Thank you, Palak. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining this call.

From the management side, we have Mr. Sudhanshu Vats, Managing Director; Mr.

Kavinder Singh, Joint Managing Director; Mr. Sandeep Batra, Executive Director - Finance and CFO; and Mr.

Bhavesh Joshi, Senior VP - Domestic Accounts and Taxation. I'll now hand over the call to Sandeep, sir, for his opening remarks.

Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Pranav, and good afternoon, and a warm welcome to everybody on the call. I'll just keep my opening comments brief.

The board at its meeting yesterday approved the results for the first quarter of the current fiscal. Of course, after that we had our AGM at which the proposed dividend of ₹11.50 paise was approved by the shareholders.

Coming to the performance for the quarter, standalone revenues grew by 22.2% with an underlying volume growth of 11.3%. In absolute terms, the revenue was ₹4,237 crores.

As we had mentioned in the full year earnings call, we had taken price increases and which were taken across all categories to offset the increase in input costs. If you look at the underlying volume growth for the quarter, Consumer and Bazaar businesses underlying volume growth was 12.2% and for B2B was 7.3%.

The reason why the B2B underlying volume growth was lower was largely because of lower exports. B2B exports UVG for the quarter was -8.4%, and overall exports for the company also degrew in the first quarter largely because of geopolitical issues in some of our key markets.

Gross margins at 52.5% were lower than last year same period by 90 basis points. VAM consumption in the quarter was at $1,370 as compared to last year $924, and the fourth quarter was in the $800 range.

However, total costs below gross margin increased slower than the revenue growth. The total cost increase was 14.5%.

Large chunk of that was advertising and sales promotion. This operating leverage flowed into the EBITDA.

EBITDA margins at 26.4% improved by 80 basis points quarter-on-quarter, and profit after tax grew by 27.7%. This was the standalone performance.

If I look at the performance of the subsidiaries, both the domestic as well as the overseas subsidiaries reported double-digit revenue growth. Domestic subsidiaries grew by 11.5% and international subsidiaries grew by 12%.

Again, the growth there was led by Consumer and Bazaar businesses in the domestic subsidiaries, which grew by 17%, and the B2B part of the domestic subsidiaries had a modest growth of 3.5%. International subsidiaries, again growth was reasonably broad-based with Bangladesh, Egypt, and Kenya subsidiaries recording much better than their past growth records.

Consolidated revenues at ₹4,541 crores were up by 21.3%. EBITDA margin improved by 120 basis points over same period last year, and profit after tax grew by 30.3%.

That's all from an opening remarks point of view. Happy to open the floor for questions.

Yes, congrats on great numbers. First question is on the exports.

When the geopolitical issues get resolved, do you expect bunched-up demand or pent-up demand or some part of this demand was met by other suppliers? If you could clarify on that?

I think, Abneesh, thank you first of all, and always good to hear from you. I think, and it's so good that you're always the opening batsman.

I think, and thank you once again for the results. We've delivered strong set of results, thank you very much.

I think on exports, so as the situation normalizes, lot of our exports business will come back. It will come back.

Now because most of our contracts are there. Now it is also possible that in this interim period some of the people may have made some alternate arrangements, and I don't want to get into specifics of it.

Suffice to say, to answer your question, that as the geopolitical situation stabilizes, our exports will come back.

Sir, the largest paint company has put up the VAM VAE facility, and you do compete with that company in many segments. From a relative positioning perspective in terms of cost and say pricing and product pricing, does this change anything meaningfully for you?

Abneesh, our understanding is that I think it's best of course answered by the company that has put up the capacity. Fundamentally there are two business models, and both business models are good business models.

You could have something captive and perhaps operate in the entire value chain, or basically you have your brands and your products, and you focus on your brand and product quality and servicing the customer, and from the procurement point of view, you operate through basically what is in the market, and you basically ride the crests and troughs of the raw material. I think the point is we are in the latter camp, I think as you are aware.

I don't think it should change anything materially. In our assessment, multiple times over when we've done it ourselves, and also when we have looked at and talked to a few of the experts in this space who know this very well, and some of the large companies across the globe, I think the competitive advantage case for India, from availability of base raw material, from the point of view of the scale needed to get that kind of cost leverage and advantage, doesn't seem to come through in all our conversations.

I just wanted to share that. Having said that, I think they've chosen to do this.

My understanding is also it may or may not be directly for adhesives, it may be for other things as well. I think that's the piece, therefore they have multiple businesses.

I think the point I'm making is that that's an independent decision, it's a different business model. As far as our business model is concerned, our way of doing things is concerned, and we've sort of revisited this, we've had detailed conversation with some of our large partners and vendor suppliers, and we are confident of running this well as well as we've done in the past and should not have any impact.

Sure. My next question is on the two innovations you have put in the presentation.

What is the expectation from this most technologically advanced adhesive? Is this too niche?

