Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for joining us here on the quarterly results call for the Q4 of the full year 2026. Vivek and I are happy to host you once again.

We'll take a bit more time this time around to to spend some time with the introductory remarks because we think the situation in the market merits that we give a bit more context on on the results as well as in the outlook. Please bear with us while we while we walk you through it.

Let me start there with the category, because in the end, the category remains the most important anchor for how we look at the business as a whole. We're very happy that in Q4 that we saw that category returning back to growth, around 10%, and the majority of markets also contributing to growth, which is a big step-up from the second half of 2025, and is also widely supported by multiple movements, including regulatory development, improved affordability, on-the-ground demand conditions.

Overall, we're happy that the structural drivers of the category remain intact and that we see that the beer category in India is actually doing really well in the quarter. Now, at the same time, also important to recognize that the market has become significantly more competitive, which means that winning in the environment has an impact on investments behind brands, commercial intensity.

As a result, while the category is growing, the cost of participation has gone up, which is also an important context for the performance in the quarter, and we will speak more about that when we talk about how intentional choices have impacted the quarterly delivery. Now, when we look at the quarter, very important to note that we very much believe that the fundamentals of the business remain really strong.

We delivered around 4% volume growth, and I'll come back to that a little bit later on the balance between primary and secondary volume. We see that underlying demand is strong.

We see that premium continues to outperform in consistency with our strategy, and we also see that the gross margin is moving meaningfully. In the end, we see that volume, price, and mix, as well as our ability to transform into margins, is delivering is moving in the right direction.

On this volume growth versus the category growth, it's important context to make sure that everybody is aware that while our volume has grown 4%, our secondary volume, our demand from the market, has moved mostly in line with category. There's a slight pressure on market share, but we're also cycling last year's disparity between primary and secondary.

In the end, that 4% is muted versus the actual movement that we see in the market. Now, of course, we see in the EBIT a decline materially in the quarter versus last year, largely impacted by deliberate choices that we have made.

One, very clearly investing behind our brands and behind maintaining our leading position in the market in this intensified environment. We expanded our investment behind the brands with 27% versus the previous year.

Of course, the quarter is ahead of the peak season. It's an important quarter to invest in the brand strength, and we see it also reflected in the brand power scores that we get back from the market.

We're very happy, and we continue to do this in line with our strategy to really grow our brands and invest behind both brands, as well as in execution on the ground. We're also advancing in premiumization, where our premium share is ahead of the overall our premium development is ahead of the overall development of of the portfolio.

We continue to invest in our network strategy. A large share of the growth in Q4 came from contract manufacturing, which has an impact in the accounting, but we knew that, so that was anticipated, but has an impact on especially how revenue and margins are being reported.

The last thing that I want to highlight here is that we also deliberately invested into bottle infusion, which also has to do with the with the environment more on the macroeconomic scale. We see that there's pressure on supply.

We see there's tightness on supply for especially packaging material, highly impacted by the energy crisis driven by what's happening in the Middle East. We also deliberately made sure that our inventory and our use of bottles and packaging materials is at par so to make sure that we first and foremost prioritize continuity of supply.

I think, and that's something that that we also need to highlight, that the Middle East situation is expected to have a meaningful input. While we see some fairly minor impact in the quarter, especially driven by this and the IPs, we do see that for the outlook of the year, there will be an impact for the market driven mostly by energy, fuel cost impacting the packaging cost packaging material costs.

There's currency movements, the INR performance currently will have an impact on on cost, as well as the aluminum price, which continues to be extremely high, and we don't foresee that coming down anytime soon. The impact that we see for the remainder of the year is predominantly cost-led and not demand-led.

We still believe in the strong fundamentals of the category and demand will be there, but cost pressure will continue to be there in the second half of the year. In the end, I think it's very clear that we're operating in a sort of two-speed environment, where, one, we see strong category growth, premiumization, and we strongly believe that the opportunity will remain to be there, and India is the growth engine for the global beer market, while we also see a rise in cost pressure both on the commercial investments as well as on the cost of production.

That will remain to be there, and that's also why we highlighted that in the in the press release that we did. Now, what we are doing and what are the clear choices that we're making for what's ahead of us is that first and foremost, we will continue to serve the consumer.

We will continue to also drive premiumization. We will invest behind the brands and behind the category, and take our role as a category leader.

