but in QC is it steeper than that or how does it kind of look if you could give some color

Akshant Goyal

on that? We didn't understand your question.

Abhisek Banerjee

Say in food delivery, right, maybe your top 15% to 18% customers already drive 80% of revenues. How does that ratio kind of apply in QC, if you could give some color on that?

Akshant Goyal

That's flatter than that.

Abhisek Banerjee

It's flatter. Got it.

Operator

Cool. Thank you.

Next question is from the line of Manish Adukia from Goldman. Please go ahead.

Manish Adukia

Hi, good evening. Thank you for taking my questions.

My question actually is a follow-up on what was discussed earlier. Now, Akshant, when you say that your AOV should remain range-bound in the foreseeable future, and when you also talked about the cohort data earlier, you said that a large part of that expansion was a function of frequency and not necessarily AOV.

I'm just trying to reconcile that with, one, your assortment expansion over a period of time, where non-grocery has continued to expand from an assortment perspective. You're already talking about gourmet as also an added focus area from an assortment perspective.

When I think about MTU expansion in the near term, I understand why average AOVs may not expand. Over a period of time, if I look at today your basket size, your probably MTUs are spending less than ₹2,000 per month on your platform.

Why should that number not be substantially higher in 2 to 3 years from now as MTU growth maybe starts slowing down at some point in time? If you can just help maybe explain that a little bit better, that'll be great.

Thank you.

Albinder Singh Dhindsa

Manish, I think the wallet share will increase, right? We are not saying a customer will spend the same amount of money, right?

There's a distinction between wallet share and AOV, right? When we say AOV are unlikely to increase despite assortment expansion, I think what we are saying is a lot of assortment that we are adding is also low AOV assortment, right?

There is that element which you have to acknowledge. Also, I think as frequency of consumers go up on our platform, we see that they really start ordering fewer items in a cart, right, because it becomes a daily use case.

As customers, we've seen for ourselves that the order sizes need not be 400, 500 for every order as you become a more frequent customer. There is therefore a drag on AOV from both these sides where, as frequency goes up, we see the AOV is flattening out, and also the assortment expansion in many of the general merchandise categories is actually small, but the margin is higher, right?

That doesn't hurt us. Net-net, therefore, while there'll be a inflationary pull on AOV, there'll also be a pull on AOV expansion because of some assortment that is higher AOV, but as a combination of all of these factors, at this point, we feel that AOV expansion is not something that we see happening at this point.

Manish Adukia

Got it. Very clear.

Thank you. My second question was again maybe a follow-on to one of the previous questions.

Now when you look at, let's say, your capex per store assumption, where you have now increased that by 150% versus where you had earlier, but your NOV per day per store assumption is only up by 60%, how do I reconcile the difference between these two numbers? Why should NOV per store only go up by 60% when you're talking about capex expansion of 150% versus previous assumption?

Akshant Goyal

Manish, the capex expansion has a lot to do with the overall supply chain and not just the stores itself. The efficiency of the supply chain goes up because we are able to store more products in a single warehouse.

We have pure requirement if we are able to do more capex and and put more products in the same store same warehouse, ship them more efficiently. That is why we are doing that capex.

The correlation to how it goes to like just it is not only correlated to the store store's throughput. Another way to think about this, Manish, is that higher capex with lower NOV growth can be explained if you are expanding the market, right?

I think what we are solving here is actually trying to expand the market while making sure the ROC is healthy, right? For example, opening stores in smaller cities could lead to a lower NOV per day per store, right, but if that NOV is still profitable at 6% margin, then that increases the top line for us, right?

That's the whole point. I think the spirit on this topic is that, look, we are open with these numbers moving around, right?

The capex per store, the net working capital, or NOV per day per store, even the margins, EBITDA and EBIT margins, as long as the math on ROC is stacking up well, right? The more we invest, even if the margins fall, for example, but if the ROC remains high, the absolute dollar of profit from the business will be more, right?

That's how I think I would look at it. Very clear.

Manish Adukia

My just last question is on margin. Now given that you mentioned that competition is becoming or become more predictable, you're not seeing any material pressures of that, or your margins continue to expand despite that, and you also called out that June was probably at least closer to peak if not the peak of competition, is it safe to say that as long as growth in the business continues as per your expectations, which you said should be robust, there are no near-term pressures on margins that we should anticipate, and directionally margins should continue to improve?

Is that a fair conclusion?

Akshant Goyal

I think so. I think at this point we can say that.

Manish Adukia

Thank you so much. Very clear.