It says anti-bending property for what use case it is. Similarly for the professional M-Seal washable, are these very disruptive product or these are just some good niche product or are these big potential long-term from a revenue perspective?

No, Abneesh, that's a very good question, and I'm glad you asked it upfront. I think both these innovations which we've put up this time around are fundamental innovations.

They are technologically advanced products in that space. Within our business, they're not fringe innovations, they're core innovations.

Let me just give you a quick this thing and maybe take one example, but it's true for both. Let me take the example of Fevicol Xpert.

You see, when you do woodworking in your house, particularly when you do almirah doors, cupboard doors, depending on the laminate you've used on one side and the laminate you've used on the inner side, or sometimes no laminate on the inner side, because that's the practice in India. The laminate used on the front side is of a different quality and different this thing, and the laminate used which is on the reverse of the door as you open the door, either there is no laminate or it's of a different quality.

Based on this, what one common complaint we used to hear was what is called bending of the door. I'm saying, and therefore I want to take a minute to explain that how much core or central it is.

I think this technology, one of the biggest advantages of the technology is also anti-bending. Therefore once you're able to use this product, you're assured of the doors not bending, doors closing properly.

That is a common problem faced, and therefore you are addressing a relatively prevalent or relatively quite prevalent kind of a problem with the product. I think the other one is very similar.

It's basically multiple things it scores on, as we call this, the M-Seal Advanced. It's lower on VOCs, very low on smell, easy to wash off.

You can use it on different types of plastic pipes and all that. Both are very fundamental innovations, I would call them core innovations, and with strong potential.

Sure. Last question.

Essentially VAM went up sharply, has come down also very sharply. If you could tell us current price, and crude has also fallen.

Is your double-digit price hike which you have taken at the company level, is that now too much? Are you giving now more trade discounts and basically trade margins?

How are the local players or the other players responding because it's a competitive market, and definitely your double-digit price hike is unprecedented, and then we have seen the RM fall also very sharply.

Maybe I'll ask Sandeep to also tell you exact numbers, but I can give you order of magnitude. I can tell you, Abneesh, basically this is fluctuating quite a lot, yeah.

Therefore, to tell something at this point in time, I'm saying so it did go up very sharply, you're absolutely right, from about $800-$900 to maybe all the way close to $2,000, and then fell down quite a lot, but then maybe going up a little. The dynamic is a little bit more it's far more dynamic than maybe we've seen in the past, maybe we've seen it once or twice, but even there the yo-yoing is, I think, quite unique.

As VAM is a little bit decoupled from directly crude as well, I think there are multiple other factors which are sort of driving some of these things. What we've done and to your point, what we do is we take the feedback of the market.

Fortunately, as a company we are very close to our customer, and therefore we understand what is happening, what are their pain points, and so on, forth. You're and you're right in your conceptual thinking that depending on the movement of this, we could end up giving some rebate.

It's possible that in a period I'm saying we would be giving a rebate, and that's absolutely correct, and it's possible that in a period we would sort of withdraw that, and so on, forth. If you remember correctly, while the quantum, you're right, is this time we were more proactive more than the quantum.

We were proactive, and I think that's really helped, and you can see that in the numbers as well. My point is that we were and we spoke about it in the last call, in our full year and quarter four FY26 call, we covered for the increase in raw material price.

We did not cover fully for the margin. In a manner of speaking, we had taken some of the hit and we basically passed on a lot of that hit, but we had absorbed a little bit of it as well.

The point is that between the two, we are broadly okay. We will play with a little bit of rebate.

As far as competition is concerned, we keep a close eye on competition anywhere in the country, and we will continue to do that. In this particular example, especially in this example, Abneesh, and in this category, competition tends to follow us almost to the T.

I saw when we sort of taken up the prices, almost everyone has taken up the prices. When we are taking a rebate, almost everyone is taking a rebate.

Sometimes you could actually, if you mask the letterhead of the letter, you will see they are almost identical. To that extent, that's just anecdotally to tell you.

I think, but Having said all of this, we keep a very, very close watch. More importantly, at Pidilite we have always believed in a win-win philosophy where we will make sure that the value to our customers is right, and therefore and we are doing what is right in their interest as much as it is in ours.

I think as long as we follow that philosophy, I think we are in a good space in my judgment.

One follow-up here, and I'll end there. You want to change the lower end of the guidance because in most quarters either you are at the top end or you're even beating the top end?

Structurally is there any change to the margin profile? The 20% lower end of the margin may not have any relevance now because four, five quarters have happened?

Abneesh, while if you look at our last few quarters' performance, what you say is valid. If you look at a slightly longer period, particularly the time when we saw very steep increase in input costs, our margins had indeed fallen into the high teens, and of course they recovered.

The world that we are living in with all these risks and uncertainties, we would still prefer to keep a corridor which gives us enough operating flexibility. No need to change it at this stage.

Sure, thank you. That's all from my side.

Thank you.

Hi, team. Congratulations on good set of results, and thanks for the opportunity.

