Good afternoon, and I welcome you all to the Q4 earnings call of Eureka Forbes Limited. In quarter four, we delivered a strong performance despite a progressively challenging operating environment through the quarter.

Revenue for the quarter grew 11.6% year-on-year to ₹684 crores, driven by double-digit growth in our water purifier business and continued strong momentum in our emerging categories. Our overall product business grew in double digits during the quarter, and the growth was driven on the back of volume growth and improving mix.

Growth was also broad-based across channels and geographies. The e-commerce channel disruption last quarter also normalized towards the end of the quarter and will not be a drag going forward.

Very encouragingly, our quality of growth continued to improve. We are seeing a broader growth profile, with multiple categories contributing, growing service revenue, and improving customer metrics supporting long-term business trends.

Our service business momentum sustained through the quarter, and we took several initiatives to unlock the large filter sales opportunity. During the quarter, we launched a major influencer-led marketing campaign that has already generated over 1 billion views.

We also continued to make strong progress on customer experience. Response turnaround times improved significantly, escalations reduced sharply, and we rolled out additional initiatives to further strengthen service quality.

On profitability, while input cost inflation intensified through the quarter, we delivered an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.2%, our highest ever, which is a strong reflection of the inherent strength of our business model. As you're aware, the West Asia crisis has led to sharp inflationary pressures coupled with currency depreciation.

In response to rising costs, we implemented a calibrated price increase of 6% to 7% on an average in April, and we will remain agile as the situation evolves. Let me now step back and reflect on the full year gone by and the progress we've made in our transformation journey.

FY '26 revenues grew 11.3% to ₹2,710 crores, despite a challenging macro backdrop for much of the year. This was our second consecutive year of double-digit growth.

Our product business delivered growth in teens for the third year in a row. While water purifiers saw a temporary moderation after strong growth in FY '25, the category has grown at a three-year CAGR of over 12%, and we remain confident of its growth trajectory stepping up as we go forward.

Consumer awareness around the risks of untreated water is rising, and we will continue investing behind category growth by addressing the barriers of awareness, relevance, affordability, and availability. Our emerging categories continue to scale well.

Robotics delivered strong growth and expanded its presence in organized retail. Air purifiers grew 2.7x in FY '26, albeit on a low base, and we see this as a significant future growth opportunity.

Water softeners also maintained strong double-digit growth, supported by increasing awareness and our own focused investments behind strengthening go-to-market capabilities. Eureka Forbes is now clearly evolving from being a one-category company into a multi-category health and hygiene company, and that strategic shift is increasingly becoming a meaningful source of growth.

It is important to note that we are not just participating in category growth in these categories, in several areas, if not all, we are actively helping shape and expand the category through investment in awareness, consumer insighting, distribution, and relevant innovations. In service, FY '26 marked a clear turning point in customer experience.

Several service KPIs are now at all-time high levels, and we have materially reduced the extreme outliers. Our ambition now is to move from good to being great and making customer experience our true source of competitive advantage for us.

On the service business side, AMC bookings grew in double digits in FY '26. Filters remain an exciting opportunity to tap into.

Towards that, as we've spoken about in the past, we've launched a new simplified assortment of filters and filter kits, set up a new distribution system, and began investing in consumer education. The early response has been encouraging, but we need to keep in mind that building this business requires changing years, if not decades, of established channel and consumer behavior, and hence sustained investment, focus, and some patience will be called for.

For the full year, adjusted EBITDA stood at ₹332 crores with margin of 12.2%, up 55 basis points over the previous year. This marks a third consecutive year of margin expansion from 6.3% in FY '23 to 12.2% in FY '26.

Importantly, we have achieved this even while continuing to step up our growth investments, which increased 13.2% in FY '26. Our stance remains absolutely clear.

We will continue to invest behind growth, and when required, our bias will remain towards higher growth investments. Our balance sheet also strengthened significantly, and we have moved from a net debt of ₹193 crores in June 2022 to a net cash surplus of ₹443 crores today, giving us strategic flexibility, including for inorganic growth opportunities as and when they arise.

As we look ahead, the environment, as we know, remains uncertain. The evolving geopolitical situation, input cost increases, currency pressure, and the potential impact of inflation on consumer demand all warrant close observation.

In this context, we are sharply focused on two clear priorities. Number one: stepping up growth through sustained investments and sharper execution.

Number two: driving efficiency by aggressively reducing wastage and improving productivity. Overall, I believe that Eureka Forbes has built a very strong foundation, has the right strategy and right set of plans, and has an extremely capable and energized team.

That gives us confidence in our ability to continue delivering sustained profitable growth in the periods ahead. With that, let me now hand you over to Gaurav for more details on our financial performance.

Gaurav?

Thank you, Pratik, and good afternoon, everyone. I will first start off with the FY '26 full year performance.

