Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.

I hope all of you are staying healthy and safe. I am Niyant Maru, CFO at Polycab India Limited.

On today's call, we will be discussing the Q3 FY26 results, which were approved by the Board of Directors earlier today. We will be referring to the earnings presentation, financial results, and financial statements, all of which are available on the stock exchanges and on the Investor Relations section of our website.

Joining me today from the management team are Shashank Yagnick, Head, Strategy, Chirayu Upadhyaya, Head, Investor Relations. Before we get into quarterly performance, I would like to share a very important update announced at the board meeting today.

It gives me immense pleasure to inform you that the Board of Directors, at its meeting held today, has approved the redesignation of Mr. Bharat Jaisinghani and Mr.

Nikhil Jaisinghani from Executive Directors to Joint Managing Directors of the company with immediate effect, subject to approval of the shareholders. Over the years, Bharat and Nikhil have played an integral role in shaping the company's growth trajectory, strengthening the market leadership, and building a strong foundation for long-term value creation.

Their deep understanding of the business, strategic clarity, and hands-on leadership have been key contributors to the company's success. I am confident that in their enhanced role as Joint Managing Directors, they will continue to provide strong leadership and guidance, and work closely with the board and the management team to steer the company towards sustained growth and scale newer milestones in the years ahead.

With that, let me now take you through the macro environment. On macro environment, the year 2025 marks a pivotal phase for the global economy, defined by shifting trade dynamics and heightened geopolitical and tariff-related uncertainty.

Elevated U.S. tariffs disrupted the established supply chain and moderated global growth, even as labor markets remained resilient and inflationary pressures eased across the major economies.

Against this backdrop, the global economy is expected to grow at around 3.2% in 2025, reflecting a period of stabilization amid persistent trade tensions. Overall, the global environment in 2025 has been characterized by steady but uneven growth, improving inflation dynamics, and cautious monetary easing across regions.

India continues to stand out as a clear outperformer in this global landscape, demonstrating remarkable resilience and adaptability. With Q2 FY26 GDP growth at 8.2%, India continues to be the fastest-growing major economy, underscoring the strength of its internal growth engines.

In November 2025, India overtook Japan to emerge as the fourth largest economy globally, reaching a GDP of USD 4.19 trillion. Domestic consumption has witnessed a notable revival following last year's direct and indirect tax credit growth has strengthened meaningfully, with total credit offtake reaching INR 11 trillion till November 25, compared to 9.5 trillion last year.

Two-wheeler sales also increased by 18.1% year-on-year over the September-November period, while passenger vehicle sales rose by 7.3% during the same time frame, reflecting improving confidence among consumers and businesses alike. Encouragingly, this recovery has occurred alongside a continued moderation in inflation.

Headline inflation has trended lower, led by easing food prices, while lower global energy prices have provided additional relief. Despite currency depreciation during the fiscal year, the pass-through to inflation has remained limited.

Core inflation across both goods and services has stayed relatively benign. In this favorable macro backdrop, the RBI delivered a 25 basis point policy rate cut, revising its growth forecast upward to 7.3% for the year and lowering its inflation projection to 2%.

For the next fiscal year, first half inflation expectation has been revised downward to 4%, compared to 4.5% earlier. The rare combination of stronger growth and softer inflation enabled the Monetary Policy Committee to proceed with the rate cut, taking cumulative easing to 125 basis points during the calendar year.

Investment activity has also gathered momentum, rising capacity utilization, strong investment announcements, and improving credit offtake points to a broad-based recovery in economic activity and increasing job creation. The real estate sector remains healthy, with launches and sales across the top seven cities slowly tracking the previous decade's highs.

The affordable housing segment is also witnessing renewed momentum, supported by lower borrowing costs and rising household incomes. At the same time, government capital expenditure has accelerated meaningfully, with approximately 59% of the FY26 capex outlay already utilized by November 2025, a 28% year-on-year increase.

Overall, we are witnessing signs of recovery in consumption, and this improving demand environment is expected to translate into a revival in private capex, complemented by sustained public investment, providing strong confidence in India's growth outlook. I will now hand over to Shashank to take you through the financial performance for the quarter and the year.

Thank you, Niyant. Let me now take you through slide 4 of the earnings presentation.

For the quarter ended 31st December 2025, we are pleased to report that our company delivered 46% year-on-year growth in consolidated revenues, driven by strong execution in the wire and cable segment and healthy growth in the FMCG business. Our EBITDA for the quarter grew by 34% year-on-year, with EBITDA margins at 12.7%.

Excluding the one-off impact of rupees 219 million on account of gratuity provisioning due to the implementation of the new labor code, the EBITDA margins would have been approximately 13%. At the PAT level, the company delivered its highest ever quarterly PAT at rupees 6.3 billion, reflecting 36% year-on-year growth.