I've got two questions. The first one is see standalone consumer bazaar UVG was around 15% last quarter.

I think this calendar year started off on a very strong note, and last earnings call until then you were fairly confident that the momentum At that point of time, you'd indicated that the momentum had continued into April and May as well. This slight moderation to about 11-odd percent or 12% from 15% I'm just referring to C&B right now did you see any moderation in June that anything to call out here, and second is should this be considered as a normal UVG band for rest of the year or are you expecting some acceleration going ahead?

Jay, I think So thank you first of all, Jay, and thank you for the compliments as well to all of Pidilite and to the team, I think from your side. I think the way I interpret this data, let me also share the data with you, and I think we talk about it.

I think if you look at our C&B business, and I'm trying to give you now four 3-year CAGR, 2-year CAGR, last year, and this quarter. If you look at from my point of view, our 3-year CAGR is, let's say, 9 9-something, our 2-year CAGR is about 10-something, our last year or 10 point something higher, then our last year full year actually in C&B again is around 11-something.

Against that, we are now in quarter one at 12.5. Therefore just the quarter four I think is one data point, and if you remember even in our last call, we had said that treat our last year's UVG as 11.1 or what the number if I remember right, 11.1 for the year, and I think that's a step-up on our previous year which was 9 point something.

Therefore it is a step-up. We recognize that, we would like to continue that step-up.

I think in that context, we see this as a normal trend. There's nothing no month or any such thing.

I think we should be looking at similar this thing, especially in this year, Jay, because you should see that this UVG, underlying volume growth, is coming on the price which is there. I think to be able to deliver this UVG with this price, broadly this price where as the year progresses nobody can say anything at the moment here, but the point I'm making is that in this context, assuming this is the context and this some price which is there through the year, I think this is a good number.

This is the quantitative aspect of it, Jay. I think from the point of view of market, and all of us keep traveling all the time.

Kavinder, myself, we are all in the market most of, and even more so now. I can tell you very, very categorically that the demand is holding quite well.

I think We're not seeing any kind of concern on demand at the moment at all.

I think

demand is holding well, and in our judgment, the trend is positive and in the right direction.

Thank you. One more question.

One of the South India-based regional cement companies is planning to foray into tile adhesives with very ambitious targets. What are your thoughts?

Are you seeing any sort of change in the competitive intensity on the ground? Any thoughts here?

Yeah. Let me quickly give you one headline thought, but I'll pass it on to Kavinder to talk about this in quite some detail for you.

I think first of all, I think as this business, as this segment is growing, there will be competition, and I think competition could come from cement manufacturers, they could sometimes come from tile tile manufacturers themselves thinking we do tile, we should also do adhesive, and of course there has been an existing competition from the some of the larger players. I think the competitive intensity could vary and could change, but I think we are quite well-equipped with our brand.

I think that's a headline thought. Let me just share let me just ask Kavinder to give you a little bit more context and color to that.

Thank you, Sudhanshu. I'll just sort of build a little more from where Sudhanshu left off.

See, this category is facing intense competition, and the South Indian manufacturer that you talked about, we are aware of that. On the ground, if I were to say, we are maintaining our momentum.

In fact, we are accelerating, number one. Number two, we are also very mindful of the emerging competition.

Our biggest strength today, which is sort of known also, and I would reiterate, is our wide plant network, which we are expanding. Number two, consistent quality.

We are investing in our plants in a manner that the quality consistency improves. These products are susceptible to product inconsistency, and therefore if you have not got the right technology, the right level of let's say automation, you could get into the consistency problems.

Third, extreme focus on cost management both on the input side as well as let's say we use a concept called total delivered cost. When I look at these metrics of cost, quality, and timely availability through the plant network that we have built, we are building our own moat.

Of course Roff as a brand has seen significant investments on the ATL as well. Our team on the ground is constantly working both on the distribution side, which is the sales part, and the business development team is continuously working with the contractors who are in this business.

Our moat is always to work very closely on the ground with the tile dealers who comprise majority of the sales now of this particular category—of course there are other dealers also—and also the contractors. We will continue to focus on our playbook while being mindful of the new competition that is emerging, and our team is quite motivated to deal with this challenge of seeing increased competition.

Our focus remains on our playbook and continuously adjusting depending on what we see in the market. By the way, since we are on the call, I will also highlight that one of the products that we have launched in about two quarters ago and we have mentioned this already, called Neopro, is seeing increased momentum, and we are now going beyond one plant to four plants to ensure that this is available in wider geographies.

This is a product that we have launched through our joint venture with our Spanish partners, and this is something that we can also share the good news that the premium end of the market we effectively occupy extremely well, and that's another area that we are focused on in terms of premiumizing our range as well. I hope to some extent this answers your question.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Jay.

Hi. Again, congratulations on a great quarter.

My first question was on demand. We've seen price increases from Pidilite as well as all other building material companies.

Have you seen at all the price hikes have fully happened by June, any impact of price elasticity of demand on any of your categories? A related question is in this quarter there was some newsflow around shortage of construction material like tiles and things like that.

