Thank you so much, Danish. Good morning to all the participants on the call, and thank you so much for joining us.

Before we proceed, let me quickly remind you that the discussion today may contain some forward-looking statements that may involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. It must be viewed in conjunction with our business risks that could cause future results, performance, or achievements to differ significantly from what is expressed or implied by such statements.

Please note that the results and earnings call collateral have been emailed to everyone, and the same are also available on the company's website. In case you haven't received these, you can write to us, and we will be happy to send them over to you.

Now to take us through the results and answer your questions today, we have the management of Redtape Limited, represented by Mr. Arvind Verma, Director, and Mr.

Vivek Agnihotri, the Chief Financial Officer. We will start the call with a brief overview of the quarter gone by, followed by the Q&A session.

With that said, I'll hand over the call to Mr. Verma.

Over to you.

Thank you, Kasturi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today.

Before I get into the numbers, let me first set the context for the quarter. Q1 FY27 was a mixed quarter for discretionary consumption.

The early part of the quarter saw some softness, reflecting broader macro headwinds and cautious consumer spending before demand trends improved as the quarter progressed. The longer-term drivers for branded footwear and apparel, such as organized retail, broader acceptance of branded products, premiumization, and omnichannel buying behavior, remain in place.

At the same time, the quarter also saw near-term unevenness across channels and pressure across key cost lines, including inputs, labor, and sourcing. For Redtape, the operating stance during the quarter was clear.

We chose to protect consumer value and manage the cost environment through sharper execution across sourcing, supply chain, and retail operations without taking price increases. This discipline also translated into a strong bottom-line outcome.

Profit after tax grew 19.4% year-on-year to ₹47 crore, marking Redtape's highest-ever Q1 profit in absolute terms. The performance was achieved despite wage-related pressures in key manufacturing states, reflecting the strength of the operating model built across the business.

Revenue on a standalone basis grew by 3.7% year-on-year, reflecting the resilience of the core India business despite an uneven demand environment in the early part of the quarter. This is more relevant indicator of underlying performance as it captures the strength of our primary business across retail and domestic channels.

The growth was delivered while absorbing key operating cost headwinds, reinforcing the importance of execution-led efficiencies and disciplined channel management during the quarter. In the e-commerce channel, online marketplaces continue to push for higher discounting to drive turnover.

Our approach remained measured and disciplined. Redtape does not believe in pursuing volume at the cost of brand strength or margins, and therefore chose not to participate in the incremental discounting beyond levels we considered appropriate.

This had a near impact on e-commerce turnover. However, it helped protect channel profitability and ensured that the online business remained aligned with our broader profitability-first approach.

After some softness in the early part of the quarter, the core India retail business saw improving trends and continued to perform well overall. This remains an important indicator of the underlying health of the business, reflecting the strength of the store-led model, Redtape's consumer proposition, and demand across our primary operating channels.

On profitability, the quarter reflected efficiencies across sourcing, supply chain, and retail operations. The key point is that we were able to protect margins without compromising either our pricing architecture or our consumer proposition.

Average selling prices improved sequentially across footwear and apparel categories, including select categories such as open footwear. This was driven by product and category mix within the existing price architecture rather than broad-based price increase.

On the numbers specifically, standalone revenue for Q1 FY27 was ₹480 crore compared with ₹460 crore in Q1 FY26, reflecting growth of 3.7% year-on-year. Gross margin stood at 47.5%, EBITDA margin was 20.4%, and PAT came in at ₹47 crore compared with ₹39 crore year-on-year.

Moving to some key business highlights for the quarter, there was a strategic portfolio expansion. In April 2026, Redtape acquired the rights to the globally recognized sports footwear brand Sprandi for India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and some other countries, extending its sports and athleisure portfolio.

The brand is expected to be launched in India through online and retail channels by end of September. E-commerce discipline: the company consistently avoided excessive marketplace-led discounting, prioritizing brand integrity and healthy margins over short-term turnover growth.

The core India retail business remained healthy, with demand improving as the quarter progressed after a softer start. ASP improvement was supported by a better product and category mix across footwear and apparel.

As we move through the rest of the year, our priorities remain consistent: disciplined growth, stronger execution across channels, better operating leverage, and continued focus on efficiency while protecting Redtape's consumer value proposition. With this, we can open the floor for questions.

Thank you, everyone.

Yes. Am I audible?

Yes, you are.

Hello? Good morning.

I just wanted to know, in this quarter we opened 33 new stores. Just wanted to understand what is our target to open how many stores in FY27 and if you could give quarterly how many stores do we expect to open?