We will also continue to optimize our network and capacity, including the contract brewers, because we believe that is what is needed in order to be there for the growth of the India beer market. Of course, we will tighten our pricing and revenue management in the current outlook.

We are closely collaborating with the cross-functional teams to make sure that we drive pricing and that we drive the right mix decisions to make sure that we are where the consumer wants us to be also from our pricing, but where we also try to mitigate as much as we can the cost pressure in an environment which everybody knows is heavily regulated. There it requires additional efforts to make sure that we are able to translate some of that cost pressure into topline pricing.

Now, of course, on the EBIT outlook, there will be an impact. We are working hard to further work on productivity programs to make sure that we convert the healthy gross margin also into EBIT margin, that we make sure that we mitigate and anticipate the cost pressure which is ahead of us.

That's not only true for the P&L, but as much for working capital and cash generation. I think we see in the shape of our P&L that we continue to grow, also when we look at our investments.

We're making headwinds on our investments in our greenfields as well as in investing in the stores with high expansion of our of our number of coolers, which of course also impacts our depreciation. Throughout the shape of the P&L, you can see that our belief in growth and in structural growth is well there, and that UBL is positioned to grab the growth of the market at least proportionally.

I think the current performance in the quarter is mostly a result of deliberate investment choices impacted by the local environment as well as by the macroeconomic environment in which we operate, but we are confident that the category will remain resilient over time, that our strategy is still the right one, and that we're taking the necessary actions to make sure that we're set up for future growth as well as sustained delivery on our financials. Now, before we head to the Q&A, I happily invite Vivek to give a bit more color on the introductory remarks.

No,

Jorn, thanks for this. I know I think all of you are joining the quarterly call, but I would say that this has been one of the quarters we we really had to step back and think about the structural financials in the category, and what's going to happen for the year and the year to come.

A lot of it was driven by Middle East war and the impact, because as we mentioned that we are sitting on a 400 to 500 crore impact. Our profitability for last year, and we had to make clear choices to do that.

Before that, I would say a couple of things. First, great news that category is back on growth.

I think in the last two calls, we had conversation about what will happen to category, when do you see going back to growth. The good part is the category is come back to growth at 10%.

It has not happened by chance. I think it is a function of I would say three things.

Number one, the deliberate effort with with Brewers Association of India, you know where UBL is a key participant other than other players, and UBL itself, we have made with the regulators around the excise policies. Because if you actually see, in the last nine out of 10 policies which have been released, there has not been any tax increase on beer, and there has been a relative tax increase on spirits.

The number one driver of category growth is the relative pricing of spirits and beer. The difference between that.

We have seen that in almost 14 states, 1-4, which is almost 42% of our business, we have actually grown more than 30% in the quarter, 3-0, not not mixing the words there. I think the first important thing is the effort on the policy front is a big driver of the category growth, and I'm not even talking about Karnataka and all, which is not into implementation.

The second big one, which Jorn has taked, there are deliberate investments which UBL has done which are translating into category growth. There are states where the category is almost doubled.

We have invested in capacities, we have invested in quality, we have invested in innovation, we have invested in our brands. Premiumization is a great example.

We are again, we are back on 16%. You saw that we are also investing in futures with with the work we are doing with Soufflet on malting, or Crown and others on on the cans, to really see that there is a future of beer in the category.

I think the investments what we have made is is leading to the category growth. Third, the the high competitive intensity.

Because when all every when lot many players are investing to get the pie in India, consumers are hearing more about beers, they are seeing more more investment, retailers are seeing more investment. We know that when category investment goes up, it really helps the category growth.

Our data suggest that some of our competitors have invested 3x, 4x more, but but we we have not increased our investment to that level, but we continue to increase our brand power despite the investment, which means we are at least investing in the right things. We're not buying the volumes, and deliberately, not diluting the category.

The number one thing I want to bring to your attention, we are extremely delighted that structural interventions are leading to the category growth. If the Karnataka policy comes through, or what we are seeing the momentum this quarter, I think this the category growth trend will continue.

The second important thing I want to bring, because some of you I I read statements after our results, I want to say that the work which UBL has done over last couple of years, we don't have a supply issue. I want to bring it to the very clear, we don't have a supply issue.

We have invested a lot in the last two years in building our supplier base on bottles. We don't have a supply issue.