Did it have any impact on the growth during this quarter? Yeah.

Arnab, thank you for your compliments, and I think Pidilite and the team fully deserve it. I think so I'll pass on to everyone.

Thank you so much. Let me take the second question first.

I think see tile per se as a sector has reasonably high market inventory, if I could call it, particularly premium tiles where most tile adhesive gets used. Therefore the impact on the industry which we saw at the beginning of the last quarter from the point of view of availability of gas and others did not immediately impact the market, definitely not the higher end market.

There could be a sporadic cases here and there, but not meaningfully in any which way. That's the first part.

Just remind me the question again, Arnab, the first part which you said

on the question. This is general price elasticity of demand.

Right.

I'll

tell you two, three things, and we discuss this internally quite a lot. I think first is to give you a little bit of context to everyone here, I think see unlike fast-moving consumer goods where there is a direct comparison of a product price from month to month because by definition they are used at that kind of frequency, the impact by the consumer is felt immediately.

In our kind of categories, largely bazaar particularly, people plan their project and say that They have an outlay for the project, and then they work within that outlay. Let's say you plan your project, and then you have a budget for your project.

I think while the prices have gone up, we've seen, and if the project is already on, then people normally don't stop it. That continues.

If you have to start a new, then you can sort of sometimes think through it or recalibrate it. To answer your question, We've not seen any impact on demand at the moment.

Also most of the pricing I think has gone in into the market by June. I think that was a question you had.

Most of the pricing has gone in in June. We've not seen any substantial impact.

Therefore our hypothesis that people plan a project outlay in a very different way, they interact with our products from a pricing point of view at a frequency of once in 2 years, once in 3 years, sometimes once in 5 years, depending on what you are doing, kind of project you are doing and all that. For us, and if you were to look at weighted average increase on some of our categories and brands, I think that's not substantial, because price had gone up then it came down a little bit.

I think so therefore from that point of view, I don't think we've seen anything on that count. That is good news for us and maybe on similar industries in my judgment.

Got it, that's very helpful. My second and last question is actually on margins.

Given it was very strong margin performance this quarter, I just wanted to understand if you had some benefit of low-cost inventory in this quarter of consumption averages, and therefore should we expect gross margins to move down from here as the full impact of the inflation hits? Or would you say that given where broadly spot prices are, you had very similar costs in the last quarter as well?

Just wanted to understand was there any one-off benefits which kind of goes away and therefore margins trend back to the historical range? Yeah.

No, therefore

in this quarter, I think your observation is correct. See, three things happened in the quarter.

Basically, this time around at Pidilite we were very proactive in taking our pricing based on replacement margins, which is depending on what the price of that commodity or raw material was at that point in time, we were pricing it based on that. That's replacement margin.

Therefore pricing was proactive, pricing went in into most of the quarter at least part of the quarter as the pricing was planned in phased manner. Then basically there was in certain category Now it varies from raw material to raw material, product to product, and all that, but there was some amount of carryover inventory as well.

That's a correct observation, and I think that's got consumed in the last quarter. That's absolutely correct.

Lastly, because of prices going up last quarter almost, and maybe in two or three stages, not only ours, across the board, as you had earlier asked in your previous question, there was also some moderation in schemes. I think combination of all three gave us the advantage here.

I think some of it will correct in the second quarter. My view is that you should first of all look at first half when you look at Pidilite as first half.

What gives us confidence at the end of quarter one is that with the proactive pricing that we have taken, and with the way we are managing our business, and with demand holding on, I'm saying all three conditions, I think we will see a year where we manage our margins quite well, is all I can tell you. I think of course our range is known to you, which is 20% to 24%, and therefore from this high which you've seen in this quarter, could it moderate a little bit?

It could moderate a little bit, and it will perhaps moderate a little bit, but it'll moderate a little bit. I'm saying that's the point, but we stay to the range which we talked about, and therefore that's something I can tell you.

Also, Arnab, if I may add, I think the right way to look at our margin is not on a quarter-to-quarter basis, because a quarter will have many variables. Some will play out favorably, some may not play out favorably.

The fact that I think Sudhanshu mentioned is that 100 is obviously the benefit that we got in the first quarter of consuming lower-priced inventory, that benefit will unravel in the second quarter because we have bought inventory or materials at higher prices than what prevail today. Some of it will come as the inventory gets consumed in the second quarter.

If you look at a normalized H1, I would not say there is any major concern on that.

Absolutely.

Got it, very, very helpful. Thanks so much.

All the best.

Good evening to the entire team, and first of all, congratulations and excellent execution on a consistent basis. My two questions: first, among the core, growth, and pioneer categories, can you give directionally that how these three categories have grown?

Also within the categories, any few categories which are moving up the curve will be very helpful. This is on first.

Second, also on the distribution, how the distribution expansion is taking place and what is the trajectory? Thank you.

Yeah. Rahul, thanks for the compliment and good questions.