PAT margins stood at 8.3% for the quarter. Finance costs came in at rupees 687 million, while other income stood at rupees 505 million.

A detailed breakdown of these line items is available on slide 17 of the presentation. We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet, closing the quarter with a net cash position of rupees 30.3 billion.

On working capital front, same as last quarter, inventory days continue to be higher as we built up inventory in anticipation of strong demand in quarter 4 FY26, and correspondingly, given the use of letters of credit for raw material procurement, payable days were also higher, resulting in the working capital cycle to be at 27 days at the end of quarter 3 FY26. We expect this to normalize to our long-term steady range of 50 to 55 days in the coming quarters.

Capital expenditure for the quarter was rupees 3.4 billion, taking the nine-month FY26 total to 10.9 billion, and this is in line with our Project Spring guidance of investing rupees 12 to 16 billion annually through FY30. On a nine-month basis, I'm proud to share that nine-month FY26 revenues, EBITDA and PAT are the highest ever in the company's history for any nine-month period.

Revenues grew 30% year-on-year, crossing the rupees 200 billion milestone. EBITDA grew 47% year-on-year, with margins strong at 14.2%.

PAT grew 47% year-on-year, with PAT margins of 9.6%. We now move to slide 6.

The wires and cables business delivered very strong performance, recording 53% year-on-year revenue growth during the quarter. This growth was led by domestic wire and cable business, which posted an exceptional 59% year-on-year growth, supported by robust demand conditions and sustained commodity price inflation.

In volume terms, the domestic wire and cable business recorded nearly 40% growth, reflecting healthy underlying demand. This strong performance underscores a further strengthening of our market position, with continued market share gains in the domestic market during the quarter.

Execution excellence under Project Spring remains a key enabler, driving superior market execution, improved relationships with our channel partners, and consistent outperformance. During the quarter, wires growth outperformed cables, driven by pre-stocking by channel partners amid elevated copper prices.

Within the cables segment, institutional sales growth outpaced the channel sales, reflecting strong traction in project-led demand. Looking at the broader environment, demand remains robust across key sectors.

Government capex surged nearly 28.2% year-on-year in the first eight months of FY26, reaching 6.6 trillion rupees versus 5.1 trillion last year, also 12.4% higher than in the eight-month period in FY24. Additionally, the government of India released loan of rupees 1.25 trillion to states for capital expenditure during the same period.

The private capex cycle in India is showing signs of recovery, aided by the monetary policy support and the stimulative impact of GST rate cuts on consumption, laying the foundation for sustained investment growth. The real estate market remains strong following last year's record sales and launches, a trend that should continue to support wire demand in the coming years.

Our international business maintained its steady momentum, recording a 5% year-on-year growth during the quarter, despite a high base, and contributing 6% to the consolidated revenues. Backed by a healthy order book, we remain confident that this growth trajectory will continue in the coming quarters.

Segment profitability was impacted during the quarter due to multiple factors, primarily on account of continued commodity price inflation and depreciation of the Indian rupee. Between September 2025 and December 2025, copper and aluminum prices in rupee terms increased sequentially by approximately 21% and 11% respectively, which represents an unusually sharp escalation over a short period of time.

In order to avoid demand disruption arising from elevated input costs, the company took a strategic decision to pass on the increase in raw material prices in a staggered manner. While this approach resulted in near-term margin pressure at the company level, it enabled us to protect volumes, gain market share, and further strengthen relationships with our channel partners.

Moving on to slide 8 for an update on the FMCG business. The FMCG segment sustained its impressive growth momentum, delivering a 17% year-on-year increase in quarter 3 FY26 and consistently outperforming the industry in line with our Project Spring growth aspirations.

Within the segment, the solar business has been a standout performer, growing more than 2x compared to the same quarter last year, driven by strong uptake under central and state rooftop solar incentives scheme. With favorable policy support and strong demand visibility, we expect this momentum to continue in the coming quarters.

Other product categories delivered steady in-line performance, reinforcing the segment's balanced and resilient portfolio. Importantly, the FMCG segment remained profitable for the fourth consecutive quarter, even while strategically ramping up our A&P investments to strengthen brand presence and drive long-term growth.

As we continue to scale, we expect profitability to expand further, reflecting the leverage in our business model. Looking ahead, we are confident in the long-term potential of the FMCG segment and remain on track to achieve our Project Spring targets of 1.5 to 2x industry growth and EBITDA margins in the range of 8 to 10% by FY30, positioning the business for sustained growth and value creation.