Hi. We have opened 33 stores this quarter, and we have aspirations to open 150 stores by the end of the financial year.

That's what we would like to answer on this.

Right. How fast are we able to ramp up these new stores?

It depends on the size and the location of the store, and with the landlord scope of work and our furniture fixtures. Basically, depends on the size of the store.

If it's a 1,000 square feet store, for example, we're able to ramp it up within 45 to 50 days. If it's a store which is almost 3,000 or 4,000 square feet, then it takes around 75 days.

We are able to do it within 3 months.

We are able to do it, definitely.

Okay. What sort of growth are we expecting in FY27?

We hope to continue the same growth we have been showing over the years. We hope to continue in the same stride.

Our margins, are they going to stay in the same range of 20%?

Sorry, what, 20%?

Margins. Yeah.

Yes, hopefully. Hopefully, yes.

Okay. With this new brand Sprandi, what sort of target market do we have and what sort of growth do you see in this brand?

Sprandi is a sportswear category. It's a sportswear brand all across the world.

We aim to put it in the sportswear category, and it will be everything related to sportswear, initially shoes, but later on apparel also, which resonate with the sportswear category will be put across in this brand.

Okay. We are going to first initially get only the shoes, and then eventually we'll get the apparels also.

Yes, exactly.

Okay. Understood.

Thank you so much. That is it from my end.

Thank you.

Hi, sir, and thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to understand this weakness in this e-commerce channel in a more detail, if you can elaborate.

What exactly happened? Which were these marketplaces which were basically going for larger discounts?

See, this is a sizeable channel for the company, and is there an algorithm that we have that beyond this percentage discount we will not participate? How do we ensure that we don't really lose sales to the end consumer with this approach?

That would be my first question.

Hi. We don't see this as a weakness.

The degrowth in e-commerce was largely a conscious outcome of our channel strategy during the quarter. Online marketplaces continue to push for higher discounting to drive turnover, but we chose not to participate in incremental discounting beyond levels that we considered appropriate for the brand.

We have always maintained that e-commerce should be a profitable and brand-accretive channel and not merely a volume-led channel. Therefore, while this approach had a near-term impact on e-commerce revenues, it helped us protect margins.

We are trying to avoid dilution of the brand's pricing architecture and maintain discipline across channels. What we need to acknowledge and understand is this was not reflective on any structural weakness.

Right? It was a deliberate choice to prioritize sustainable profitable growth over discounted turnover.

That I understand, sir, but can you give a quantum as to what is a percentage discount beyond which you are not comfortable participating in this channel?

We are not end up on a saying that this is the discount we want to give and this is not the discount we want to give. It ultimately boils down to what is the event, how big is the event, how big are the numbers we are going to see, how does it impact our overall margins.

It's an ongoing process. We cannot say that, okay, this is the discount, I'll never cross this structure or I'll never cause this benchmark.

This is not, I think, how business in e-commerce works. It purely depends on the event, say whether it is a BBD or a Right to Fashion Sale.

It purely depends there. How we work is we see that what is the volume expected, what are the numbers expected, and what are going to be my base lines for margins.

If in the first quarter, if you see, we have consciously focused on keeping our margins intact, in fact, bettering them than previous years. That's what the call is.

It purely depends on how it works. Although we see this as a small blip.

We don't see that the numbers will not increase. We are very sure that the numbers will definitely increase across e-commerce channels also.

Fair, sir. At the end of the day, if you are not participating, some other brand would have participated and you would typically lose that sales.

If let's say tomorrow during the festive again such a opportunity comes through, you will again have to make this choice. At the end of the day, growing a brand should also be a priority, right?

Maybe you could participate it via some lower price products or some sub-brands maybe.

That's a call we'll definitely consider and take in the future. I would also like to put a point here that there's not a case of we not participating.

There's a case of how much deeper discounting we want to get into and what are the base margins we want to work on. That was a call we said that we will protect our base margins and see what the numbers come in, rather than giving a customer a heavy discount today and then, during the bigger event, the customer is always expecting a much higher discount?

We need to bring that efficiency in the pricing structure that it does not dilute the top line as well as the margin.

Got it, sir. That's very helpful.

Second question is on broad inflation, sir. What kind of broader inflation in your overall basket are you witnessing?

There have been some states where there have been a large quantum of minimum wage hikes announced. I understand you are franchise-driven EBOs, but your franchisees would be facing higher costs.

One, in what kind of quantum of inflation you are facing and what kind of price hikes do you foresee in the immediate future, if any?

If you see our results also, we have taken this into our account this minimum wage things and the other inflation costs due to the ongoing war and everything. We have not increased our prices.