We also don't have a supply issue on cans. Because we have the global network, and we have identified these suppliers, we don't have a supply issue.

None of our results are because of supply issues, and we don't expect supply issues to happen. Instead, it will be a competitive advantage for UBL because we have those supplies tied up, or we have worked with our suppliers on a very strategic manner.

We have an inflation issue, we have a cost issue, not supply issue. I want to just clarify that any of the demand or the category growth momentum continues, for us, it will be it will not be because we could not get the supplies.

It would be maybe we chose not to supply because it is too it is prohibitive for us to supply, but we don't have a supply issue. The third thing I would say that because we are the only listed company, the other meaningful listed company had major issue in MP on the beer one, I think, my understanding is the impact on beer industry because of the war is disproportionate.

This is a time where we had to make choices on how we want to run the business and where we want to run the business. For me, at this point of time, number three focus is consumers.

We need to make sure the supplies are available. The focus is to really have very tough conversation and transparent conversations with all our stakeholders, whether suppliers or regulators, to make sure that we create the long-term value for the category, and I'm very proud that UBL is leading that effort persistently.

We are not watching from behind, we are actually leading it, because this is a time where the structural economics of category has to be addressed. We're also working to make sure that we continuously invest in the brand, and we also very clear that we also are responsibly investing the money.

There are states, I won't name them, where we have seen, there's lot of trade spend being done, even because where category has no money in that state, in a in a in a state like Telangana, we've seen some of our competitors actually throwing trade spends, which is which doesn't make sense. It actually doesn't encourage regulators to even think about the category long-term sustainability, but we are very clear on those situations that we will follow the right path.

I do think that category growth is strong. We are in a position where our supply chain is strong.

Our localization efforts are working. On premiumization, our gross margins are up up 330 basis points.

We are making deliberate choices. Some of the choices we made this quarter is to store more use more new bottles versus old bottles so that we can replenish new bottles faster, because old bottles we can use anytime in a brewery.

Some of the choices we made on making sure that we we actually clear some of the inventories, because our primary is 4%, but our sell-through is 8% to 9%. I also saw some notes where they said there's a big gap between 4 and 10.

Actually, there's not a big gap between 4 and 10. Actually actually it's 9.5 and 10 in our books, and this is one of the reasons, we had more business from our partners, because we we also corrected some of the inventories in anticipation so that we can actually have more fresh beer and and do that.

Overall, our cost program is kicking on very well. Our people cost is much below our growth rate now.

We have made right changes in our structure. Our cooler program is doing extremely well.

Our brewery expansion is on track. We already got the land in UP, the civil work has started.

Our can line in Telangana and in in Maharashtra will be available before July. We have one greenfield, two can lines, cooler investment, capex is going on, the brand power scores are extremely high.

I think we are feeling very strong. However, there are big headwinds in the category, and we're not shying away from it, and we are structurally working to mitigate what we can.

Can we mitigate all of it? We don't know.

It depends on how much the war impact last. As I look at today, the the, the some of the things like oil prices, Indian rupee, gas prices, I think they are all going northward.

We we really need to see through it. We wanted to bring the reality.

Our focus as company will remain to drive category growth, to serve the consumer, and keep unlocking the potential of beers, which is there, and it will not impact any of our capex plans. With this, I think I open up for any questions you have.

Thanks. Firstly, on the cost impact, you have mentioned 400 to 500 crore cost impact next two, three quarters.

I wanted to understand the assumption. I do understand glass uses a lot of fuel, and fuel cost had gone up a lot.

If I see today, it's down say 8%, and last three, four days, it is down 15%. For example, if this geopolitical issue gets resolved and say next one or two weeks, crude cools down, then does this still arise that 400 to 500 crore cost impact happens?

What is the assumption here? On the supply side, you answered very clearly that you have taken care of.

Of course, this time the El Niño is a very favorable climate for your kind of category. Are you factoring in all that, and both on aluminum cans and the glass bottles, if you can reconfirm, given the very strong demand and now Karnataka policy also positive, are you absolutely sure that supply side there is no risk, inflation is there?

If you could answer both these.

I think I'll answer the second question, and I'll ask Jorn to help in the first one more detail. I think we are very sure.

We're very clear. I think, yes, there is a positive momentum.

You talk about weather, Karnataka policy can be there, and all of this, and we don't know what will be the final blueprint of the Karnataka policy, right? Because it is already taken couple of months for them to come back and notify, but I think from a pure scenario planning, from what we need, we are fine.