Moving on to slide 10, which provides an update for our EPC business. During quarter 3 FY26, EPC revenues grew by 4% year-on-year, reaching rupees 4,069 million.

This quarter, we commenced execution of our existing orders under AFNET scheme, which is expected to generate rupees 4.5 billion over the next three years for project execution and an additional 3.5 billion over ten years for project O&M. Segment profitability stood at rupees 272 million, translating to a margin of 6.7%.

Looking ahead, the annual sustainable operating margin is expected to remain in the high single digits over mid to long term. That was the update for the quarter.

Thank you, and we are now open for questions.

Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on the strong revenue growth. I have three questions.

Firstly, on the strong revenue growth in the CMW segment, would it be able to quantify what is the volume growth for this quarter year

on year? Thank you for the question.

You wanted to understand the volume growth, right?

Yes, in CMW, cables and wires segment.

Both cables and wires, our volume growths are about 40%. Great, and in the presentation you said...

Could you say that again, sir?

I'm saying our domestic cable and wire business grew at 40% volume this quarter.

Right. Any more details you would like to share as to which end-use industries contributed highest?

Because 40% is a very significant high number. I think

there is sustained momentum in both government and private capex that we have seen. In case of real estate, has picked up very well.

Internally also, due to the commodity price rise, it is very obvious that channel partners usually tend to stock, especially in case of wire. That has also led and contributed to the higher surge in top line.

Understood. My second question is on the EBITDA margin.

We understand the reasons that you have outlined in your presentation as to why the QoQ drop was there in the EBITDA margin. I have three follow-up questions.

Firstly, such a high volume growth would intuitively result in good operating leverage. That is one.

Secondly, I think you did take a price hike of about 6% year on year. Could you help us understand what exactly led to this fall of EBITDA margin both year on year and QoQ?

Sonali, I'll try and answer that. There are multiple factors here, okay?

The major reason here is the rise in commodity prices. Now, if you look at year-on-year increase, the copper has risen almost 50% and aluminum almost 25%, right?

In this quarter itself, 22% inflation has happened in copper price compared to previous quarter. Now all of it to be passed on.

It's a strategic call from management to pass it on in a staggered manner. We've been revising our prices, but not all of it has been passed on.

It takes time to pass on this rise in input cost prices. That is the first thing.

Sonali, as Shashank mentioned, when the copper price is rising so high and so suddenly, you have to take a conscious call of how you want to pass on. Because if you look at this specific financial year, from April till December, the copper prices have risen by 35% and this is including the rupee depreciation.

Similarly, if you look at aluminum, aluminum has risen by 27%. Now out of the 35% of copper rise, 21% has happened within this quarter itself and 11% of that has happened in December itself.

We've been consistently passing on that copper price inflation to the end customers month on month. We have taken a conscious call that such high 35% passing on inflation can't be done every month and hence we do it in a bit of a staggered manner.

We've been doing it. We've taken a bit of a price hike towards the end of the quarter.

We have again taken a bit of a price hike towards the beginning of this quarter as well. Still we haven't passed on the complete price hike or the commodity price inflation.

Hence if you look at the financial statements, you realize that most of the decline in the EBITDA margins have been on the gross margin level. You are correct in mentioning that such high top line growth will result into operating leverage, which is very much visible if you look at everything below the gross margin.

We have realized a lot of improvement as far as our operating leverage and everything is concerned. Again this is a conscious call what we have taken.

What we also need to appreciate that what we've been able to achieve through this staggered passing on. See if you look at our performance this year, our cables and wires segment has grown 35% year on year and that too on a base where we are operating at 2x of the industry, or the second largest player.

Also this has resulted that the staggered passing on of copper prices to our end customers have also resulted in good improvement of loyalty of those customers with us because they don't have to take a front of reduced demand neither of lower margins. We'll definitely be passing on whatever commodity inflation will be coming off gradually but this is something that we have taken as a strategic call.

Since you've been following the sector for many years, you will recall that even in FY22, similar commodity price inflations were there in copper had gone up by 40%, whereas aluminum had gone up by almost 25-27%. Even at that point of time Polycab margins had taken a hit for a quarter or two, but then we had gradually recovered back those margins.

We believe that a pretty much similar something that will play out. There can be margin impact for a quarter or two, but if you look at more of a longer-term view, we should be able to recover some of our margins back.

Very clear, Chirayu. Thank you for this detailed answer.

May I just ask what is the quantum of price hikes that you have taken at the start of this quarter? You mentioned before?

Can you repeat the question once?

What would be quantum of price hikes that you have taken at the start of this quarter?

The total type of price hikes that we would have taken within this quarter would be almost 75-80% of whatever commodity inflation was there.

Understood. Got it.