We are trying to bring in efficiencies rather than resort to which is the easy way out, I think, in increasing prices and everything. We are still continuing to bring efficiency in our sourcing also and in our selling ways also in the retail environment and the online environment.

That is what we are focusing on. As of now, we have taken a conscious call not to increase MRPs as such.

We are trying to keep the prices at the same levels. Hopefully, by bringing in more efficiency and everything, which we have seen in this quarter, we will continue to do so.

Any quantum of inflation that you are facing, if you could quantify? How much is it?

Not really. It's regular business for us.

Got it. I'll come back in the queue for follow-ups.

Thanks.

Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. Good morning, sir.

This is regarding the online revenue. In your presentation, I read it's come down from 30% to 22%, and I heard about your deep discounting model that you're following, avoiding the deep discounting model.

Is this revenue from online going to come down for the rest of the year, or is it a one-off thing, or how does it work?

We would like to believe it is a one-off thing. Of course, e-commerce is a big big channel for us, has been a big channel for us.

If you see the reason why it has come down to 22% from 30% is because retail has grown, right,

whereas

we have not seen a growth in e-commerce because we did not get into the higher discounting in the first quarter. Generally, what happens is that we have seen that if there is a higher discounting, if we get a little finicky and get into higher discounting because quarter 1, quarter 2 are generally weak for us.

If we get into higher discounting today, then by the time the season comes in, by the time the big BBD sales of the world come in,

then

you have to get into that deep waters and get into more discounting and everything. What we have done is we have sustained that, we have managed to keep that discounting in a very clear manner where our margins don't get affected.

Having said that, this is also brought in a little bit of mindset in the consumer calls that the pricing is such that if there's any further discounting, then that's the best price.

Correct. We

are very very clear on it. Basically, it's a brand protection in the e-commerce sector.

We need to not dilute our brand image there.

Yeah. Going forward, the revenue guidance for the financial year would be the same, or would there be a change then?

Honestly, I would not like to comment on e-commerce specifically. We No,

not e-commerce, I'm talking in total, in total revenue guidance.

No. We are very hopeful that we'll continue the same growth story which we have been doing in the last 3, 4 years.

We'll continue the same growth.

Okay. The new stores that you're opening up, what were the sizes be of that?

Are they online, offline, or it's a mix? How does

it It's a mix of both, but the smaller stores are more in number

because since we're

getting into the south, east, and west of the country,

we're

opening stores which are in the range of 800 to 1,500 square feet.

Hence,

the store numbers would be more.

Store numbers would be more. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Good morning, sir. What is the reason for sharp fall in the other income?

Is it because of lower rebate and discount from online portals?

Mr. Vivek, would you take this question?

Hi. Basically, the rebate income which the e-commerce platforms gives that has been reduced considerably.

Basically, the reason of lower rebate income from the e-commerce platforms.

What is that actual amount for this quarter, sir?

It's around 8 8

8 crores, 8 8 or 9 crores. 8 to 9 crores.

Corresponding previous quarter, sir?

Previous quarter from the last, it was around I think it was 28 around in the same year, last quarter.

Yeah, 28. Okay.

Sir. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Hello. My question is on the accessories segment.

Last year, we launched like luggage and sunglasses. I just wanted to know is it available across some of the stores or it's live on all the 700-odd stores?

Yeah. Sunglasses, you can find in most of the stores.

Almost 80% of our stores now carry sunglasses because we're seeing a good traction in sunglasses in our retail stores. With respect to hard luggage, luggage category as an overall has moved to online rather than offline.

Hard luggage is merely more present on the online platforms, such as Flipkart, Myntra, than our stores. Some of our stores, I would say only 10% of 10-15% of our stores carry hard luggage.

The primary business of hard luggage has now gone online, and this is for everybody, for whole category, for the whole industry.

Okay. We don't plan to get the hard luggage on all the stores.

Will that not help us improving our same-store sales growth?

See, we need to understand what we are trying to do here. Just as I mentioned, sunglasses, because it's a category which is still being bought offline, it is there almost in 80% of the stores now.

Hard luggage as an category has moved online. Most of the brands, most of the stores of I would say legacy brands have also seen their numbers coming from online more rather than offline.

That's how the category has shifted. We're doing that.

Okay. That's fine if the industry is going to online platforms.

Second question is regarding our presence. In North India, we have a very good presence in the high streets, but little to no presence in the shopping malls.

Do we have any plans of entering the shopping malls maybe by direct mail kiosks or because we want to expand our accessories segment, and that will help us maintaining our brand positioning maybe? Do we have any plans of entering the shopping malls?

