Hi, good evening everyone and thanks for joining the call. I'll start with the perspective on the operating environment during the quarter gone by, after which I'll cover our performance, strategic priorities, and our outlook going forward.

During the quarter, macro environment globally remained volatile with supply chain disruptions and increasing energy costs impacting economic activity. Despite these global headwinds, India continued to demonstrate resilience backed by strong underlying fundamentals.

Domestic demand remained healthy and economic activity continued to expand, while there was a rise in consumer inflation led by food and a marginal fuel price hike, it remained within RBI's threshold. On the other hand, some of the international economies where we are operating have experienced some transient headwinds due to ongoing geopolitical developments in the form of inflation and other costs.

Moving on to our performance, we have started the year on a very strong note with a consolidated revenue growth at 23% and EBITDA and PAT growth of 25%, making our highest profit growth in the last 28 quarters. The India business delivered one of the strongest quarters in recent years with 11% volume growth and revenue growth of 21% led by robust momentum in core business and continued scale up of new growth engines.

Over 96% of the business continued to gain or sustain market share, and over 99% of the business continued to gain or sustain penetration on a MAT basis. The strong brand performance was well complemented by sharp execution across channels.

Both general trade and modern trade recorded double-digit growth. The success of Project Setu continued to strengthen our general trade execution, driving wider reach, superior assortment quality, improved service levels, and therefore improved ROI for our distribution partners.

Quick commerce continued its accelerated scale-up, reporting more than 50% growth for our core business. It now contributes to around 5% of India business revenues, excluding digital brands, and all digital channels put together account to over 20% of India business revenues.

International business reported 15% constant currency growth led by outperformance in Vietnam and MENA. Talking about our bottom line performance, gross margin expanded 30 basis points year-on-year led by softer copra prices, a favorable channel and portfolio mix coming from our strong growth in premium portfolio, GT growth, and profitable scale-up of our foods and digital-first portfolio.

A&P, advertising and sales promotion expenses, grew substantially at 25% as we continue to invest significantly behind brands to strengthen our long-term equity, support innovation—some of the big innovations we have launched this quarter—and drive consumer salience. EBITDA margin improved 40 basis points year-on-year to 20.7%.

Overall, this was a very strong quarter for us, made even noteworthy as it builds on a high base from the corresponding period last year. On a two-year basis, volume, revenue, and profit after tax have compounded at 10%, 23%, and 17% respectively, reflecting our strength of our portfolio of brands and execution prowess and our resilience.

Let us now touch upon the key trends across our domestic business. Parachute Rigids delivered 10% volume growth, its strongest performance in the last 20 quarters, and gained over 400 basis points in volume share, marking a new high.

Revenue grew 23%, reflecting the anniversarization of prior year price increases and pricing actions down during the quarter as we proactively passed on value to the consumers in non-price point large packs amid softening in copra prices. Beyond the strong quarterly outcome, the performance underscores the enduring strength of the franchise and the competitive advantage we have built in supply chain compared to smaller players over decades.

Our expertise in managing commodity cycles combined with a differentiated supply chain and sharp execution enables us to respond faster to market changes based on a lot of learnings over the past few cycles where we have taken price drops. Value-added hair oils continued its strong momentum delivering 22% value growth led by mid and premium segment.

Premium and mid and premium hair oils portfolio contributed close to high-teens volume growth, which are This is the profitable part of the mix. We continue to gain market share handsomely.

Further, we are seeing encouraging progress in our almond oil franchise, and our aim is to build it to a 100 crore plus ARR franchise by FY28. Our performance in VAHO reflects the growing strength of our premium portfolio supported by sustained investments in innovation, premiumization, and distribution expansion, and VAHO has benefited immensely by Project Setu.

Saffola edible oil delivered 7% revenue growth during the quarter as we implemented calibrated pricing action in response to further increase in input costs. The business reported a high single-digit volume decline as we rationalized supply of select variants in certain channels to maintain threshold profitability in the trade-off with volume growth.

Our diversification agenda continues to gather momentum. The combined foods and premium personal care portfolio, including digital-first brands, has achieved significant scale and is increasingly becoming an important contributor to our growth.

More importantly, this business is not only growing ahead of the core portfolio, but are also improving quality with stronger profitability, deeper consumer relevance, and expanding addressable markets besides our own internal capability. Foods continued its strong growth trajectory reporting a 43% growth and crossing annualized revenue run rate of 1,300 crores.

The addition of 4700BC and Cosmix expands our addressable market into attractive demand spaces, while the core Saffola foods franchise continues to deliver strong double-digit growth and strengthen its market position. Premium personal care continued to scale well, reaching an annualized revenue run rate of around 450 crores.