Revenue grew 11.3% year-on-year to 2,710 crores. This was the second successive year of double-digit growth and was underpinned by double-digit growth in six out of eight quarters for our continuing businesses.

This growth was broad-based, and there were two key aspects to this year's top-line performance. First is our shift from being dependent on a single category to having multiple growth drivers.

This was instrumental in ensuring strong overall product growth in teens for the third consecutive year now. Secondly, our service revenue growth improved versus the previous years.

Moving on to gross margins, gross margins for the year expanded by 46 basis points to 58.8%. I want to highlight two aspects here.

First, our gross margins have remained range-bound at 58% to 60% over the last three years now. This is a reflection of our balanced portfolio, mix management, and the well-institutionalized COGS program.

Second, looking ahead, we are beginning to see some input cost pressures starting from quarter one of FY '27. This triggered us to press the button on price increase of an average of 6% to 7% across categories and price points.

While this did not impact FY '26 gross margins materially, it is something we are monitoring very, very closely. If input cost inflation sustains at current levels, there will be some gross margin headwinds in FY '27 that we aim to mitigate through a series of actions across pricing, mix management, and COGS initiatives.

Let me now walk you through the details of operating expenses. Employee costs for FY '26 grew by 7% to 328 crores and came in at 12.1% of revenue versus 12.6% of revenue last year.

The increase reflects the normal salary increments and measured head count additions aligned to growth. However, the drop in people cost as a percentage to revenue is a clear source of operating leverage for us.

A&SP spend for FY '26 grew by 13.2% as we believe our growth investments are enabling growth. This is a deliberate strategic choice, and we will remain focused on investing for growth.

Service charges for the year grew by 11.2%, largely driven by increase in our AMC bookings, while other expenses, excluding A&SP spend, grew by 13.4%. Putting it all together, our total operating expenses, excluding the A&SP spends as a percentage of revenue, declined by 27 basis points to 35.7%, giving us the benefit of operating leverage.

Adjusted EBITDA grew by 16.4% for the year to 332 crores, translating into a 12.2% margin, up 55 basis points over FY '25. Adjusted PBT pre-exceptional grew by 18% to 278 crore, while pre-exceptional PAT grew by 19% to 190 crore.

Reported PAT for the year came in at ₹160 crore. This year's PAT included the impact of the new wage code, which was taken in quarter three.

In FY '26, we further strengthened our balance sheet, ending the year with a net cash surplus of 443 crore, and we generated a free cash flow of 237 crore, representing 148% of reported PAT. This is despite a step-up in CapEx from 55 crore in FY '25 to 84 crore in FY '26.

We have consistently targeted an FCF to PAT conversion above 100%, and this trend has continued in FY '26. Coming closer to FY '26 quarter four performance, revenue for the quarter grew by 11.6% year-on-year to 684 crore, led by strong growth from emerging categories and a double-digit growth in the water purifier category.

Employee expenses grew by 11.3% year-on-year to 88 crores, largely driven by higher incentive payouts. Service charges grew by 2.7% year-on-year to 85 crore.

This was a combination of increase in spends due to increase in AMC bookings, but with an offset forced by efficiency programs focused on addressing leakages. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter grew by 13.1% to 90 crores, with an underlying adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.2%.

I am happy to share that we have delivered 13% plus margin in two out of four quarters in FY '26. Adjusted PBT grew by 8.1% year-on-year to 73 crore, and PAT came in at ₹51 crore.

After a quarter three that was impacted by transient channel inventory issues, quarter four clearly demonstrated the resilience of this business. To summarize, we believe that the business today is on a strong footing.

It has been two years of double-digit growth for the business and sustained margin expansion. The fundamentals remain intact, with the categories becoming even more relevant, though consumer sentiment remains mixed.

Looking ahead into FY '27, the key variable is the uncertain macro environment. Input cost pressures are real, with no end in sight yet.

We have a number of initiatives in progress aimed at mitigating its impact. Our key focus in FY '27 is on stepping up revenue growth while at least holding margins.

We will continue to stay disciplined on costs, root out inefficiencies, and execute against our priorities with consistency. I will now hand it back to the moderator for the Q&A.

Hi, and thank you for the opportunity. First, I wanted to get a sense, as you have taken a price increase from April onwards, was there a channel stocking towards March end?

Possibly that can lead to slightly muted growth in April, and how has been the trends in so far in April and May?

Hi, Keshav, thank you for the question. We had announced our price increase well towards the end of last quarter, in fact, the last 2-3 days of March.

While there was some upstocking in a few pockets, there was no material channel loading which happened because of the price increase, and therefore we expect no impact of that in our quarter one performance.

Understood. Got it.

Now we have been seeing double-digit growth in service booking from last one year. Is it fair to assume from Q1 FY '27 onwards, at least service revenue will also take a double-digit trajectory?