I'll take this question a little differently. I would say that North India does not have a stronger mall approach like we have in South India or West India.

South India has more shopping in malls rather than a North India, which still has more shopping on high streets, right? I would like to put it that way.

Having said that, whenever we're getting into newer territories, we're getting into south now, west now, we are also approaching malls, and we'll be opening in good malls. For example, we have recently opened our store in Forum Mall, Calcutta.

It's basically the need of the zone, the city, where we are expanding. If it's a mall which is stronger than the high street, we'll definitely opt for a mall.

Okay. My last question would be on the overseas revenues.

Recently, we have a good number of stores in UAE and East Asia. Because of this war, Iran war, do we have any impact on store revenue from that?

How much is the store

Our overseas store in UAE are basically franchise-driven. It's not our own stores.

Having said that, there was an initial downfall on revenue there, but it's now again building it up.

Okay.

What we are hearing from them is the customers have largely come in back, and the numbers are better than last year for the last month. I would not say about the whole quarter.

Ha. For the month.

Okay.

Initially in the quarter, it was impacted. Just one last thing.

Can you show some guidance on the exports revenue, going forward maybe we are having good FTAs with other countries, and do we have any guidance or plan for increasing our exports revenue?

We are currently in the process of approaching some good retailers and distributors We definitely have aspirations to grow in the international market, and we have been approaching different master distributors or retailers who can stock and everything. For example, we have appointed a master distributor in UK by the name of Style Level Manchester, and the transaction has already started, and we hope that we will be getting good numbers there.

Any guidance on a rough guidance in numbers?

It's too early to comment on any numbers because it's a new market, it will take some time to

Okay.

bring in that numbers and goodness.

Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. That's it from myself.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is I think there is a good improvement in gross margins.

What led to that?

Sorry, come again?

I think we can see a very good improvement in gross margins. What is the reason for such a good improvement?

More than 200 basis points.

Mr. Vivek would take this question.

Sir, basically, the increase in margin basically the retail impact. The retail margins are really good this quarter vis-a-vis as compared to last year.

Also, there are some operating leverage and optimized supply chain. No?

In that case, we have got the good EBITDA margins increased.

Okay. Sir, do you provide same-store Yeah, sir, please.

Actually, basically, if you see, we have worked on the operational efficiency of the company, right? That's why you can see that we have a good margins.

We had control over the expenses also, supply chain expenses also, operating leverages. Sir,

basically, I'm referring to gross margin, sir.

Gross margin basically for the retail impact, you can say. Retail impact, we have a good retail impact.

Okay. Sir, can you tell me about the same-store sales growth, that number if you can provide for this quarter?

I think we'll get back to you on the SSSG. The SSSG normally in the first quarter is not very good for everybody in the industry, I would say, but we'll come back to you on this.

Sure, sir. Sir, regarding Sprandi, at what price point you want to position this vis-a-vis your current products?

It's a mid-priced brand across the world, we'll have the same strategy here.

Sir. Lastly, sir, I think you have alluded there was many reasons why e-commerce sales have dropped.

Now it is roughly 22% of a revenue. At annual level, would we be expecting the same level of percentage from this channel?

Of course, yes. The aspiration is there that e-commerce remains at the 30% level.

That's the scale it has always been within our turnover. We expect that it will come back to that.

Okay. Thank you for all the answers, sir.

These are my questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes. Thank you for the follow-up question.

I missed the export contribution in Q1 FY27. Can you please reiterate that?

Sorry, can I have the question again?

Yeah. I missed the export contribution in Q1 FY27, if you could just reiterate that number.

What is our export number?

It's around 2.5 CR.

Around 2.5 Cr.

Okay. Understood.

My next question is do we plan to do more acquisitions or to expand our portfolio? Is there anything in pipeline currently?

There's nothing in the pipeline as of now, but if there's an opportunity, we would like to certainly go through it. Never say no.

We have that approach. If there's an opportunity, if there's a good opportunity, we'll definitely consider.

As of now, there's nothing in the pipeline.

Right. In what category are we going to look for the acquisition?

We would like to remain in the same category we are currently in. It's fashion and lifestyle, and we'd like to be rooted here.

No, what product category, I meant, apparel or

It could be footwear and apparels both.

Okay. Understood.

My next question is that currently in the brand mix, Redtape is contributing around 95% to the revenue. Do you see this brand mix changing?

Like do we expect other brands to contribute more and the Redtape contribution to hence then go down because the other brands are contributing more?

In an ideal scenario, when we grow and the kind of growth we have shown over the years, if we have the same growth, we would like our sub-brands to also grow accordingly. We plan to make Oakridge and Sprandi bigger by the year.