We are witnessing encouraging traction in shampoos category and aspire to achieve near about 100 crores of revenue this year. The launch of Parachute Advanced Protein Hair Conditioner further expands our addressable market and complements our broader premiumization agenda.

Our digital-first portfolio led by Beardo and Plix continued to deliver strong growth alongside structural improvement in profitability. With an ARR of over 1,100 crores, the business has scaled up profitably, exemplifying our digital playbook of combining entrepreneurial brand building with disciplined capital allocation and operating leverage.

Our priority is to drive profitable growth in this portfolio. Taken together, these new-age and premium businesses are steadily strengthening Marico's growth architecture.

As we expand into attractive demand spaces and scale new growth engines with discipline, we are not only diversifying the portfolio, but also enhancing the quality and sustainability of future growth. Moving on to international business, we delivered 15% constant currency growth during the quarter.

Bangladesh reported a 4% constant currency growth as the business experienced a transient moderation in growth due to pricing anniversarization and demand softness due to persistent high inflation in the economy. This got further accentuated with a sharp rise in fuel and other energy prices.

Through our focused category initiatives, we continue to strengthen our position and sustain market share gains. Vietnam continued its growth trajectory delivering 27% constant currency growth during the quarter driven by strong performance across the male and female personal care categories.

We structurally transformed the business through investments in innovation, distribution, and digital commerce capabilities. Particularly the progress of our go-to-market transformation on the likes of Setu in India has enhanced execution quality, strengthened market competitiveness, and created a stronger platform for sustainable long-term growth.

MENA grew 24% with both Gulf and Egypt performing well. Despite the inflationary pressures and operating challenges in the Gulf region, the business delivered resilient performance driven by strong execution, focused innovation, and continued market share gain in key categories.

South Africa posted 8% growth led by hair care with our key brands Black Chic, Just for Kids, and IsoPlus performing well. New country development and export business grew 16%.

Summing up, we have delivered a strong all-round performance this quarter, setting a solid foundation for the year year ahead. To draw a cricketing parallel, in a match where weather interruptions are a possibility, the best teams aim to get off to a strong start, especially in the super the power play overs and stay ahead of the Duckworth-Lewis curve.

In much the same way, we are looking to build momentum early in the year, positioning ourselves stronger to navigate any volatility that may arise later and deliver our full-year aspirations with greater confidence. Looking ahead, while global economic challenges persist, we remain optimistic about the consumption trends in India and believe that the strong fundamentals will continue to support economic activity in the country.

We will continue to monitor the evolving inflationary conditions and progress of the monsoon, but so far the government has done a fantastic job insulating consumers from any significant inflation. Some of the international geographies, however, could experience macro headwinds due to the inflationary pressures.

However, we are confident in our ability to navigate well through these short-term phases. Despite the global supply chain disruptions, we have maintained strong supply chain assurance through strategic positioning of raw materials, packaging materials, and finished goods because of our extreme agility.

In the near term, we remain focused on driving top-quartile outcomes. The strong start to this year has set us well to achieve our full-year aspirations of delivering double-digit revenue growth to cross 15,000 crores easily.

We are confident of achieving high-teens EBITDA growth and aspire to touch 20% EBITDA growth during this year. We expect India to deliver high single-digit volume growth and international business to deliver mid-teens constant currency growth.

We will certainly try and hit another double-digit quarter in India growth sometime in the next three quarters. On the cost front, we are witnessing divergent trends.

Copra prices have corrected meaningfully. While it has seen some upward bias recently, we expect prices to be range-bound at around 25 35% lower, sorry, 35% lower than the last year's peak levels.

On the other side, crude and vegetable oils continue to exhibit an upward bias, and consequently, we expect input costs to be relatively higher in Q2. As we advance towards the Vision 2030 to achieve a 20,000 crore in revenues with mid-teens EBITDA CAGR, our focus remains clear: strengthen our core franchises, expand into adjacencies where we have a right to win, scale up our digital businesses profitably, and further diversify our international growth engines.

To anchor the next phase of our growth journey, our EDGE framework: expanding total addressable market and portfolio, enhancing distribution and digitization, growing profitably, and creating an empowered organization will serve as a backbone for translating our strategic priorities into measurable outcomes. We are building larger growth engines by strengthening core categories through sustained investments and wider portfolio participation across consumer cohorts, formats, and channels.