Just one last question on the exports. While there has not been any group, but how do you foresee the exports to shape up in the coming quarter?

That is from my side. Thank you.

Sonali, on exports, in fact majority of the revenue that we have accrued this quarter has come from other geographies other than U.S. In fact when U.S.

comes in, it will further add to the revenues. In fact we've done better in Middle East, Latin America, all of these geographies are contributing significantly and there is a healthy order book.

I think which we'll see in the further quarters, it will translate into revenues for the segment. Is there

any reason why the U.S. is weak this quarter?

Is it tariff

related? Of course it is tariff related and I think this is a global overhang which I believe is impacting everybody, not just in India but worldwide.

We are awaiting the final resolution of this matter.

Got it. Thank you and all the best.

Thank you.

hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on the strong set of numbers.

You highlighted 40% growth, volume growth, domestic volume growth. In your sense, what would have been industry growth and where is your market share trending now?

Any qualitative color will also be helpful.

It's very difficult to give market share perspective today when we are the first ones in the industry to have come up with the results. I think others are still want to come out.

Then you'll get a better estimate. In terms of, I think volume growth, we have also seen very strong volume growth and value growth, but we are yet to comment on the market.

We cannot comment on the market till others come up with the results. Got it.

And

second question, sir, highlighted strategically have taken, you have not passed through all commodity inflation to protect the demand. Do you think if the way copper and aluminum are moving up, if this continue, there could be some demand curtailment, some demand postponement, temporary demand postponement?

It's very difficult to comment on the commodity price. I think we are also reading various reports and everybody has their own view.

On the demand side, we are very confident that the growth momentum is going to continue. We have seen a good amount of movement in government, private CAPEX, real estate.

All segments are pumping in money into power utilities and infrastructure. I think from that perspective, I don't think demand is going to be a challenge for us.

Got it. That's all from me.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity. Can you also give some sense of breakup between what are the difference in the performance between wires and cables separately?

We are a mix of cable and wires in the ratio of 70-30. In this quarter we have seen wires growth outpacing the cables growth.

You can add two percentage points there. Of course, in the value case you will see that since copper commodity price has increased significantly, the wire contribution has been higher.

Understood. And

in terms of price hike, can you also divide it between how much price hike you took in the previous quarter? What did you take in the current quarter which is starting January and how much do you still need to take to make up for the price inflation, commodity inflation?

Praveen, as I mentioned to Sonali, we've taken almost 75 to 80 percent of the commodity inflation which was there during the quarter already within the quarter. The remaining will happen during this quarter.

The January one which you said, that you have already taken or yet to take? We've taken partially and we will further pass on increase in prices gradually.

Understood. That's helpful.

Secondly, if you can also give some color on what you see on your distributor side, how much of this demand would be just restocking and how much would be end-consumer driven?

Praveen, as Shashank had mentioned, we largely see restocking happening mostly on wires rather than cables. Generally when our distributors stock inventory, they maintain roughly 30 days' worth of inventory.

At the end of the previous quarter or beginning of this quarter, the channel inventory was in the vicinity of around 40 to 45 days. Around 10-15 days of additional inventory was there.

Of course, the demand is pretty strong. Even till date in this quarter, we have seen very good sales happening and there is definitely very good secondary and tertiary sales which are also happening.

The demand sense is very strong. We're definitely the realization of all this TCS is working.

If you recall, in the last three to four quarters, every quarter we have seen similar pre-stocking happening because commodity prices have been continuously going up. Even when every successive quarter we see improvement in terms of growth rate.

That means the fundamental demand itself is so strong. I don't think there is any reason to worry.

Anyways, we are coming into Q4 where executions are at its peak and everybody would want to achieve their yearly targets, be it government or be it private side. Q4 should be another good quarter for us and we are quite optimistic on that.

Excellent. Just lastly, if you can also give some sense of how does your capacity utilization stack up currently?

Our capacity utilization in the quarter stood somewhere around early 80s. You can, yeah, I think that's a fair estimate to take.

That's very helpful. Thank you so much and all the best.

Hi. Thank you.

My first question is related to the institutional sales as you had highlighted. This time the institutional sales has outperformed the B2C.

Can you quantify in that in terms of percentage?

Praveen, generally our mix of distribution versus sales is around 92-10. This time around institutional sales has grown faster than the distribution sales.

That would have improved by about a couple of hundred basis points. Okay.

Also, as you highlighted about this institution, there is a capex led private or government and the real estate both has done well. If you can give some more color on that, how is the real estate contribution for the wire, which has also outperformed?

I think if I got your question correctly, you're asking about the real estate market. See, we've studied some data wherein at least in top eight cities, the amount of launches in terms of number of units and the amount of sales that has happened has been pretty robust in 2024 and the same momentum is continuing in 2025.