Sure. Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good morning. Wanted to understand what were the inventory days currently stand and what are the targets for the full year?

Mr. Vivek would take this question.

The inventory levels if you say, it has gone down considerably from the last. It is now 173 days, and we are targeting to reduce it to 150.

Okay.

I would like to add in here, but currently as we see the big season, the quarter 3, quarter 4 generally have very bigger numbers and we do not want to lose on opportunities wherein we have less stock. There will be a buildup now till the Q2,

and then

from Q3 and Q4 it goes down. That's how traditionally how the inventory pileup works.

Okay. Second thing, earlier in the call, I remember you mentioned that roughly 200, 250 new stores target was there for the full year.

Is there any change in the target, or are we still maintaining that?

We're still maintaining that. That's an aspiration we have.

So, 33 stores we have already opened in the first quarter, and 150-plus we are aspiring to open. We generally want to remain close to that number.

Fine. Another question, I wanted to understand about the status of the September '25 income tax search proceedings.

Is there any further communication that we have received that could result in any material tax or any provisions or liability, something?

With respect to the income tax seizure and things, it's an ongoing process. I think this is how the department works.

This is what we have been told. Yes, it will take 2 to 3 years to have eventually close it down.

As of now, there's been no claim of any material, and there's no risk of any material asset. That's what we would like to say.

It's an ongoing process.

Right, right. Okay.

That's all from my side. Thank you so much, and all the best.

Thank you.

Hello. Am I audible?

Yes. Yes.

My first question was can you provide category I actually joined the call late, can you please provide category-wise footwear, apparel, accessories growth year-on-year, Q1 FY26 versus '27? Share,

share. We would like to let you know the share.

Footwear is now Footwear is 56% of the quarter 1 turnover, and 39% is comes from apparel, and 5% has come from accessories.

No, no, no. Actually, I am talking about growth, year-on-year growth category-wise.

You see, if

for a complete year, apparel and footwear work very differently for us. Apparels are very stronger in the Q3 and Q4.

That's where we actually see a lot of growth in apparel. During the Q1 and Q2, footwear is what keeps us afloat.

To compare we haven't made a comparison as one as for Q1 versus Q1. I think we'll make that and share.

Okay. Second question was on do we have non-BIS inventory or is that liquidated, or that issue is behind us?

We still have some non-BIS inventory, and the industry has got an extension for a year. We're hopefully that we'll be able to I think there'll be one more extension for this, and hopefully we'll be all clear.

The industry will be clear, not even us. It will be clear for the industry as well.

Okay. Last question was that there has been some market discussions regarding potential stake sale by a promoter to private equity investor.

If you could give color on that whether that is true or not?

We would not like to comment on any market speculations.

Okay.

I think that's not right.

Yeah. That's it from my side.

Thank you.

Sir, you attributed the margin improvement to the retail sales, higher retail contribution to the top line. You also commented that the e-commerce contribution to the top line will be back to 30%.

Will that mean that there will be moderation in the operating margin from Q1 levels going forward for the rest of the year?

See, what we can say as of now is we intend to not keep our margins intact, right, and to do that and actually take it upwards. That's the core focus of ours.

We're not although we are focused on our top line, but we are making sure that our margins don't get hit at any stage during the quarters. I would like to say that there's an aspiration to increase the margin.

At the same time, we're very sure that the targets we have set out for will be achieving them.

Sir. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity for follow-up. Sir, can you provide category-wise breakup of maybe gross margin is possible?

Sorry, category-wise gross margin?

Gross margin or maybe EBITDA margin if you can provide some color on that.

We don't have anything ready as of now. We'll share it later.

Yeah.

Okay.

It will be better if you send a query to EY, and then we can sort of reply.

Sure, sir. Sir, what is your aspiration for EBITDA margin for this year?

Would it be on the same line, or you want to increase or maybe decrease a bit to maybe increase the revenue? Can you just get some sense on that?

We would like to remain as it is now. We'd like it to be stable.

Roughly at 20%, right?

Yes.

Sir. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, everybody, for joining us today and for your questions. To conclude, Q1 FY27 reflected Redtape's disciplined approach to growth in a mixed consumption environment.

While near-term demand trends remained uneven across channels, the underlying strength of our core India business, our focus on protecting brand value, and continued execution across sourcing, supply chain, and retail operations, which has helped us deliver a strong, profitable outcome. As we move ahead, our priority remains to drive sustainable growth across channels, maintain discipline on pricing and margins, and continue strengthening Redtape's consumer proposition.

Should you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to our investor relations partners at EY, Kasturi and Nikita, and we'll be happy to engage further. Thank you.