How are the things happening on a number of service initiatives which you have taken and you have announced on Investor Day? What is the progress on the same?

Keshav, no, I'll begin with your first part of the question, then request GK to also come in and add. We are pleased with the progress that we have been making in our service business.

We've had the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in AMC bookings, and therefore that momentum has sustained. We also have, as we shared in Investor Day, kicked off a new growth vector, which is working on unlocking the filters opportunity.

That work stream is in market right now. We've launched a new assortment, we've got a new distribution system in place, the focus has now moved to generating consumer awareness and creating a greater pull for genuine Aquaguard filters through the parallel service network.

That work is on, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, the influencer campaign went live about a couple of months ago, and we were very, very encouraged to see the strong response we've got to that. All those work streams are in motion.

Like I said, we recognize that this involves changing many, many years of established channel and consumer behavior. Therefore this is a category which gets purchased infrequently, this behavior change will take time, but what we are seeing as early evidence is encouraging.

The other initiatives that we spoke about in the Investor Day aimed at digitizing the entire service network, aimed at improving customer experience, aimed at giving much greater visibility to our service network and to our customers. I think all of those initiatives are in fact going exactly as per plan, and I think that's one reason why our customer service KPIs have improved so significantly.

I think in terms of all the interventions, we are pleased with the progress we are making. On the revenue recognition, Gaurav, would you...

Keshav, you're absolutely right. We've had during the course of the year bookings growth on a sustained double-digit basis.

I think the important part is that it started from the early part of the year, and hence we've been able to get a part of that impact within the year itself. We've seen the impact of that play out in quarter three, we see that impact playing out in quarter four as well when we look at our service revenue growth year-on-year.

Going ahead, we do expect that impact to continue in the coming quarters as well. I think one important call-out that I would have is that and you will see this impact very, very clearly when we release our annual report, when you see the service growth between FY '25 and what you've seen in FY '26.

I think going ahead, one dimension to call out is that while we've had sustained growth in our bookings, a very conscious choice that we had made was also to drive the multi-year mix, because we wanted to lock in customers for a longer period of time, because the more multi-year mix that you do is the more is your chance to kind of elbow out the grey market operators. Hence the impact of our FY '26 bookings growth would come in FY '27, but you may not see the full impact yet because some of that revenue may come in FY '28, because the share of our multi-year mix in our AMC bookings has gone up quite significantly.

Very clearly, to summarize, when we report our full year numbers, you will see a step-up in our service revenue growth.

Got it. Quite clear.

Just a follow-up on this, how far are we to hear double-digit service revenue growth?

I think, Keshav, from our perspective, I think all the interventions are in place. I think the bit on filter is an important pivot that we did during the course of this year, and that provides an additional opportunity to generate revenue.

I think the key dimension that I would like to just reiterate is that there is a very entrenched consumer behavior, there is a very entrenched channel behavior the way they operate. I think from our perspective, it is about just making sure that we keep all these considerations in mind and back it up with the right product, right portfolio, and how do we keep creating that pull, and a part of that was launching the influencer videos in this particular quarter.

This is going to be a journey.

Keshav, if I can just add to that, Keshav, I think like Gaurav said, all the input enablers have been deployed or are being deployed as we speak. The step-up to a double-digit growth in service lies in unlocking this filter opportunity.

Therefore, towards that, we've rolled out all the possible interventions, including right products, being the right distribution, and now increasingly investing in consumer awareness and consumer education. You will see that play out and step up in the near future as well.

We remain confident that as all these interventions play out, we will see a step-up in filters growth and therefore in service revenue as well.

Got it. Quite clear.

Thank you so much.

Hi. Am I audible?

Yes, Chanchal. You are audible.

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity, Pratik and Gaurav.

Just on the service revenue, we have seen your projection. You're talking about by FY '30 almost doubling of revenue, and your operating profit growth even higher, which implies more than 20% CAGR.

Now, first question is on the service revenue. We are seeing disruption happening at various places.

If I were to say, right from quick commerce to Urban Company to various people who have been able to reach to the urban consumer. Now, do we have to do some intervention that this service revenue, apart from the filter which you have spoken about, are we thinking differently that this service revenue, which is a core of us, be sticky and we tie up with someone or do something which makes it sticky so that we win for longer term?

Because the disruption by various other platforms is happening as we speak. Any thoughts there?

Chanchal, that's an interesting question. Let me respond to that in two parts.

I think the broader point you're making is absolutely valid, which is that today's urban consumers is getting increasingly accustomed to faster and more agile ways of servicing her, quick commerce being a great case in point. Therefore our service delivery has to measure up to that and enhance expectation.

What we've done very consciously this year, or rather last year, is to make a very specific promise to customers of service within a particular slot. Earlier, our delivery promise was a 24-hour TAT, in other words, delivering a service to a complaint in 24 hours of booking.