We expect the same growth momentum to continue in the coming quarters as well. While demand is not a problem,

Coming to add to Shashank's point, we have been talking since a couple of quarters now that while we have seen majority of the positive demand on the premium side, recent data also suggests that there is a pickup happening even on the affordable side. That is something wherein we have been targeting to improve our market share since last two to three years.

You're aware that we had introduced Etira brand, which was to compete with the unorganized players in tier three to five cities, and we have seen very good growth happening in tier three to five cities through our launches. More than about that as well, even in tier one, tier two cities, our focus has been more on class two wires, wherein we are definitely seeing a lot of market share gains for us.

Both of them are working. Even the industry growth is picking up pace, and we are also seeing a lot of market share gains for us because of initiatives that we're taking with utilities.

Just lastly, if you can give on the

I am in handset mode. Am I audible?

Can you give us some color on the volume growth for the wire and the cable? Out of 20 percent of a volume growth in overall, how much is the wire, how is the cable?

Praveen, I think you have a very clear distinction between top line growth as well as volume growth. For us in the domestic circuit, the volume growth has been around 40 percent.

Both cables and wires have grown at pretty much similar pace in terms of volume. In case of revenue, as Shashank had mentioned, in wires are copper-based and copper has seen more inflation.

For us wires growth was at about at a revenue level at 70 percent, whereas for cables the growth was around 50 percent. Thank you.

Thank you so much. That's helpful.

Thanks, Praveen.

Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on a good set of numbers.

I have only one question. This is regarding the cable segment.

If you can call out the top three or four, five sectors which are driving the sales growth. I think power T&D would be one of the sizable sectors which would be driving the growth, or what would be the approximate contribution of that?

All these segments, how they are growing, which is growing faster, which is growing relatively slower, if you can give a broad contour.

See major consumption, if you go to product category level in cables, happens in power cables, control cables, which largely go into power infrastructure, okay? Energy, utility infrastructure.

That's a primary demand sector. Followed by that, there is strong growth that we are seeing in industrial segment also.

If you look at all verticals, besides the sunrise, but if you look at key verticals, manufacturing, utility, government, all of them have picked up good amount of demand.

Okay. The contribution of power T&D in the overall cable demand, how much will it be?

Any sense on that?

Come again?

The contribution of power T&D in the overall demand for cables, how much will it be?

Almost 20% for us. 20%.

Okay. The second largest segment would be after that?

Then it comes MV and LV, medium voltage and low voltage cables.

Okay. These would go into which sectors?

Sorry, come again?

These would go into which end-using sectors?

Ravi, your normal power cables, which you have your LV, they go across different sectors, be it power, utilities, or your normal power institutional infra, everywhere the power cables are used. They will be the maximum in terms of the sales within the industry, at an industry level around 40 to 45% of the cables sold will be low voltage, medium voltage cable.

Then that will be followed by control cables and what we call flexible cables. Now both of these are used in separate set of industries.

Flexible cables are something which are used in our day-to-day life, for example cables which are used for your laptop or your TV, AC, refrigerators, those are called flexible. They are the largest.

Then you have control cables, cables where you need to have a signal passed on, where you can control the outcome, such kind of cables. Again, these are used across different sectors.

Control cables, at an industry level, the sales will be somewhere around 15 to 20%, whereas for flexible cables the sales will be between 10 to 15%.

Understood. Yeah.

Thanks a lot. Yeah.

Thanks, Ravi.

Thank you for taking my questions. Just a couple.

Firstly, you mentioned that copper price increases have been unprecedented, which is why you took the active call of passing it on in a deferred way. Is it also true that customer in that case would have had significant sort of restocking, which means probably what typically plays out for a few days could have played out for maybe a couple of fortnights, i.e.

in case copper prices don't move much, our Q4 numbers may be slightly negatively impacted because of this massive restocking. Is that a fair assumption?

I think, part of this was addressed earlier by Chirayu. Largely the stocking has happened in case of wires.

Usually it happens in case of wires. Cables, there's usually no stocking, right?

The real estate segment we continue to see an uptick. Also if you see, previously I think you mentioned once, this event has also happened past in FY22, where again we saw that, after one quarter, the following quarter continued to show growth momentum.

We don't see, we don't believe that there's going to be anything different this time.

It's not that there is unusual stocking that has happened despite copper price increase. That's how I should read that answer?

Yes, Pulkit. As I mentioned, there is about a bit of an elevated inventory as far as wires is concerned, but since the demand itself is pretty strong, we are quite confident that there won't be any slowdown in terms of momentum in Q4.