Simultaneously, we are driving a structural shift in our portfolio towards the premium and more profitable categories by taking bigger, bolder bets. We are already reaping the benefits of GTM transformation led by our Project Setu in India and now Vietnam.

The next leg of our journey will focus on sharpening execution through use of smart analytics, AI, and integrated digital ecosystems. Profitable growth is pivotal to our strategy.

We're reducing the share of commodity-linked businesses and progressively shifting our portfolio towards categories that are more profitable. As a result, our portfolio is being designed to compound more profitably with stronger unit economics, lower cyclicity, and better operating leverage over time.

Long-term profitable growth at scale is inherently linked to the depth of organization quality and capability. We have always focused on building a strong, future-ready backbone anchored in high-quality talent with founder's mentality and owner's mindset and a value-driven, frugal culture.

As people and technology are increasingly becoming interdependent, we're leveraging AI, analytics, and automation to improve visibility, speed, and decision support while empowering teams to drive accountability, collaboration, and execution excellence and discipline. With this, I close my remarks, and we can take some questions.

Thanks and congrats. My first question is on plant protein, collagen, and ACV.

We have seen a lot of competition coming here. HUL's Oziva saw a weak quarter in terms of slower growth in Q1, and they called out that this is normal routine business things which keep happening.

If I see in your case, although Plix did see a reset in terms of slightly lower growth and more focus on margins from Q3, and then when we see competition and pricing, there is a lot of overall pricing war currently. Every startup company and a lot of the Tata 1mg kind of players have also entered.

I wanted to understand, in this kind of a very high-growth segment, how is the pricing power, and who will essentially win? Because here, brands are new, and definitely a lot of the e-commerce company and a lot of the medicine online companies are also present there through their own private labels also.

See, I think

let me address this in two ways. I think firstly, I think if you look at our brands, we focus a lot on D2C because D2C ensures that we own the consumer, partner him or her in their journey towards wellness.

We look at LTV by CAC, repeat rates, and we believe that they are healthy. Obviously, you can do performance marketing-led spends in a particular channel and grow, but that is not sustainable.

In that context, I think both Plix and Cosmix has significantly loyal consumers with good repeat rate, good loyalty, and good equity. We also are using other channels to grow.

Yes, there is competition, but sometimes what happens in categories like protein or ACV, it is good to have two, three players who are developing the category. Because otherwise, it's important to have category investment to convert a fad into a habit.

We believe in both the categories we participate, it's a habit. Having said that, as Plix has also pivoted successfully towards premium personal care, which is plant-based hair and skin food.

There's a journey to be had for Cosmix in the VMS space. Therefore, we will not restrict ourselves to only plant protein and ACV for both these brands.

We are extremely confident of these brands giving sustainable, profitable growth. As Cosmix already when we acquired the brand had a high-teens mid to high-teens profitable growth.

Sure. My second question is on the almond hair oil 100 crore brand by FY28.

That's a very aggressive number. In the past, other hair oil companies have also tried this without much success.

If you could tell us, apart from say aggressive pricing, what else is needed here because the number one player in this segment also seems to be doing quite well. Another follow-up will be essentially on what is the status on the 4700BC and Cosmix on those new business versus initial benchmark, where are we?

First let me finish the 4700BC and Cosmix. They're doing well.

They are tracking very well in terms of integration. I think right now Marico offers two unique digital platforms, one on foods, one on premium personal care, and therefore we are in terms of providing synergies, expertise, and sharing of best practices amongst all the brand.

It's tracking very well. Both the brands are very strong equity, and I believe they will end the year ahead of what our initial assumptions is, and of course and also the fact that we are also mindful of the profitability.

Now coming to the almond category, see, in any category when a market leader makes supernormal profit without significant innovation, this makes a case for disruption. We have proven that with amla when we started the journey.

I think once upon a time we were 9%, the leader was 78, and then we achieved market leadership. I believe that there is a case for disruption in this category.

I think the last one or two years our resource allocation matrix where we focus on fewer, bigger, better, bolder, in terms of Setu which has given us access to distribution, has given us case for that we can take a critical market share in this category. I think reasonably today it's a machine which is executing this, and therefore I believe given that the size of the category, 100 crore is a fair ambition.

Sure, thanks. That's all from my side.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Am I audible now?

Hi.

Sorry for that. Apologies and congrats on a great set of numbers, and thank you for taking my question.

Firstly, on Parachute, copra has again started to go up again. Do you foresee any intervention required and in the near or medium term?

Given the large price hike that we had taken in 2Q of last year, can you help us understand what level of price decline can be expected in the near term over the next few quarters on Parachute? That's question number one.