We've now moved that to a specific 2-hour slot promise, and we are doing very well against that promise. That's the first step.

The second step we are working on, analogous to what quick commerce is doing, is working on a similar 4-hour service promise. That from the point when a customer is either buying a new product or placing a service request, can we turn around that complaint in 4 hours?

There are very interesting new models we are exploring towards that. These are not models that we've explored in the past, we haven't talked about them publicly, but these are very, very specific initiatives we've put in place, and right now they're in pilot mode, as you can imagine, before we scale them up.

In our categories, as you're aware, there is a water category which requires installation, but there are other categories which don't require so. Therefore, a quick turnaround, a quick delivery, quick promise, actually is very amenable in these categories.

I think we spoke about in the last earnings call where in quarter three, a big source of growth for air purifiers for us was using the quick commerce platform. Coming back to your question, from a quick service point of view, we are indeed exploring various different avenues, and many pilots are in place to enhance the speed of service, and it therefore improves the promise that we make to our customers, similar to what you're seeing in quick commerce, etc.

Now your question was also about revenue. Are we looking at different ways of enhancing our revenue flow-through?

We have several initiatives in flight. The one thing I'm going to speak about, the others I'd rather not speak about right now, but the one thing I do want to talk about is extended warranty and service bundling.

Some of those initiatives are in place. Like I said, we're still in pilot mode, and moment we have some results to share, we'll circle back with you and with the larger group of investors and talk about that.

Yes, you can be sure that the changing world around us of quick commerce, of technology-led service disruption, service promise enhancements are giving us thought on and giving us lots of stimuli on how we can evolve our own service offerings. You'll see some of this play out in the near future.

Sure, sure. That's useful.

The only point again to was deliver on this is that now our brand's a much stronger than what our sales is. We have a right to make our brand much, much stronger, and there is a customer pull by itself.

Our customer is looking at service as a platform where all these services are available, and that's the reason the pivot to Urban Company or various other platforms. We'll have to do something in other platform for our service revenue to be consistently growing with us, otherwise someone else will disrupt and we'll be focusing on this 4-hour service or 5-hour service.

Because there is disruption happening at some other places which may affect your core. The core is what your brand stands for.

That's what I wanted to dwell on.

That's fair, Chanchal, and you're right, and we are absolutely watching this very closely to ensure that we are not blind-sided and that we look for and spot for disruptions, if any. Equally, if I flip it over, and we alluded to this briefly in the Investor Day as well, the fact that there is a service platformization not only is a potential source of risk, but it is a very exciting source of opportunity for us as well.

The reality is that today we service multiple categories. Water is the most widely known, but we service today robotics, softeners, air purifiers, conventional vacuum cleaners, commercial devices which are deployed in the market.

We already have a number of categories for whom we provide service. We are building our technology platform, as we spoke about in Investor Day, which allows us to be multi-tenant, multi-category, and fairly flexible in how we're able to on-load market technicians and provide customers these different service offerings.

Having traveled this journey and a lot that will be completed in this financial year, it will allow us to think of possibilities which are beyond our current categories, but that is for the future. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but that is something clearly that we are keeping on our peripheral vision.

The fact that service and service platformization can be a source of meaningful opportunity and, in the longer run, meaningful value creation, that is absolutely something that we are thinking of.

Sure. Thanks.

Wish you all the best. Thank you.

Thank you, Chanchal.

Hi. Good afternoon, team.

My first question is, from a near-term perspective, given the steep inflationary impact across product categories on the consumption bucket, do you see risk of demand getting impacted ahead of monsoon season, and any allied risk of down-trading within the customer segment? Also, with this year expected to be a drought-like situation, from seasonal perspective, do you see the sales of water purifiers getting impacted in years of weak monsoons?

That's the first question.

No, thank you, thank you, thanks for the question, Renu. Let me let me start with the the first one, which is do we expect any disruption on account of the inflationary environment?

I think, as I mentioned earlier in my opening remarks, that given the cost pressures and given the currency pressure, we took a calibrated price increase of between 6% to 7% early in April, and that got rolled out. It took some time for the price increase to play out in the market, and because of the trade inventory, etc.

That said, the price increase is indeed in the market now, and the early days the early early indicators that we have seen is that the price increase has landed well, and we do not see any impact as of now on sell-outs or on tertiary sales. Number one.

Number two, as you're aware, we have a we have a wide portfolio which straddles multiple price points, and therefore we are able to offer consumers meaningful solutions at these different price points. As of now, we are seeing, like I said, neither a meaningful impact on sales nor any indication of consumers down-trading, but like you said, that's the risk that we are we are conscious of, and we'll navigate carefully as we as we go along.

On your second question of the likely risk to the business of a drought situation, we we have looked at the data. We do not expect this to have a material impact on our water purifier business going forward.