I think as far as our core businesses are concerned, we are basically seeing steady growth on core. As we sort of talk about 1x to 2x GDP, I think we are seeing that in our core businesses.

I think what we are beginning to notice, and I'm saying we talked about it in last quarter as well and this quarter again, and Kavinder alluded to it in context of Roff, I think for our growth businesses, particularly Dr. Fixit, Roff, even our projects business, if you look at Pidilite Projects Group, and others, some of our other core growth businesses, we are seeing accelerated momentum.

I'm saying, so that's good news. We are in the range of that 2x to 4x, but we are seeing accelerated momentum in the underlying volume growths in some of our categories.

I think we've spoken about it many times, Rahul, but in the interest of once again explaining to people that when we talk of underlying volume growth, we're not talking of volume growth, total volume growth. Our total volume growths tend to be much higher than the underlying volume growths.

Most of the companies talk of volume growth, simple total volume growth. I think therefore our momentum is strong, and I think that continues.

Therefore, as far as core-growth ratios are concerned, and we've talked about it, we are in that relatively sweet spot of about nearly 50-50, but I think that's the way it will sort of maintain as we go forward, and I think that's the piece which is good for us. I hope I've answered your question.

Was there a follow-up question as well? I think you've covered both.

Yeah. The follow-up question was that last time when we met, you told Uno Fino, the render, is one of the most disruptive category and the product buoyant.

Can you just some brief about Uno Fino, how it's doing, and are we up to the mark of a ₹100 crores versus...

It's progressing well. Let me again ask Kavinder to talk to you a little bit about Uno Fino and add more color to it.

Uno Fino again is a product which comes out of our joint venture Spanish company. The good news that I want to share with you is that we are beginning to see green shoots in the Uno Fino side of the business.

We've been working with almost for year plus, actually even more, to get let's say specified as well as accepted amongst the architects who are looking for newer finishes for their projects. We are seeing acceptance in commercial projects, high-end residential projects.

We are beginning to have some big names, of course I can't take the names, of the architects who are now beginning to recommend Uno Fino, and because this product has this unique advantage of giving us approximately 15 years of waterproofing, as well as no repainting cycle needed, plus sprayable technology. There are these nuances which are now beginning to get accepted in the market.

Still I would say early days, but there is momentum that we are seeing. We have also reorganized our sales and go-to-market strategy, going through the architects, through our Pidilite Professional Solutions Group.

We have a projects group which is going out and selling it to the various segments. There is a lot of work that we have done at the backend, including training, and also reformulated the product also for cost efficiency.

We believe that we are now on the right track, and we will see some more momentum. Yes, coming back to your question on whether it's a ₹100 crores in 3 years or not, I would not comment on the number.

We are right now focused on building the base. Yes, sometime around next year maybe we can see whether the green shoots that we are seeing are actually prospering and moving forward, and then we can look at numbers.

Internally, we believe that this product and the proposition has reasonably good potential and a good proposition. We continue to be at it.

Like in typical Pidilite style, we do not give up easily. We keep working closely with the relevant stakeholders, and that's exactly the playbook we are again deploying here in the case of Uno Fino.

Thank you.

That's very helpful. Just last on distribution expansion...

Sure.

Thank you. Hi, team.

Always good to see robust performance from you. My first question was just trying to understand better the cumulative price increases that you have taken for consumer and bazaar segment.

It seems in the quarter you had a weighted price increase of close to 10%. Is this number going to sustain in Q2, or you are going to see a lagged impact of some pricing interventions that you took through the quarter and hence the pricing component increases as we move into Q2, Q3?

Yeah.

Latika, I think first of all, always great to hear from you. Thank you.

I think on pricing, Latika, two, three things. I think one is that we've taken prices in consumer and bazaar, and they vary by category and they vary by brand.

I think there and the range is pretty wide. It could go from let's say a 2% to about a 12%, to be fair.

Some of it had a component of the time-weighted component. Therefore, it all didn't go on April 1, to just put it in perspective.

To that extent, you're right that some of that additional impact should come in quarter two and therefore in quarter three as well. As you would remember, I'm saying if you've been on the call, there was another gentleman who asked this question on with the fluctuating raw material, there could be some rebates passed on, particularly in our bazaar business, to play the more win-win and a more fair play.

It's quite dynamic, Latika. My sense is it's not so straightforward that you put those prices in and then everything else is constant, and therefore this quarter you should get the full time-weighted advantage of it.

Yes, we will. Time-weighted advantage we'll get, but with the movement in VAM, if you remember one of the question which was asked, we are and we would be passing a little bit of rebate in that area.

It is also possible with movement in some other raw materials, because it's been really volatile. As Latika, I'm saying crude at 100, back to crude at 80.

I can from crude I can at least tell you. It's fluctuating week on week.

It's so volatile, and therefore, in what price you picked up, what is happening. Overall also, commodity is quite volatile.