Just when you mean price decline as in MRP pricing, okay. I think two things have happened last year.

First, I think we had a 100% increase in input cost prices. We took a 60% hike, therefore we didn't pass on the entire cost push to the consumer.

I think it was unprecedented kind of input cost, but Parachute showed significant resilience. I think it was a very bold move.

Nowhere in the world you take 60% price increase and ensure that you get a slightly positive growth in terms of number of transactions. I think it's unprecedented.

I have not seen it happening anywhere. Okay.

Now coming to this year, we were careful about two things: one, I think in the past we hadn't executed some of the price drops well, we waited and watched, and so far we have taken only some price drops in the what I call the loyalty packs. As unlike other categories, here the usage of coconut oil in terms of the lower LSM is high, and therefore some of the loyalty packs were slightly stressed by that inflation.

We've taken the pricing drops on the loyalty packs, and we haven't taken in the small packs and the price point packs, okay. I think the total drop was around 10%, Pawan?

On the non-price point.

Around 10%, okay. Now, we were clear that we will take only one hike.

The other thing which we have done very well, I think, this time is because of significant investment in AI-led demand sensing and forecasting and the entire supply chain, the overall pipeline is very clean. I believe all in the entire FMCG category, our distributor stock is really one of the lowest.

Therefore, in the past, any price drop used to take what I call 8 weeks or 10 weeks to get effected in the market. This has happened much faster.

Secondly, I think what has also changed is that by taking only one price hike and the fact that the other thing which we did last year is smoothing of all trade spends, no month-end spends, therefore the pipeline is extremely clear. There are no blockages in the pipeline.

I think that has resulted in significant kind of a impact in terms of growth coming back in the larger packs. Now coming to the copra thing, we believe that it will stay range-bound with maybe a slight upward bias at this 30, 35% kind of a levels below the peak, and I think we are okay with the kind of pricing interventions we have taken.

Obviously, the 10% growth in Parachute was also led by some supply chain advantages which we had compared to the small players. The other thing which we are witnessing, which is also good for us, is that some of the larger players in this space are exhibiting more rationality in terms of pricing.

I think with all this, I think you will get a decent volume growth in Parachute even in the next subsequent one or two quarters.

Just to clarify, Mihir, what Saugata meant was one price drop. We don't want to take multiple price drops.

Given the fact that we'll now be moving into off-season in the next couple of months, we don't see any pricing corrections to happen on the cost side. Therefore, we do not expect any further pricing action from our end.

Understood, Pawan. I'll take it offline with you later if that is okay.

Secondly, I wanted to check on gross margin on a consol level. Do you see any headwind in gross margins over the next coming quarters?

Because I'm unable to triangulate your EBITDA guidance of high-teens given that you still will continue to get benefits on copra, and if you hold on to these margins also, if there is a material expansion that can happen on the EBITDA growth front at least. If you can just help me to triangulate your gross margin and EBITDA growth guidance.

If you look at the gross margin in this quarter, we have expanded by approximately 30 basis points vis-a-vis Q1 FY26. Now while there are benefits with respect to consumption on the copra side, but at the same time, we also have to be mindful that with respect to crude-led derivatives on LP and polymers, there is a significant cost push.

For example, on both these items, the cost increase has been anywhere in the range of 60 to 70%. It will be a mix of both gains coming in from the consumption of lower copra prices that we witnessed in quarter one, but at the same time, higher impact on account of LP, polymers, as well as edible oil prices.

We have not really passed on the entire hit to the consumers. Just on the guidance side, very difficult to give on gross margin because we believe it will be a little bit of mix of both, but we would try and hold the gross margin percentage as compared to last year.

However, on EBITDA margins, again giving quarter-wise guidance could be difficult, but on a full-year basis, you heard Saugata mention that high-teens is something which is the base case, and we would try for 20% growth for the full year. If you do the reverse maths, and if we see that 15,000 crores is something that we should definitely deliver, then the reverse maths would suggest that EBITDA margin could expand in the range of about 140 to 150 basis points as compared to last year.

I hope this answers your question.

Understood, got it. No, that's what I was highlighting, even after a strong beat on 1Q, you have kept a very conservative guidance on EBITDA growth.

I was just thinking on those lines. Anyway, I'll come back in the queue.

Thank you for taking my question and wishing you all the best.

The only thing which I just want to mention is 20% plus growth is definitely not conservative by any standards, but yeah, that's something which we'll definitely aspire to deliver.

Absolutely. Sure.

Hi, good evening. The first question was on Parachute again.