Keep in mind, Renu, that, and as you as you're well aware, our penetration of the category is very, very low. Number one.

Number two, in the recent past, there's been growing news of the risks and the dangers of drinking untreated, impure water. There have been, unfortunately, very, very many too many health incidents in the recent past, and they've occupied newspaper headlines.

We are seeing, as a consequence, consumer awareness clearly grow. We are we are seeing consumers and families prioritize water purifiers and in in more generally health over other durables.

We do not expect the drought, if if it materializes, to have any impact on our business. I think, and just to sort of pull back and summarize both to both your questions, the fact is that the inflation and the cost pressures notwithstanding, we have seen a sequential pick-up in the momentum of water purifiers, and the growth has indeed increased.

Now, I know that which we there is still a lot of uncertainty ahead of us. We don't know what's going to unfold, I don't want to say we are out of the woods yet, but clearly as the quarter is progressing, because of the rising consumer awareness, we are seeing greater traction for the water purifier category.

Got it. Sir, the second leg of the question, since Robo as a product category is largely import-dependent so far, the JV that we have or the exclusive arrangement that we have with Dixon, by when do we expect to fully localize the manufacturing of Robos in India?

If you can also help us update a small bookkeeping question for Gaurav, the revenue mix between products and services for FY '26. Thank you.

Renu, on the first part of your question, like you rightly mentioned, our robotics portfolio is imported. Given the pressure, both commodity cost pressure, the input cost pressures there, plus the currency impact, we have taken a small price increase in the portfolio, and that has landed, like I said, reasonably well.

That's in the market now. We do not see yet any impact on growth, but we are watching this very, very closely.

The Dixon arrangement is about manufacturing SKDs. As you're aware, the quality control order, the QCO of BIS, has got pushed out to September of this year, and as we come closer to September, you will start seeing the manufacturing and the assembly migrate to Dixon, over the next 3 to 4 months.

On localization, that will be a progressive journey starting in the next couple of quarters, but it will take some time to completely play out. For the moment, however, we are moving from importing FG to assembling from SKDs using our Dixon partnership.

Gaurav, you can...

Yes. Renu, on the second part of your question, we'll be giving out the specific numbers as part of the annual report, but I can certainly throw some color on it.

On our product business, we've got multiple growth drivers in place, and one should expect the product growth to be reported in teens when you see the annual report. Equally, you will also see a step-up happen in our service revenue as well.

You will see a step-up in growth in that as well, but the specific numbers are something that we will be sharing as part of our annual report.

Sure. Thank you, and best wishes, team.

Thank you.

Yeah. Good afternoon, sir.

Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, just a clarification.

Did I hear you right when you said you would like to hold on to the margins for FY '27? Have I heard it right, sir?

That means stable margins YoY for FY '27?

Yes, Achal. Let me kind of throw some color on it, because given the situation, I think there are multiple moving parts here.

Let me just step back a bit first. I think we've had a business where for 3 years in a row, we've had a margin expansion play out.

Importantly, within that, we've seen multiple sources of margin improvement. In year one, it was driven by cost.

You've seen margin improvement happen through operating leverage, and more recently, in this year, you've seen it improved via gross margins, which means that as a business, we've got multiple levers in place. That's one dimension and reality that we are keeping in mind.

Going ahead, how we think about the business and, coming specifically to your question on margin, I think there are two key priorities that we've kind of set out for ourselves. One is stepping up growth.

That is where a lot of energy would be going. Second is scaling up our efficiency projects.

We already have, and you've heard us speak about it in the past as well, about our COGS program. Given the inflationary environment, we are stepping and scaling it up even further.

These are the two main priorities that we are working on. All this in our mind we believe takes us to a place where with the portfolio that we have, there's a service product business, there is a price laddering that we have in the portfolio, and with the efficiency interventions, etc., we believe that we should be aiming for at least a margin hold.

Yes, I think we'll see the situation as it evolves, but this is certainly the aim that we are taking for this year. I'll also just clarify, and that's been our position all through, we look at margins on a full-year basis and not necessarily get constrained by a quarter.

There may be a quarter noise here and there, but I think on a full-year basis, our aim would be to be holding margins at least.

Thank you for the clarification. Just a follow-up on that, sir.

A, we would look at double-digit growth even in the current year. B, we also had the cost against the service bookings actually, or AMCs, getting actually recognized upfront in FY '26.

I'm just curious to understand, given there would be a benefit of operating leverage, and also secondly the normalization of the service margin or expansion in service margin, are we too worried about the cost inflation, and that is why we are kind of indicating a stable margins YoY for the full year as whole?

Yeah. Achal, no, you're right in pointing out that some of the things that you mentioned do give us a benefit in the year ahead.

I think I'm just being mindful of the fact that the cost situation is something which is really fairly volatile. That's the only bit that one is very, very mindful of.