Even in case of cables, as I mentioned, Q4 is generally the peak when you see the demand for cables, and it's from across different industries, and hence we are quite sure of absorption of whatever new demand is coming in. Commodity prices are obviously something which we can't control, and we wouldn't know how it would play out in Q4.

To the best of our ability, we'll try and pass on whatever price hikes come across to the end customers in such a way that the demand is not impacted.

Point taken. Secondly, on your ad spend, which is considerably higher and almost three times of what your quarterly ad spends are, is this the new run rate?

Is this some new thought process in terms of gaining market share? How should we look at this from an outer year perspective?

You need to appreciate that this is the time of the year when there's more festive period, the second half of the year. This is the time when we also plan to invest significantly in brand building.

We participated with a few celebrities and something that. That's a strategic call, and it's not a new baseline, but I think, yes, it's a conscious call.

It's a strategic investment into A&P, and that has also translated, not entirely, but I'm sure it will translate further into our growth also. Pulkit, as far as run rate is concerned, we give even a guidance that we want to spend around 3 to 5% of B2C top line every year on A&P.

Even with this increased spend of this quarter, we are hardly at around one and a half percent. Every year going ahead, you can definitely sense an improvement or increase in our investments towards A&P.

It will be difficult to say that this will be every year or every quarter run rate, because first half of this year we didn't spend much on A&P. This quarter we did spend, Q4 is again a quarter where we start doing more A&P because you're in pre-summer season and you want to do more spends for your fans sales.

There are those quarterly variations which happen. Second half of the year is always heavier as far as investments on A&P is concerned.

On a yearly level going ahead, as we've been guiding, we want to take A&P spend up to 3 to 5% of B2C top line, and that is something that we'll plan to do gradually.

Thank you so much for these answers.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity. First question is on the profitability side.

Just want to understand, Q1 to generally Q4 is bigger than Q3. In that backdrop, should sequentially margin be better than Q3 since we'll have better operating leverage?

Yes, it should definitely get better.

Just basically

the background. In quarter 4, as far as the gross margin level is concerned, as I had initially mentioned, to the best of our ability, we will try and pass on whatever price hike, if there are required to be done, to the end customer.

We are not sure whether copper prices will continue to move up or go down. Whatever it might be the case, we'll try and pass on whatever it is to the end customer as much as possible.

Understood. Just one more follow-up on the profitability side.

Generally we have maintained profitability margin in a particular range, say 12 to 14% for cables and wires. Just to reaffirm, sir, profitability is linked to percentage margins, right, and not some specific rupees per ton, something like that.

Copper inflation in general helps in maintaining those percentage margins.

That's right. Your understanding is correct.

In fact, I'll just add to that, to refer to our Project Spring guidance, we've given a long-term guidance of 11 to 13%, but in the near term, yes. What you mentioned is correct.

Understood. Basically it is percentage margin that is internalized, and not rupees per ton kind of metrics.

Yeah. Not rupees per ton.

It's percentage analyzed.

Understood. Noted.

Sir, thanks a lot and all the best.

Thanks, Keyur.

Hi, sir. Good evening.

My first question is on, again, cable and wire margins. One is, the one-off employee cost.

Is it booked in any specific segment, or where is it in the segmental results?

No, it's not in any specific segment. It's across.

Okay. This is one-off, right?

This is not recurring from next quarter onwards? Because this is one-time for retirement?

Got it. Secondly, in the presentation, we have listed 300 bps impact on margins due to unfavorable product mix and all.

That is largely higher institutional sales? Because exports was anyways not doing that well for us.

Is it largely the higher institutional sales, or there is something else also within that to drive such a margin here?

We have screened this, but I'll try and summarize that. We see there are three, four things that have happened.

One is due to copper price inflation, we have not been able to stack with. We've delayed or staggered our pass-through of rising prices to our customers.

That is one. Second is there is an unfavorable business mix change wherein there is further growth in institutional business compared to channels in this quarter, and further our contribution from exports has also marginally reduced.

All three coming together has resulted in some bit of drop in margins. Ashish, if you recall, in last quarter last year Q3, the contribution of exports to the company stock was about 8.3%, whereas in this quarter is at 6%.

Right? That contribution has gone down while obviously we are correcting mentioning that exports for us have been relatively strong, but even within quarter-on-quarter comparatively, the contribution has gone down.

That was one point. The other two points were as Shashank mentioned.

Okay. Got it.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Ashish.

Hi, thank you for the opportunity. I had two questions which were linked to each other.

First one was in terms of cables, this acceleration from say 20% plus volumes to 40% now, which segments, from the data that you see, which segments have seen the most uptick versus last quarter? The second one was, given that 88% of your sales are through distributors, it would mean that even a large portion of your cable sales are through distributors.