All the best.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Garima Mishra from Kotak.

Please go ahead.

Garima Mishra

Thanks so much for the opportunity. I had a couple of questions on District.

You've mentioned in the letter that District is operating across five categories. I presume out of those five, dining out and movies are the largest revenue contributors.

Is that correct? What traction are you seeing for the newer categories?

Let's say, events, activity outlets, etc.

Kunal Swarup

Garima, that's broadly correct. Today dining out and movies are the bigger categories, and amongst the newer ones, I think retail stores and events could be the more promising ones, but we're still early in that journey.

We're seeing good traction. I think at this point the idea is to figure out how much value we are able to add to the supply ecosystem, and also from a customer experience standpoint kind of work on areas that improve customer experience.

I think that's the journey we are on the other categories, difficult to say what kind of trajectory of growth we'll be able to see, but as of now, things are promising.

Garima Mishra

Okay. Second, in terms of users, how would the MTU base of District compare with, let's say, that of the food delivery business?

Should we assume that District is present in as many cities as, let's say, the dining out or food delivery business is present in?

Kunal Swarup

Garima, like we pointed out in the past as well, for the going-out business, I think we certainly think of the customer base as slightly different from the food delivery business and a base that is able to spend more. That's also reflected in the AOVs that we see in District.

I think we wouldn't compare it, but we think there's still enough room to grow even at this NOV base for District. See,

Akshant Goyal

it's definitely a smaller customer base, Garima, for going out compared to food or quick commerce, and the number of cities that we will do this business in will also be much smaller than the other two businesses.

Garima Mishra

Understood. Got it.

That's it from me. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, we will now take the last one to two questions.

Next question is from the line of Aditya Suresh from Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Aditya Suresh

Thank you for the opportunity. Two questions.

First is on the productivity gains which you all have seen in the past say two quarters. Could you maybe just talk through that a little bit and how you see that trending in the next few quarters or maybe on a say two two-three-year basis?

That's the first one. The second is, Akshant, as the business stands today, if you were to kind of measure or calculate ROC, what would that be like?

Thank you.

Akshant Goyal

I think right now of course the EBIT margin is negative, there is no ROC, right? We are all talking about future here.

It's a business and industry which is in the making right now, we're trying to invest. The framework we've given for ROC is a framework for us to think about on how much to invest in the business, right?

As of today, given the margin in the business is negative, there's no ROC. I hope that answers your question.

Aditya Suresh

That's clear. Thank you.

Akshant Goyal

On your first question, Aditya, can you be more specific? It's a very generic question, like so

Aditya Suresh

No, you have seen productivity gains at dark store level in the past few quarters, right, whether that be on a per order basis or an NOV basis. Could you maybe just talk through beyond just cohorts maturing, is there any other dynamics which are at play which is driving this improvement?

Akshant Goyal

It's everything. I think not just last few quarters, we've seen the productivity improving since the time we started the business, right?

Is it the productivity gains are at the dark store level, at the warehouse level, supply chain, even our marketing is getting more efficient, right, assortment. I think it's everything the business is about.

Again not sure if you have a specific question here, but otherwise the answer is what I just said.

Aditya Suresh

Great. Thanks, Akshant.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ashwin Mehta from Ambit.

Please go ahead.

Ashwin Mehta

Hi. Can you hear me?

Akshant Goyal

Yes.

Kunal Swarup

Yes, Ashwin. Yeah.

Ashwin Mehta

Just two questions. One, in terms of payables, there seems to be a material increase of almost ₹1,650 crores this quarter.

What exactly is driving that? Secondly, a broader view in terms of are we getting better terms from brands, etc., in terms of payables?

The second one was in terms of food delivery, where the restaurant count this quarter seem to have gone down. Is there some rationalization at play?

How are we seeing additions there?

Kunal Swarup

On the first question, see payables includes both trade payables as well as expense payables. Trade payables has increased because of the increase in the scale of the business, right?

At this point, we are not necessarily trying to over-optimize on terms with the brands. It's really more driven by scale, and then expense payables keeps fluctuating.

Akshant Goyal

There's There's nothing to highlight on payables. Payable days are fairly on expected lines.

On the second question, Ashwin, I think there's a little bit of impact of the LPG situation in the country in the last quarter because of which some restaurants went offline. I think that's why probably you see a slight dip in the monthly active restaurant partners.

Ashwin Mehta

Okay. Thanks, Akshant, and all the best.

Akshant Goyal

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conclude this conference call.

Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.