As I mentioned and I'm reiterating, we are looking at at least holding the margin. That is what we are aiming for.

Equally, we also want to be very sure that we don't let a transitory event impact our long-term view of the business, and hence we will also remain focused on growth investments. It's a combination of things that we're looking at.

There will be certain benefits that come, some of which you pointed out, but equally there are certain challenges to navigate. This is what we're aiming at this point in time.

Fair point. Sorry, just a question on the cost inflation.

Is it possible to quantify at this current juncture, given the currency or the commodity prices, etc., what is the overall cost impact on our COGS? Of that 6-7% you have taken, how much more is needed without assuming any further cost savings initiative?

I'm just trying to figure out the cost inflation, the quantum, and how much price hike is already taken and how much is required, without assuming any cost initiative. That I will keep it separately, if you could clarify on that, sir.

Sure, Achal. I think, see, it's difficult to put a specific number at an overall level, because there are multiple areas where costs are moving.

There is a polymer impact, there is an impact on metals, there is a foreign currency angle to it. It is a bunch of things which are there, and they have individually different impact on different parts of the business.

Having said that, the pricing increase that we had taken in April, which was roughly in the range of 6% to 7% on an aggregate basis, that in our view was addressing to a very large extent the overall impact that we were seeing on the business. It wasn't mitigating it in full, but outside of pricing, we've also lined up a bunch of interventions, more specifically about extracting efficiencies and removing leakages.

That is where we are focusing on. Equally, and I'm reiterating, we have the benefit of a portfolio which has got a service product mix, we have the benefit of having products at every single price point.

Those are inherent advantages. I think our approach as far as future pricing is concerned is going to be driven by the fact that first we stretch ourselves on how much efficiencies we can extract.

That is what our key focus may be, but we'll see how this plays along. I'll just remind ourselves that this is the first time in nearly 4 years that we've taken up pricing, and our focus has been on reducing entry barriers in the category.

We're also very mindful that we don't want to be in a situation where we make the category unattractive for a consumer, and hence that'll be the other consideration. We believe that the interventions and the mitigating actions that are there, I think right now keeps us at a place where we should be able to manage it.

It's an evolving situation, and we'll keep a very, very close eye.

Got it. Thank you so much for the clarification.

I'll fall back in the queue. Thank you so much, sir.

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

My first question was on your AMC business. I just wanted to check in terms of active AMCs as of year-end, would that number have grown versus last year?

The reason I'm asking is if I look at your other current liabilities, at least that number seems to be down, I understand that multi-year mix has gone up and that's why the non-current portion has grown well, but just this other current seems to be a bit of a issue. If you can just explain, that would be helpful.

Yeah. Thanks, Umang, for your question.

While we don't report the AMC base number for competitive reasons, I think you've already picked up, Umang, the numbers from the balance sheet. I'll draw your attention to the liability balance that stands in aggregate in the balance sheet, and that's a very healthy 9% number that you would have noticed.

I think the current and non-current is more a mix of the multi-year mix that has played out, and that has been a very, very conscious choice to kind of lock in customers for a longer duration and also to elbow out the grey market operators. In aggregate, we see our deferred income liability to have gone up quite a bit.

Okay. Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless you've taken a ASP cut, if the volumes have increased, even the other current liability would increase, right?

Either there has to be an ASP cut or volumes could have been flatish. Is that understanding wrong?

Just a slight modification needed there, Umang. Current, non-current is not a function of volume.

Volume is just about how many AMCs you're selling. Current and non-current is more a function of the duration of your AMC.

The more you sell longer-term AMCs, which we call as the multi-year AMCs, then it means that the proportion of non-current will be higher. Now, that could come from volume, or that could come from ASP or mix, that's a separate thing.

They're two separate things. The big picture is that the proportion of our longer-duration AMCs in our business have gone up, and hence you see our non-current liabilities to have gone up quite a bit.

Oh sure. I'll take it offline.

Second question was on service charges. You did mention about the reason for low single-digit growth this quarter.

If you can help share how sustainable are these gains? How do you look at service charges over the coming year?

That would be helpful. Thanks.

Umang, from a service charge perspective, as we've mentioned in the past, there are two dimensions to it. One part of it is the charge which comes because of bookings, and the other is what we pay out for call charges.

It could be complaint, it could be installation, it could be visitations, etc. Obviously from a going ahead view, what one should look at is that there will be an element which goes up in line with what is happening on the AMC booking side.

Equally, there are countervailing items at play which is about continuously removing leakages in the system. As you can imagine, there are ways and means in which people hack it.

We've made a lot of progress in putting in digital controls and capabilities, so that is something that we hope will help us in enduring some of those benefits. Some of that you've seen in quarter four already, and those benefits we expect to continue going ahead as well.