It's this kind of volatility I think is very unprecedented in my opinion, I'm saying, and partly caused by ourselves, all of us, I'm saying as in during the in the geopolitical situation. I think my view is that so to answer your question, yes, there could be theoretically a time-weighted advantage of this, but it may get nullified with some of the rebates and other movements.

Understood. The second question was, you've already touched upon some of the core businesses and how they're doing, but just wanted to get from you any updated thoughts on progress on your forays into electronic adhesives and paints, anything incremental that you'd want to share?

Thank you.

Yeah. On electronics business and overall, I'm saying, therefore as we look at electronics and as we look at additional sectors of electronics, we are beginning to make more progress.

I can share with you, I think our emphasis initially was more consumer electronics, we are also looking at auto EV, and as that is becoming more and more piece there, and I think so therefore the full gamut of electronics as we understand, I think we are beginning to do a lot of work in that space. We're beginning to see some initial round of one or two places, even some commercial pieces coming up.

There is always a lag in specification. Making good progress on that, I can tell you very clearly.

I think on paints, I think as I've always maintained that in the places we are, I think we are seeing something, but we are still not confident of our full playbook, particularly the urban playbook, which we are refining as we go forward, and then you will see in future as we go forward a little bit more acceleration. It's a little bit more calibrated at this moment, if I could say, without doubt.

Sure. Thank you so much, and wish you the best.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

This is Tejas from Avendus Spark. Sir, first of all, congrats on super set of numbers.

Just wanted to know that in a quarter which was so volatile on pricing, should we see this as the validation of consumer behavior also kind of being so robust, or it could be mix of that there can be some pre-buying from channels, and hence it can't be seen or should not be seen as that at consumer offtake level also it will be this robust? Just wanted your opinion or view on this.

I think, Tejas, first of all, good to hear from you. I think which we talked about this in the context of consumer bazaar UVG, I would say that the behavior is very robust.

I think in the quarter that has gone by, because it was a quarter of calibrated but multiple price increases, could there have been a little bit more upstocking? Perhaps yes, but if I look at aggregate numbers, I would say the demand is steady, and we talked about it earlier as well.

I would say we are seeing the right progression particularly in our consumer and bazaar business on underlying volume growth, and I would say that all things being equal, that should continue as we go forward.

Perfect. Sir, we had seen such cycle in past in 2009-11 when there was a sharp inflation followed by deflation, and if my memory serves me right, we used the cycle to seed many new growth engines.

At this point when we are at upper end of our margin guidance also, let's say if we had to face deflation again, how would you prioritize to use the extra margin? Will it be to kind of protect the core and go more intense there, or you will kind of expand the pioneer portfolio by adding more engines of growth for future?

I think, Tejas, that's a very good question. I I think we find a balance.

As you know Pidilite philosophy, we are we and we say that as well that we are pioneering, we continue to look at newer opportunities. Kavinder spoke about a couple of them in some detail in in this call also.

In general, and and I think you know that we are looking at some of the other electronics and industrial pieces. There is work which we are doing on multiple fronts, Tejas, and none of this can be specifically spoken about in the call, but I can tell you that as a company our philosophy is to continue to do pioneering work, to find the right usage of of the margins and capital or or money that we generate, and I think we are at it.

I think Sandeep and all of us as a team is basically we are You will you will hear more of it when it is something we can talk about, and we will definitely talk about that.

Thanks, and all the best for coming quarters.

Thank you. Thanks.

Hi, Sudhanshu, and Kavinder and Sandeep, congratulations on good set of number in challenging time. Sir, my question is related to say tile fixing we introduced chemical a few years back, and then now it has become a kind of a core category, kind of a thing.

The underlying business dynamics are also changing, people are adopting more new practices in India, and simultaneous as well as we are also like Uno Fino or electronic chemical we are introducing. If I have to understand, and Kavinder also stated within a tile fixing premiumization over a period then become a kind of a general acceptance.

How do we understand the way we are doing business and continuously introducing new categories?

Bharat bhai, first of all, thank you for the compliments, and aap to bol hi rahe the. Now you have seen the numbers in the zone which we had spoken about.

I think the point is that these are things we do continuously, and unfortunately we first walk the walk and then talk that walk at an appropriate time, and I think that's the way it should be in our judgment as well. I think there are multiple things which we will keep doing.

Some of them will grow faster, some of them will grow into bigger. Bharat bhai, one thing I do want to tell you is that even in what you are saying that Roff has been around for some time, there is a lot of growth opportunity in Roff.

As we pointed out as well earlier in the call, the momentum is continuing, if at all picking up a little bit more. Even in our growth categories which are now around for some time and that's what you meant aapke jo sawal se thoda aisa lag raha tha, usme bhi abhi there is a lot of growth opportunity which is there.

We will continue to look at newer things, but there is a lot the momentum on our growth categories is strong, and we feel that there is a lot to be done in that space as well.