Wouldn't they logically tend to upstock cables also when they see aluminum and copper go up, just like wires stocking happens? Those were the two questions.

Thanks. Umang, as far as cable sales to distributors are concerned, ultimately distributors are servicing institutional demand, right?

Depending on when the project requires a specific cable shipment, that is to the extent that the distributor would stock up on that product. Cables, relative to wires, are very bulky, right?

To a certain extent, even the distributor wouldn't be able to stock up a lot of those cables. Plus, even in terms of average pricing, cables are very expensive compared to wires.

All these distributors would have a limit to the extent that capital is available to them. If they lock it up in something which is cables and which might not have a demand from an institutional project right away, then they might lose out on investing in products like wires or even in FMCG where there might have been better demand.

Generally, even though cable sales are through distributors, we don't see distributors stocking up cables. To a small extent it might be possible, but largely this is a wires phenomenon, not cables phenomenon.

Your first question was on cables volume, I couldn't get that.

The question was that this acceleration from 20 plus to 40, which segments have seen the highest uptick versus last quarter?

Umang, you are aware that since we are not directly supplying to the end customers, we don't have a full visibility on which sectors are generating what kind of demand in particular sectors. We get to know to the extent that our distributors would give us visibility too, or to the extent that we generate that demand from the end customers for our distributors.

It would be very difficult for me to guide you that in specific this quarter what will be the segment which will be driving what percentage of demand for the cables. Maybe on a yearly basis, after the Q4 call, during the Q4 call I'll be able to give you much clearer or maybe a better guidance on the sectors generating what kind of demand.

Gotcha. Thank you so much.

Thanks Umang.

Good afternoon team. Thank you for the opportunity.

Two questions. First on the growth.

If I understand right, essentially the copper and aluminum price will be up 40-50% on a year-on-year basis if we assume the same price continues for next two-three quarters, right? Do you see any impact on the demand given the budgets will take a hit in that case or the customer will have to rework in terms of their requirements.

Is there any case for such risk?

I think as mentioned earlier, we have zero control over commodity prices. We cannot comment.

Largely we've been also reading the same that there is uncertainty, but if prices continue or not is something beyond our control. I think demand, foreseeable demand in the coming quarter and the next, I think there is strong momentum.

We don't see any difficulty with respect to demand. Does that answer your question?

Yeah. Essentially you're saying you're not seeing any impact of such steep increase in the commodity price on the demand as such for next two quarters?

Absolutely not.

Got it. The second question I had was with respect to the margins.

If I see the inventories what we carry, we do carry substantial inventories, even for the current quarter closing we are talking about close to 6,000 crores worth inventory, right? Raw material plus finished goods.

In a rising price scenario, wouldn't that benefit actually initially before it really, if you could explain to us the inventory cycle as to how it plays out, how much typically we hold, how much and, how it gets sold out eventually.

Ashish you are aware, for us we hedge our inventory. Our pricing is not at the time of procurement, but it is done at a future level once we have an order for that inventory.

While we obviously have our going on with higher inventory levels, those inventory are not priced. They will get priced in the future.

That is something which is there for stability of our margins, which we have been reporting for over a decade now. We don't see scenarios of inventory gains or inventory loss just because we price it at a future date.

The higher inventory that we are maintaining is because of the reason, as Shashank mentioned, that we are anticipating good demand for Q4, similar to what we had done at the end of Q2 and which played out quite well for us in Q3, where we were able to service a lot of pent-up customer demand because we had higher inventory and obviously we have a lot of capacity.

Understood. Great.

Those were my two questions. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Achal.

Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations, great set of numbers. Most of the questions I wanted to know, what is the margin profile when it comes to the institution sales, the retail sales and the exports?

Margins in exports are definitely much higher as compared to domestic margins. When we export cables, obviously it again depends a lot on the geography that we are exporting, but generally, historically, we've been making at least around 15% of EBITDA margins in our exports.

If you look at the domestic sales for us, cables versus wires, in cables generally we make anywhere between 9 to 12% of EBITDA margins, whereas in case of wires it is between 15 to 16%. Obviously there are variations on a quarterly basis depending on the commodity prices, demand, etc.

Generally this is the range of margin profile across the different business.

Got it, sir. Thank you.

I just one last clarification. As you have mentioned that the price hike during the quarter is almost 70 to 80% of whatever the commodity, the way commodity has reacted.

Is it fair to assume that it is a minimum in the range of 10 to 15% overall price hike?

You can obviously compute the commodity inflation which was there in the past quarter along with the rupee depreciation, just give a multiple of 70 to 80% to that. More or less you'll get the amount of pass-through that.