Got it. Thank you so much, and all the best.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir.

Sir, first question is on the growth outlook. You mentioned initiatives to step up growth.

We did see a lot of new launches happening last year. Some color, how much are some of these categories like filters, softeners, and other emerging categories contributing to your this year's revenue?

How much should we expect acceleration from many of these categories in the next few years? Just to understand, is it more near term, or it may take a few years to play out like you mentioned in the early part of the remark?

Siddhartha, sorry, that was a good question. Let me just let me just talk about the first part of your question.

I think as part of our strategy of growing from being a one-category net company to being a multi-category health and hygiene business with several growth vectors, we have invested behind creating many new businesses. I'm happy to to report and share that all of these categories have acquired I think very strong momentum and meaningful scale as well.

Let me start by talking about robotics, which is the largest of them all right now. Robotics addresses a very specific problem statement in urban India of keeping the home clean in an environment where domestic help is not always assured.

Robotics portfolio has been growing strongly and consistently for the last 3 years, and indeed it did so last quarter as well. Robotics now contributes as a segment contributes to more than 65% to 66% of the overall vacuum cleaner category in in the in the country.

You recall that the vacuum cleaner category was fairly moribund, it wasn't growing earlier, and robotics has infused a new new lease of life into this category. There are three vectors driving growth for robotics: product and innovation, distribution expansion, and just growing consumer awareness.

Our strategy has been to double down on each one of them. We've built out a complete portfolio of products ranging from economy to super-premium, we've increased distribution, we've now gone into retail as well, both organized trade and independent general trade, and we've invested, as in in consumer awareness, including the Shraddha Kapoor campaign of last year.

This category is in, like I said, in strong momentum, and as we mentioned in Investor Day, we expect it to reach more than 1,000 crores for us by FY '30. That is not just a longer-term, it is it is here and now, and it is one of the biggest engines of growth for us.

Similarly, air purifiers, where we began investing in the category meaningfully only this year, we have seen strong momentum build up. As you can imagine, quarter four was a lower-revenue category for air compared to quarter three, given the seasonality of the category, but we had a very strong growth nevertheless.

Going forward, we believe that given just the quality of air across urban India, this this category will grow, it will expand beyond North India, and it will expand, and it will be in use not just in winter, but through the year, and we have very strong plans for this category. Softeners, again, a very large market, but highly fragmented.

90% of India has a hard water problem, and we are investing in growing this category. We've had strong growth for the last 3 years, we've built out a complete portfolio, including products which are IoT, and you'll see this being a big engine of growth for us as well.

Filters that you talked about is, as I mentioned earlier in the call, is a new vector of growth for us, and we began investing in it meaningfully only towards the end of last year, towards quarter three and then quarter four. Just given the very large installed base of Aquaguard users who are not in our AMC offer and who actually replace filters and go to the open market to replace filters, addressing that TAM is going to be a big source of growth for us.

Again, like I said earlier, this requires changing years, years and, lots of embedded and entrenched behavior. It will require us to be patient, but we are investing in driving consumer awareness in in unlocking all the barriers to this category to grow.

These all of these vectors, all of these initiatives are making a difference here and now, and they are contributing to growth meaningfully even today as they did last quarter, and all of them have very low penetration. We see them we see them all having a very long runway to grow over the next 3 to 5 years.

Understood. Sir, second question is on the price hike.

You talked about 6% to 7%, does that factor in the most of the cost pressure you have seen, or do you need more? Is competition also taking similar price hike, or are we taking the lead here in taking these hikes?

Yes, Siddhartha. As I had mentioned, our pricing actions, along with our interventions on our efficiency programs, etc., that in our view kind of addresses to a very large extent the cost inflation that is there.

Having said that, this is an evolving situation, and we are constantly watching, keeping a very, very close eye on it, and would intervene wherever required. That's as far as pricing is concerned.

On the second part, yes, competition has also responded, and we've seen price hikes being done by every player. The reality as it stands for everyone is that the inflationary environment is indeed quite strong, and hence not taking a price increase for anyone would not be viable.

We've seen others take up prices as well.

Thanks a lot, sir. I'll come back in the queue.

Hi, sir. My first question was on the water purifier segment.

When you say this FY '26 there was an low double digit or teens growth, how is split between volume and price mix in FY '26 for water purifier segment?

Mehul, no, thank you for the question. As I mentioned earlier on the call, water purifiers as a segment, with its low penetration, has over the last 3 years had a CAGR of over 12%.

Given the growing category awareness, and like I said, the low penetration, we expect this category growth to indeed accelerate going forward. The growth that has come in the last 3 years, including last year, came on the back of both volume growth as also mix leading to ASP increase.

Going forward again, given the fact that the category has such low penetration, we expect volume growth to be also a meaningful driver of water purifier growth in the future.