Sir, understand a little more on this changing dynamic and consumer behavior pattern, consumer or underlying customer pattern. How do we see that trend is growing faster than the competition, or how we understand it from say 2, 3 years perspective?

Yeah. No, we measure this, Bharat bhai.

I think basically we know how much is the market growing by. We know that very well.

We have a sense of what the other players are growing by, sometimes they are listed, their numbers are available, but other times we have a good sense. We have a very good this thing on our own business.

We know market growth and our growth, and in some of these categories our growth is factor of, it will be 1.5x, could even be between 1.5 to 2x, if I could use the word, if I could give the factor, of the market growth, and that is clearly market share accretive, very clearly market share. We are gaining market share in a rapidly growing market, and there is competition coming in as some question which came in earlier as well, we responded to it.

I think we are basically continuing to grow market share in growing categories and because the way we do business, I think that's the piece. I'll ask a little bit of further feedback from Kavinder.

Yeah.

Bharat bhai, your question specifically on we started tile adhesives, others have come in, etc., etc., and even in Uno Fino how do we think about the size because players will come in. See, just to give you a sense, the penetration of tile adhesives in India is still not more than 25%, at best 30%.

The room for growth exists for all players. We can only confirm that we are growing fastest amongst all the players, which means we are gaining share in a fast-growing category.

Fundamentally, even though there will be other players that will come in, but the size of opportunity is big, and competition is good because it keeps us obviously sharp. What we are trying to do is continuously, as I mentioned earlier, work very closely with the contractors, the tile channels, and also build our plant network—I'm only responding to the tile piece—and build the total delivered cost in a manner that we remain competitive.

It's a combination that will eventually win in the marketplace, and we remain humble enough to admit that we are also learning every day, and our approach will be not to give up the advantage that we have, in fact increase that, and the good news is that the penetration is low. There is room for people to grow, and we should not be worried too much about the new competition coming in, as long as we are able to penetrate and expand the category, and almost as a leader in the category, it's our job to expand the category.

Same is true for categories like Uno Fino and many other categories where we tend to be pioneers. In some cases we are trying to grow faster than the others, in some cases we are pioneering.

We are also moving towards a solution approach, and that's something that I've said earlier with this Pidilite Professional Solutions in the projects area particularly. We are not trying to offer products, but actually offer systems.

That, to my mind, is a very big moat we are building for the future where the architects and structural consultants will, in a way, recommend our systems because the systems together can perform better than an individual product. There are multiple levers we are pressing to remain ahead of the curve even in a highly competitive but underpenetrated category.

Thank you, Kavinder. Thank you.

Sudhanshu, with your permission, one question may I further ask?

Go ahead, Bharat bhai.

Simultaneously, say like in our original category white glue, what we are seeing that competition is already picking up, but simultaneously like several ply manufacturer has started supplying pre-laminated ply also. Do we see that those kind of de-growth can happen in the consumption side?

No, Bharat bhai, we actually see the contrary. See, kya hai ki har cheez it's so under indexed in India even now, I'm saying across the board.

If you look at two of our more recent innovations, I'm saying whether it is MultiLoc. MultiLoc basically what is happening is, Bharat bhai, there are multiple types of materials which are coming in into home construction now.

While we use the word ply, it's not only ply, there are multiple types of products that are there. Our MultiLoc product is doing exceedingly well.

We just in the beginning of the call talked about Xpert. Our original products which have been around are also continuing to do well.

I think the point is that we have to continuously innovate, do the right things, find the right solutions for the right products, and we will continue to grow. Mind you, Bharat bhai, we have a joineries business in our Fevicol division as well, which continues to grow faster than our core Fevicol retail business.

Joineries business is where we capture some of these opportunities where you talk about pre-laminated or you talk about prefabricated kind of stuff. Our joineries business is very robust and that's doing really well.

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

Thank you.

Hi, sir. This is Percy Panthaki here.

My question is again on margins. See, when the war broke out and at the beginning of Q1, possibly the sort of expectation was that this year might be towards the lower end of the 20% to 24% margin because of the cost inflation.

Now this quarter you've done 26% margin. Would it be fair to say that if crude and related commodities maintain at, let's say, somewhere in the mid-80s, then you would actually be at the higher end of the margin this year?

Percy. I think maybe Sandeep can also add a quick this thing, but let me, I think in the interest of time, very quickly respond to you.

I think the the thing here is I think first of all, don't look at it quarter-to-quarter. I think that's a point he made as well.

I think quarter one which is our quarter one tends to be the to the to the biggest with the biggest quarter, it does give you the leverage and all that stuff. The way we have managed our pricing and the way we have executed, if some of the things There is a there's a if, and I'll say IF, if the if the crude remains as you've said, and if the volatility is not going to increase and and the you know the situation eases a little bit there, even if it remains dynamic, I think your assumption is correct that we would be we would manage the business well within the band, and it is quite possible that we could be mid to higher end of the band easily.

It's possible. I'm saying but there is that's why I'm again repeating and saying big IF.

We are going to do the best we can. We have demonstrated again.