You did mention some supply chain benefits. Just if you could kind of deconstruct this 10% volume growth into how much of it would have been led by maybe a mix of say grammage cut increases also that you might have done?

How much of it, in your view, is just competitive advantage because of supply chain? Because we haven't seen these kind of double-digit volume growth in Parachute for a very, very long time.

Just wanted to get some more color on this 10% number, that would be very helpful. That's my first question.

I think it's very difficult to allocate a number to each one of them, but I don't think there has been any grammage changes as such. I think two things would have happened.

One, as I said, that we selectively took deep price cuts or relatively deeper price cuts in the loyalty packs, which are higher MRP. Whenever there's a significant price increase, there is titration in use or downgradation.

That took care of the downgradation. The second thing is whenever there are supply chain challenges, which is respect to whatever packaging material, which could respect to fuel or anything, obviously smaller players, they are impacted more compared to us, and therefore we ensure there are no supply chain challenges.

Thirdly, I think we have executed the price drop phenomenally well compared to in the past, whether it with respect to pipeline management, whether it respect to scheme management, waiting and watching and taking one price drop. Lastly, as I said, the fourth factor could be that maybe compared to the past, some of the organized competition is a little more rational and focused on not selling below at negative gross margin.

Just to clarify one thing, Harit, if you're referring about the MLH cuts that we had taken in the price point packs last year, which is Rs 10, Rs 20. Now as the copra prices have deflated, I want to clarify that we have not increased the MLHs.

This 10% volume growth is the organic volume growth. Having said that, yes, 10% is an aberration.

We don't really expect ourselves to keep delivering high single digit or 10% volume growth for the year. We would want to maintain the guidance of mid single-digit for the Parachute, but just to clarify, yes, we have not upped the grammage in the price point packs that we had cut down last year.

Got it, very clear. The second part was, your 11% volume growth for the quarter, is that a like-to-like number?

How do you calculate that number? Because you have had additions in the portfolio over the last three, four months in terms of new acquisitions.

When I look at this 11%

This is organic. We haven't included 4700 or Cosmix to the volume growth calculation.

Organic number. Till the time it comes into the base, it's not considered.

Third one was on A&P. Last two quarters, the A&P growths have been fairly modest.

This quarter also, I think 9% growth at a consolidated level. I was just trying to understand, with these new acquisitions also coming in, assuming more money is going in, how are we able to kind of maintain level of investment as well as growth?

Just some color on that would be helpful.

I said that we have bought our capital outlay, of course, that does not impact our ability to invest behind the A&P line items. If you look at the overall A&P, of course, we have grown by 25% in this quarter, which is a pretty healthy growth because as I said, of course, we had significantly advantage in terms of our cost line items, and we found it appropriate to sort of invest behind both the core and the new products.

In India, for example, we launched shampoo, of course, we [unclear] shampoos. I think, yes, we had resources, and we thought it's the right thing to do to invest behind in all the business, for that matter, whether it is India, international, or digital, and that's why you see about 25% growth in the A&P line item.

Got it. My last quick one was on tax rate, a little bit lower this quarter.

Any change in guidance for the full year at a consolidated level?

This year tax this quarter it was about 17.5%. I think from a full-year perspective, you can take a guidance of about 18% for FY27, and maybe about 19 to 20% for FY28.

Thank you. Wish you all the best.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

good evening team, am I audible?

Yeah. Yes, you are

audible.

Yes, you are audible. Three questions.

The first one was on Plix actually. If you look at the growth specifically for the BPC segment, it has been quite spectacular for FY26.

Just wanted more understanding that what would be the hero SKUs in this segment for Plix? Also, how to get comfort on the fact that Saugata, you've seen a lot of brands maybe leaving about one to two D2C brands who sort of saturated close to this 500 to 700 cr kind of range.

What sort of can give us the confidence to believe that Plix will not see that kind of limitation, and you mentioned that to look at it more as a D2C brand? That was my first question.

I think Plix has pivoted a lot to hair and skin food, and obviously there are some hero SKUs. Their two, three capabilities are basically ability to spot a trend and ride a trend.

Therefore, there's a very good innovation engine. They have a very good digital marketing engine, especially in the influencer and content, which is a source of competitive advantage.

Having a strong AOV and a D2C business and the fact that the D2C part of the component being strong and profitable gives the edge. Now, you are right that obviously Plix at 800 crore will not going to grow 30, 40%.

Also, we are not just chasing growth, we are also ensuring that this brand also is profitable. Having said that, at this level, I'm sure there is an opportunity for the brand to get into a little bit into modern trade, it get into beauty outlets.