Got it. Given that you've taken a 6-7% kind of price hike, and at least your commentary suggests that volume growths have not seen any material impact so far, this incremental price hike is what is giving you confidence that there could be a step-up in revenue growth in FY '27?

Mehul, let me clarify on two things. First one is that, as I said, our price increase has gone in relatively more recently into the market, and the early indicators are that it's landed well.

I think we are, like I said, we're watching it very, very carefully, and we're hoping that there is no material impact of the pricing on volumes, especially given the fact that the entire category, all competitors have raised prices. That's number one.

Number two, to clarify again, our growth aspiration for FY '27 will not be on the back of pricing, but it will be on the back of driving volume growth. You're aware that we're a multi-category business increasingly so, and within each of these categories, we have an assortment that spans economy to premium.

Therefore, we have multiple levers to drive growth, drive volume growth, drive ASP increase, and therefore all of these will be brought to bear to drive growth in FY '27. The growth that you'll see in FY '27 will not be merely pricing-led, just to be clear.

Got it, sir. That's all from my side.

Thank you so much.

Hello.

You're audible, Astha.

Yes, yes. Thank you for the opportunity, sir.

I wanted to ask that Urban Company has shown a very high growth nearly of 100% in their native business. Is there a possibility that we are losing market share, or is it informal to formal shift is being appropriated by Urban Company?

Astha, thank you for that question. I think given the low levels of penetration of this category, entry of new players, increasing innovation is good for the category.

It stokes innovation, it stokes consumer interest, it helps the category grow. The launch of new entrants, including the one that you spoke about, has been good for the category.

It has helped the category pick up and grow, like I said, at a CAGR of more than 12% over the last 3 years. That wasn't the case in the period preceding that.

I'm happy to share with you also that given the sheer strength of our brand, the innovations that we've rolled out, and the aggression we brought to bear in the market, all driven by a very capable teams, we have not lost market share, if anything, as we exited the year, we had market share tailwinds behind us. We have not lost market share.

I think all of this has helped the category grow.

Got it. Got it, sir.

Sir, my second question is that sir, the sales growth this year is very much lower than the long-term guidance that we have given. Will there be acceleration this year to meet the long-term guidance?

Even same applies for EBITDA growth as well.

Astha, our long-term guidance that we gave for FY '30, we absolutely stand by that. The goals both on top-line and on EBITDA and profitability are the goals that we are very much going after.

FY '27, as we see today, short of any black swan events coming our way, we do see a acceleration and a step-up in growth over what we delivered in FY '26, and we will work towards meeting our long-term objectives clearly outlined in the Investor Day for FY '30.

Okay. My last question would be, is it possible to disclose what has been growth in the service revenue as opposed to the service bookings?

Are the two converging now?

No, Astha, we don't declare that, but as you know...

Astha, as we've mentioned earlier, we will be disclosing the number in our annual report. I think, again, as a heads-up, what you should expect is for our product business to continue its growth profile in teens, and you will see a step-up in our service revenue growth versus FY '25.

We'll share the specific numbers as part of the annual report.

Last question, is it possible to

Sure. Fine, thank you.

Hello. Thanks for the opportunity.

Actually, I just wanted to understand going forward, what will be our strongest growth driver, which category, or how are we looking at it? Will water purifiers remain the major category, or how do we see this going forward?

No, Trisha, that's such an interesting question. Thank you for that.

I think we are fortunate to have a portfolio that provides us a profusion of growth opportunities. Water purifiers, it's a category which has, like I said and like we all know, very low penetration, but it is a category equally of universal relevance and need.

We are seeing this category grow, and we're seeing this category accelerate in the future. That will obviously be and it is an anchor category, it will remain a big engine of growth for us.

Additionally, in the last 2 to 3 years, we've incubated and built several new growth engines. I spoke about them just a little while back, engines like robotics.

A very small, in fact a non-existent business 3 years back, it is going to be a 1,000-crore portfolio for us in the next 3 to 4 years. We are well on track for that.

Air purifiers, we live and breathe the problem every day, and not just in Delhi, across large parts of urban India. That's a portfolio that we intend to build, and FY '26 was a proof of concept, if you will, where we multiplied our revenue almost three times.

Yes, of a small base, but we have the conviction that this can be a very large and meaningful source of business and growth for us. Softeners, I've spoken about again.

Hard water problem is ubiquitous in India, and we intend to incubate and grow the softeners portfolio. The aftermarket business of filters again provides us an exciting growth and a profitable growth option.

Therefore, all put together, in response to your question, may I say that in some ways and some good ways, we are almost spoiled for choice.

Okay. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for your time and for your questions on the call today.

I hope we were able to answer them to your satisfaction, and if you have any follow-up questions or you need any clarifications, please do reach out to us and to the investor relations team, and we will be happy to circle back and clarify. Thank you so much, and have a good day.