We don't have an issue. It is because over the last two years, Abneesh, we have increased our supplier base and we have worked on this very diligently.

We are ready for the growth.

On the cost impact, I can highlight a little bit more on the assumptions, and obviously, I think like everyone, we would applaud if this issue will be solved within the next two weeks. Who knows?

However, even if it does, our assumption is that the impact on cost and for costs to normalize will take much more, and it will be here for the next couple of months, if it ever comes down. We do have assumptions around crude oil where we believe that it will not be below $100 or not far below $100 even if things normalize.

It's largely dependent on the impact of the gas import in India with the high exposure, and we know all that some of the capex has been seriously impacted, even if the conflict is resolved, it will not come back. We assume that the aluminum is north of $3,500.

We also don't expect that to come down very quickly. I think as much as we hope and still have faith that the conflict will resolve, the longer-term impact will be there.

We see, of course, on the demand side, as I mentioned on the opening remarks, that most of the impact is cost-led. We think that Indian consumer and beer market will be resilient.

Of course, they're also closely tracking what happens with local fuel pricing, so far no movement yet, but as soon as that happens and consumer will see the pricing, we also have to take into account that there might be an impact on demand and the level of discretionary spend, where we also see the notes that food inflation will go up to around 5%. Obviously, we can expect that it may have an impact, but we also think that there's enough tailwinds on the category that we for now only foresee the cost pressure on the outlook.

Sir, one follow-up for Vivek. Obviously, you have worked in FMCG such a long time, and all FMCG companies in this quarter call are saying market share gains from local players.

I think you also highlighted that because you have tied up on the sourcing side of packaging, which I think for local players is very difficult, are you already seeing that some of the local players or some of the maybe smaller players are already not able to meet up on the packaging side, and that is leading to opportunity and market share gain for you say in April month?

Actually, no. I I don't think that, probably they understand, or they have done all the impacts yet, because getting into the season, the volume looks good, momentum looks good.

For us, when we give the plan, when we talk of 400 to 500, we need to look at the full-year impact, the rest of the year impact on what's going to happen based on seasonality, non-seasonality, and other things really come together. I also think that different players are seeing impact at different levels.

I have definitely seen in some of our contract brewers have stopped manufacturing their brands, and they do need more supplies because I can't source the materials. We are seeing that trend happening more and more, but I would say that not in April, but I do expect in couple of months, you will see that even more on that.

Understood. My last question is on two, three specific states.

Karnataka, when the initial policy came, it seemed very positive for beer. When the final draft came, it seemed less positive, but still positive.

If you could tell us what is the current understanding? I do understand lower end of beer there is better profitability.

Now let us ignore the Iran crisis, because that changes picture, but what is the current situation on the Karnataka? If you could tell us on Telangana.

One last one, on Telangana, there have been news reports of 12% to 15% hike. Any update on that?

Thank you.

I think first on Karnataka, I think first of all, holistically, the policy direction is very positive, and I will put it into two parts. One is ease of doing business.

I think ease of doing business, the government has already made significant progress, like the brewery can dispatch 24 hours, the licenses has the range increased, labeling and all will be digital. I think very welcome move there, which used to capture a lot of unnecessary time and energy there.

I think the second one is on the policy itself. Now, of course, the final fine print we have to see, but I think the direction of moving to taxation linked to ABV is very positive, and I think it will lead to a significant growth in beer category and significant growth in consumption of beer if it comes through.

Of course, we have to wait for the final details, but I would say, wherever it nets up, it will be a net positive where it stands today. On Telangana, I don't think we have got any price increase or notification or anything like that.

In fact, we are in a significant conversation there, because the government needs to understand that this is a unique situation, and we're still as an association and as a company in talks with the government there.

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

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My first question was on the competitive intensity you alluded to.

Just wanted to get your sense on apart from, say, contract bottlers or very small players who have moved or have stopped doing their own branding for a bit, some of the increased trade spends and those kind of activities that you've seen, are they from the other significant players? Are you seeing a reduction in that as well as we are moving forward, like in April month, have you seen that come down as well?

What's your kind of thought process on that? Do you see overall competitive intensity, even with the other large two players, kind of coming down because of what you're facing, they are also facing?