Of course, given the wide spectrum, it's not a single category brand, there are legs to grow.

Understood. That's very clear.

Two quick clarifications: on Parachute, we had mentioned about taking a 10% price cut in Q4 in the non-MLH packs. That has been the only price cut we've taken for Parachute, is that understanding right?

Exactly. Exactly.

That's right.

Got it. Just one last thing.

Foods is obviously grown 43%, but this includes obviously Cosmix and 4700 also coming in. Ex of that, what would be the growth in the foods portfolio?

Organic growth of this one is double digits.

Double digit. Sure.

That was it from my side. Thank you so much, team.

Hi team, congratulations on a very strong quarter. My first question was on Saffola oil, edible oil.

Is there any impact from this very fast growth we are seeing in cold-pressed oils on the Saffola core consumer, in your understanding? Your own foray into cold-pressed oils, how is it progressing and how do you think about that segment as a new segment to operate in?

I believe that it's a very good growth engine, and in fact, one of the things we are looking at in Saffola is concerned is ensuring that we maintain a threshold level of profitability. We are not seeing any impact on a Saffola Gold or a Total user.

They are very loyal this one users. The entry point Saffola is a little more commoditized, and this is the one which we are selectively reducing, in terms of both the share of contribution of the packs and ensuring I don't want consumers at below a threshold level of profitability.

I think cold-pressed is a category of the future, and therefore we are investing in cold-pressed oil, and I believe by the next year it will be a sizeable portion of the Saffola business. It also makes sense if multiple large players invest behind the category and grow the category.

It's a category of the future, and that is why we are pivoting to, and we are selectively making this choice that we don't want a certain part of the Saffola business in some channels below a threshold level of profitability. Just to answer your question, Saffola Gold has not got impacted because of cold-pressed.

Got it. As you look at your own cold-pressed business, does it have a margin structure which is attractive enough for you to invest in that business because you are advertising, but just wanted to understand that.

It is far superior to the core Saffola edible oil gross margin. Got it,

got it. My second question was on your premium personal care.

There you've done a 450 crore plus ARR. There seems to have been some significant improvement there sequentially and also y-o-y.

Is this to do with the launch of shampoo and generally the strategy, do you want to play it as a mainstream shampoo player or what is the thought process behind this entry into shampoos?

I think we want to obviously play as a mainstream shampoo player. I think if you look at it, I think we now have learnings, we have a shampoo portfolio in almost all the big international markets, we have done relatively well.

I wish I had launched this 10 years ago, but it's maybe 10 years late, but better late than never. I believe that with a strong equity, people want naturals as a space for Parachute Advanced.

I think the mix looks good, and just like we have done fairly well in Bangladesh or Middle East into Parachute, we are extremely confident that we will be get a critical mass, and therefore our first step is to get 100 crores in the first year. Far, I think it's very encouraging, and what has also helped is because of Setu, we now have very good quality direct market execution, and we don't want this product to just go through wholesale, but great market execution.

Therefore the results are encouraging, and I believe over the next 3, 4 years, this will be one more big pivot of growth and on our premiumization of the core along with almond. Got it,

got it. Very helpful, Saugata.

Thanks, that's it from my side. All the best.

Hello, sir. Thanks for taking my question.

Wanted to understand a bit more on the VAHO growth. If you can just throw some light in terms of the breakup between the value and the volume growth in the segment for VAHO?

Given the fact that the base might be catching up with VAHO maybe in a quarter or two, post GST rate cut, can we expect this momentum to be maintained going forward like a mid-teens kind of a growth?

Yes, I think Saugata alluded to this on his opening remarks that while we are focusing on mid and premium segment, and that segment has delivered high-teens growth in volume terms, of course value growth is even higher. Now going ahead, we definitely expect that we will maintain the trajectory of double digits.

We would definitely try for even delivering high-teens growth. We're fairly confident because it has definitely the kind of investment that we have done has shown good returns.

Plus also the continuous investment in Setu is something which is really helping us grow in this segment. Yes, we are confident that we will be able to maintain this trajectory.

Understood. Continuing with the earlier question of the earlier participant, in terms of the Parachute shampoo launch, what would be our aspiration in terms of the shampoo segment?

Would we be looking at terms of capturing certain market share in the segment, being a number two, number three player? What would be the aspiration?

Also, how are we placed in terms of the launch? Are we launch only in certain specific markets so far, or is it a kind of a national launch for Parachute shampoo?

It's largely a national launch as we speak in this kind of the last quarter. I think we'll take one year at a time, and as I said, but it's a large category.