I think and we will continue to, deliver to the best of our capability both in the quality of execution, speed of execution, agility which we need. I think so all that will be there in in in all aspects of our business.

Got it. On volume growth, I know you've answered this earlier, but just to get a little more clarity, are we saying that sort of a 9% to 10% volume growth is something that is most likely over, let's say, a 3-year kind of a period plus or minus?

On a yearly basis, it might go up or down. Let's say on a medium term 3-4-year basis, 9%, 10% volume growth UVG is what we're looking at?

Underlying volume growth as we say, which is like-to-like volume and mix, therefore it's not simple volume growth. I think we've always maintained that we will deliver double-digit.

As a matter of fact, our endeavor will be to slowly but surely inch it up a little bit.

Also, Percy,

I think you should look at it in the context of the overall GDP growth, because we always index our growth of our categories to a multiple of the real GDP growth. On the hypothesis that real GDP in India will grow at the 6%, 6.5% range, if you apply the range that we give for our core growth categories, you'll end up at a double-digit underlying volume growth.

Got it. That's all from me.

Thanks and all the best.

Hello, everyone. Am I audible?

Yes, Pratik. You're audible.

Thank you for taking my question. This is Pratik Gothi from HSBC.

I just have the one question. Similar to tile adhesives, can you also throw some light on the waterproofing chemicals space, the rising competitive intensity there, and your improving performance in FY26, any color on demand in FY27 so far, and just run-rate for growth?

Like to talk about for tile adhesives, please.

Yeah. I'll ask Kavinder to comment more on it, but we are making continuously we are sort of this is another category which is growing and it's also picking up the pace.

We ended up discussing a lot about tile adhesives, let's move on to a little bit on waterproofing as you requested. See, Dr.

Fixit as a brand in the retail segment is by far the most powerful brand with regards to waterproofing solutions. In fact, our brand promise is waterproofing expert.

That is something that we are beginning to see again momentum in this category. There are multiple actually solutions in this category.

There are solutions which are around improving the performance of concrete, there are solutions about how to do the waterproofing in a manner where no leakage will happen. As this is one area where a skilled applicator is critical.

What we have been doing is, again, our playbook is to create large set of trained applicators. We have training centers, we are investing behind them, ensuring that our pool of trained applicators grows.

On the other hand, we are also making significant inroads on the project side of waterproofing. We are now tapping into multiple segments, whether residential, commercial, hotels, etc.

As the construction is still doing well in our country. We have Pidilite Professional Solutions, which has a construction solution group, which is focus on working with architects and structural consultants to get ourselves specified.

Our systems are now getting specified, not just the products. This is helping us to build momentum in the projects business, as Sudhanshu also mentioned earlier.

Even in retail, the waterproofing piece in retail, as I said, there are product categories which are around improving the concrete performance, which is a different kind of a segment, then there is a coating segment that you may be familiar where people have waterproof coatings. We are also in that segment.

We are seeing again momentum in both the coatings which go on the walls as well as on the roof side. Dr.

Fixit by far is a leader in the roofing part of it, on the wall side we are making significant inroads, and we have actually got a strategy to go after driving the waterproofing solutions in a manner where we are seen as the technical expert in not only giving the best waterproofing solution, but also an applicator who's trained to deliver it. Because in this business, one is knowing what needs to be done, particularly when it comes to repairs and rehabilitation, in the new construction also people need to trust you that you will have an applicator who will deliver the solution rather than just the products.

Focus on systems, focus on winning big projects, focus on ensuring the retail distribution, ensuring that the trained waterproofer exists at various levels of let's say smaller waterproofer to medium to large waterproofer, well trained. Dr.

Fixit is backing them up with regards to warranties as well as let's say technical training, because here what people really expect is that are our people, meaning the applicators who are not exactly ours, but trained by us, can they deliver? We are seeing again momentum.

We have moved into high double-digit, basically mid-teens plus category in this area as well, which is something that we were not in the last year. There is momentum that we are seeing based on the new strategy that we have followed with regards to both focusing on retail and projects.

There are competitors in this business. It's not that this category does not have competitors.

There are multinational competitors, there are local competitors, and they've been around for some time. Our aim is to go deeper, penetrate also wider.

Even now, there is a huge opportunity, particularly we see in the small builders area where enough and good waterproofing is not being done. We have an opportunity of again creating the category, leading it in the sense by educating both the key account, basically the client, as well as the applicators, and then ensuring that we are able to supervise the work that is being done at the sites.

We provide that service also, site supervision on certain level of projects. It's a business which requires creating an ecosystem, and we are building on that ecosystem as I described, and that is what truly is going to be the moat in this business as we move forward.

Again, there is an opportunity because of the megatrend of construction growing, there's an opportunity of better waterproofing systems as people evolve. These are the things that we are trying to do to build on this business.

Yeah.

Thank you for the detailed response.

Thank you, everybody, for joining the call, and wish each of you a good evening. Thank you very much.