Got it, sir. Thanks a lot.

Thanks.

Thanks for the opportunity. In terms of FMCG, two questions.

Can you articulate more on the business of fans? How it has shaped up?

Again means that business is also facing some of the regulatory headwinds and again commodity prices have also gone up. How is the performance in case of fans?

Secondly, if you can share more details on the solar business, I guess you initially mentioned that it has grown 100% year-on-year, but at least what is the current revenue run rate, EBITDA margin in that business, etc.? Thanks.

Sure. On the fans, because as we've been discussing during the quarter as well, initially during the beginning of the quarter, the uptake was pretty slow because as you are aware, summer season this time around was lower and there was a lot of general inventory which was there during the year.

Those inventories were getting liquidated during the beginning of the quarter in October and November, and hence the uptake was pretty slow. In December it took off in a small way because there was PWL transition, which was to be implemented from 1st of January onwards, and hence there was good uptake in December.

Hence on an overall quarterly basis, the fans industry would have been largely flatish or a small de-growth, and our performance was also pretty much in line with the industry. As far as the Q4 or Q1 FY27 expectation is concerned, it will depend a lot on how the coming summer season is expected to be.

Definitely because the PWL is getting implemented from 1st of January, norms are getting implemented from 1st of January, there will be a bit of price hike that everybody will be taking. I believe the price hike would be in the range of 2 to 4%, which will be taken during the course of first one, one and a half month of this calendar year, etc.

To a larger extent, the uptake and performance of next quarter and the quarter to come will depend on how the anticipation of next summer season is. As far as your question on solar is concerned, solar, as I was mentioning in the opening comments, had a very good quarter, another very good quarter, after having one, one and a half year of very good uptake momentum.

We expect even Q4 to be very strong. You would have seen that we had actually launched a newer range of 350 kilowatt solar inverters last quarter, and that did very well for us.

The outlook is very, very positive from our side. We believe solar, which is already the top or the largest contributor for us on the SME segment, will continue to grow even faster in the coming couple of years as well, since all the government schemes are already getting implemented and are in motion.

Hence, from our side, the outlook is very positive. As I had mentioned in the previous quarter's call, the margin profile of solar is currently in high single digits, and we are maintaining that.

To a certain extent, solar has now become the largest category for us in FMEG. That is one of the reasons why for us FMEG has become profitable, and that is what we had mentioned in our earnings presentation as well.

The product mix has changed, which has gone through. Solar has become the largest category, whereas switches and switchgears have been doing quite well to the last three to four years, conduit pipes and fittings is doing much better.

All of that has contributed to SMEG now becoming continuously profitable for us, and every year going ahead now, we believe that SMEG will continue to improve its profitability towards the guiding range of 8 to 10% of 5%.

Thanks. This is very helpful.

Just second question, you have mentioned in the PPT that we have grown 59% in domestic CNDW, and we would have gained market share. Roughly what will be the market growth?

Means upwards 50%, upwards of... how will you expect the market growth per se?

getting exact market growth for this quarter will be very difficult at this point of time because we'll have to wait out for other larger listed companies to come up with their results over the course of next two to three weeks. I would definitely believe that the growth would have been higher in this quarter compared to what it was in the first half.

To the best of our estimation in the first half of this year, industry growth was at around 15 to 16%. I believe the industry growth would have been more closer to 20% at least.

This is the entire industry put together, organized plus unorganized. Specifically to our kind of market share gains we would have realized within this quarter, I think we should probably wait out for another two to three weeks to get to know the exact numbers of our peers.

No, but that's surely we will wait. If 59% is our growth and market growth may be 20%, that's a massive jump in the market share for us.

Is that a fair understanding? Yes.

That is something that I was mentioning. We need to appreciate the fact that in spite of a 300 bps decrease in our margin profile, we've been able to deliver 34% profitability growth in this segment, and that is on the back of such high 59% domestic growth.

There's obviously a bit of an exports growth as well. I think our strategy is working very well.

We have been working on the ground since the inception of Project Spring, where we are going into each and every pie spaces that we have within cables as well as in wires, be it product category or be it geography. We are working very extensively with our distributors and trying to improve their growth as well as our wallet share of their growth.

All of these initiatives are helping us. In the first half as well, we had grown cables and wires at 26% year on year, while as I mentioned, we believe the industry growth should have been around 16%, whereas in this quarter we have grown at around 60%.

Definitely we have gained a lot of market share.

That's really great. Thanks, and congrats on the market share gains.

Thanks. Thank you very much.

Thank you everyone for your attendance. Thank you.

Thank you very much. On behalf of Polycab India Limited, that concludes this conference.

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