I think we'll have to execute it well, be patient, be resilient, and make it big. These little steps and someday it will become a critical mass.

As I said, in line with our fewer, bigger, bolder, faster, in terms of the core, I think shampoo and almond are two big bets, and similarly cold-pressed oil and maybe muesli, these are big bets, and we hope to get critical mass very soon in all these.

Understood. Quite helpful.

Thanks.

Hi, congrats on a good set of numbers. Just a couple of questions.

First on understanding your perspective on how you're seeing channels play out, and given the growth into quick commerce, how do you see that having an impact on A, your advertising spends, B, your margin profile, given the relative customer concentration there? That was one.

The second one that I wanted to understand is if we look at the India growth, right, a large part of it is obviously driven by the core business, but there also seems to be good growth coming from the non-standalone, but India businesses, right? Which among the digital-first premium personal care brands are you seeing on a faster path to profitability there?

Those were my two questions.

Channel, yeah. See, I think I am a little old-fashioned person.

I believe in an and theory and not a or theory as far as channel is concerned. What has happened over the last 5, 7 years is that the entry barriers to the organized trade has significantly gone down.

Today anybody with some capital can set up a 100 crore brand, throw money, and get some market share. What has not changed is my belief India being such a large country, the entry barriers towards having a solid GT distribution remains, and especially in rural India, middle India.

This is something which we don't talk about because we only see that people like us, and the rural part of it. We consciously invested behind this and strategy.

In the last 3, 4 years, I think we have ensured that our distribution partners make significant ROI profitability. We invest behind technology.

We invest behind direct distribution. Therefore, GT can be a source of continued sustainable competitive advantage, will continue to be in the next 5, 7 years.

We believe alternate channels are a source of driving premiumization as well as a test market for innovation, and we have been avoiding cannibalistic growth. Therefore, I think that's the reason if you have multiple levers of growth and not depend on one channel.

In fact, that's one of the shifts we did 2, 3 years ago and we realized that we must pivot and that's when Project Setu started. I believe India is a place of immense opportunities and there is opportunities for all the channels to grow.

Having said that, I think quick commerce has established itself. I think quick commerce is unique to India where because of certain factors quick commerce is bound to grow, and we are investing behind quick commerce.

What helps us is those six, seven digital brands and therefore we are a very big quick commerce as well as this one players. Having said that, one trend we are seeing is there's been a slight slowing down of growth in modern trade and the marketplace e-commerce in the last couple of quarters or the last two years.

The second question on digital, I think all the brands are growing well, but as I alluded to that for us a 20, 25% growth with profitability is much more important than growing 40, 50% and burning cash. All the brands are doing fairly well.

Beardo is on double-digit profitability. Plix is in high single digit tending towards double digit.

We acquired Cosmix, which was already on high-teens profitability. We are seeing a path to profitability for the other brands over the next 12 to 18 months, but the burn is now low.

Therefore, we will grow it responsibly at the same time. I think as you see a part of that EBITDA growth which you're going to witness this year is also contributed by the profitability movement in both food and digital brands, some through the mix and some obviously through the benefit which we have got from raw materials.

Sure, yeah. In fact, that's very evident where if we just look at on an EBIT level because that's where the segment comes in, right, there is a clear 40% jump in your non-standalone India EBIT.

That is clear. Thanks, this is clear.

Just a follow-up on that. It was interesting you mentioned, right, that quick commerce has seen growth, has established itself, but you're seeing a slow down in organized trade and that channel.

Considering Yes,

let me clarify, I said relative slowdown. I am not saying a slowdown, but compared to the past, so that I want to make myself clear.

Sure, clear, Saugata. Sorry, I did not mean to allude in any way that GT is I'm equally clear on the fact that GT is probably still going to remain the dominant channel.

That part is clear. What I wanted to understand is on quick commerce, considering that a large part of quick commerce is really channel shift rather than incremental demand, right, are you seeing that channel shift happening more from modern trade or from general trade?

Very difficult to say it. I think it's coming from everything, but I believe there is a certain shopper who is slightly different, which is less price sensitive, maybe more wanting convenience, I want it now.

We ensure that there is a channel pack architecture for each channel so that it is not cannibalistic and therefore we maximize each channel and also ensure that I think we are also test marketing new products to this quick commerce opportunity. We are seeing it slightly differently and so that we reduce the cannibalistic sale.

Clear. Very helpful.

Thank you, and all the best.

Thank you.

Thanks. Two follow-up questions.

One is slightly medium-term structural question on Saffola. If I see the target audience of Saffola, there is a lot of commonality with customer who uses air fryer and GLP-1.

If you see air fryer, the pricing has become very democratized, and there is very aggressive advertising also. Same thing is with GLP-1 also.

I wanted to understand, yes, you're focusing on profitable growth in Saffola for the past two quarters and maybe years, but medium-term volume growth itself is there a big question mark on Saffola? Because a lot of penetration has happened, and if the same customer is now cutting down because of air fryer and GLP-1, volume growth itself will become a big question mark.

Volume decline is my question. Are you worried on the volume decline?

I think what we are doing is a structural reset of the portfolio saying that, and a reset takes one or two years where we are saying that I don't want a certain set of what I call variants which don't make a threshold cut in terms of profitability. Let me tell you, Saffola as a brand for the last 20 years encouraged consumers to use the right oil, but use less oil.

In line with what the Prime Minister has spoken, we encourage consumers, and that's why the Losorb technology was been discovered and invented so that it absorbs less oil. We have been working towards a healthier India, and I think we are attracting a certain set of consumers and Saffola will continue to attract a set of consumers.

Mid single-digit volume growth is absolutely fine. Having said that, I think it's pivoting towards food, and maybe in a couple of years, food become the bigger part of the Saffola architecture.

Last question. You have essentially mastered and pioneered the D2C acquisitions.

Last one, two years, whatever acquisitions say you have done, say 4700, Cosmix, and some of the overseas brands, how much will be Marico or your involvement in day-to-day? How is the transition working in terms of the management?

As you know that these brands have just come to us this year, early this year, all the three brands. For a minimum period, at least three years, we learn these.

Today, I think the way we are looking at it is, we have now as I talked about, we look at from a platform point of view. Now have a BPC platform, we have a foods platform with common expertise and capability.

They learn from each other, share resources, they share costs. Yes, I think this is the exciting part of the portfolio.

In our structure, we have ensured that you have a CEO India business, you have a CEO international business, and I spend definitely a lot of time in digital, it's equally exciting. I think we now have a playbook so that we can have stuck in into the platform rather than looking at a fragmented acquisition.

As I had alluded to in the last call when we did a special call with all of you on the digital structure, we are more or less done. We have still one or two things to do, but I think we will continue to experiment.

I think this began as an iterative thing, and we now have a pretty structured playbook and we are pretty confident to have a 4,000 crore, early teens, mid, kind of a EBITDA business by 2030.

Sir, one follow-up on the shampoo bit. Is there any learning from your skin lotion moisturizer business?

Because that again great packaging, clearly the Parachute brand extension, those things were good, but are you happy with where the scale-up has happened over the past few years? Are there some learnings?

Because both are segments where multinationals really dominate, and there are a few Indian companies also which are very strong there. Would you want to be a niche player?

Yes, you mentioned 100 crore kind of ambition and take one year at a time, but if you could just correlate with the skin lotion, the moisturizer brand and that business, what are the commonalities and what are the learnings from there?

I think firstly, I think two things. On the body lotion as a category, the penetration is low.

With global warming and winter shrinking, I think the category has not grown significantly. The category has also pivoted towards a low margin, in terms of OT-driven brand.

Therefore, we said that this is something which we don't want to participate because even if I get 10 or 15 in line with our fewer, bigger, bolder, it doesn't fit in, okay. Now shampoo, we have proven the model, and just to assure all of you that in most of the international markets, we have successfully competed with multinationals.

Our growth rate has been pretty good on the shampoo category. It's not in saying Bangladesh, now it's year four or year five, in Middle East it's year two, year three, where it has got sustained growth.

We have a proven model. I think in India, shampoo category is very large, and Parachute Advanced is a very, very strong equity.

We have significant distribution advantages. I think it's the right time when our execution engine it at its peak.

We have a very focused resource allocation strategy. The reason I don't want to give a three-year, five-year vision in today's world, we'll take one year at a time, but I am extremely confident that we will do fairly well in this.

As I said, it's a very, very large category.

Sure, thank you. That's all from me.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening in. To conclude, we've started the year on a very strong note with multi-quarter high performance across key metrics supported by robust business fundamentals and disciplined execution.

While the near-term macro environment is evolving, we are confident in our ability to navigate it effectively and deliver our full-year aspiration to cross 15,000 crore mark and at the same time aim for 20% EBITDA growth. We would remain focused on driving consistent, profitable, and sustainable value creation for all stakeholders.

That's it from our side. Should you have any further queries, please feel free to reach out to our IR team and they'll be happy to address.

Thank you and have a great evening.