Look, I think our business is state-by-state, making a overall picture is very difficult. I can split it in two parts.

I think one is in the first quarter, we saw the overall media spend on the surrogate brands on the category went up 4x, right? It was not us who increased the spend on 4x, there are other significant players who are spending much more on media, sponsorships, and all.

We have also seen trade spend increasing in certain states significantly, and we have seen in many places the trade spend is increasing even where there is an opportunity to buy short-term volumes. I would say that yes, we are seeing an increased spends by the competition.

We haven't seen any reduction in that intensity yet, but we are also very clear that it is extremely important for us to stay competitive where we are, but it is also important for us to make sure we are structurally working on improving the health of the category. I think intensity is high right now.

Got it. Got it, Vivek.

Second bit was on the 400 to 500 crore number that you spoke of. I wanted to get your thought process on what in your mind could be the mitigating factors or the offset factors to this.

Obviously, there are a couple of big buckets. One is price increases in open market states, hope of price increases in government-controlled states, and then there is your own bottom-up that you can do in terms of cost.

How many of those things have already been actioned, where we are in that kind of journey, and any thought on how much can be mitigated?

No, I think it's a great question. I would say that look, I'm extremely proud of how the team has rallied and seen this crisis as an opportunity.

I can safely say that at least half of this 4 to 500, we have firm plans to mitigate already. Whether it is our own productivity drive, whether it is selective pricing, whether it is reducing trade spend in the markets which doesn't make sense for us, or the category profitability is very low.

For example, in one of the markets, we moved to zero trade spend, I won't name the market for competitive reason, but we moved to zero trade spend because we didn't see that gross margins in the market to do that. Plus the work we are doing on consistent improvement on our own productivity and production excellence, I would say we already have firm plans of somewhere between 200 to 250 crores, which is already done, dusted, into execution, and all.

We are also working on another similar ideas, but some of that really depends on whether we get pricing in Telangana or not, whether we get pricing in some of the other states or not, because like Tamil Nadu and other states as well. We also are very aware that we don't want to make beer unaffordable by doing all of this, because we have been struggling to talk about affordability of the category and all, some of it, we will have to absorb as a shock.

We also don't want to lose market share in the short term. If you see our P&L—

sorry.

I think just to summarize very quickly, I think on your question, half of it we have firm plan on mitigation. Other half, we have ideas, but it will take a lot of work.

Also, we also don't want to make it completely unaffordable for consumers, right, because you cannot cover all the gap through this. This is why we wanted to give very clear view of what's happening and what are the potential impacts.

Great. Thank you for this.

I'll come back in the queue for more. Thanks.

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

I just first wanted to check what was the volume in million cases that you closed FY 2026 with? If you could also share with us a rough split of how much of these volumes came from contract breweries?

I'm just trying to gauge how should one think about the adverse impact on price mix as we forecast the growth on revenue growth forward, and how do you see this combination changing in FY 2027 given the supply addition plans you have put in place?

You want to know what is the salience of our own breweries versus the contract breweries?

Just trying to gauge because this time if you look at the price mix trend declined 7%, that was quite steep during the quarter because of higher salience of contract brewery, just trying to see how are we shifting between own and contract breweries.

I think I won't give you the exact details right now, and we can come back to you separately, Latika. I think I would say I won't worry too much about the price mix of this quarter, because I think we will have a healthy price mix.

This quarter has a combination of couple of things. I think one which is absolutely the sourcing mix, because we took an inventory correction where in our own breweries, which means that the primary is much lower than actually what we supplied to the corporation markets or other distributors.

That is why you see our earnings are lesser because the primary is lower, and that increases the salience of the CBUs. Which is I think the deliberate correction we did to make sure we provide fresh beer, and we also ready ourselves because of the war scenario on the raw materials and packaging materials and our contracts which were there.

I won't read too much into the -7% as a structural thing. I think going forward, our CBU contribution is around 20% to 25%.

It will vary depending on the month and the policy and all. We still have significant presence with our own breweries in the country, and which is only going to expand as well, whether UP coming in next year, and with the can lines coming up by July into big markets where like in Telangana, we don't have our own cans.

We bring it very small, but now we'll have a big capacity, or even in Maharashtra, we're going to have more capacity, which we bring from some of the other markets. I would not worry on that part, but we'll send back some of the details you're asking.

Sure. Vivek, can I then ask you, you closed FY 2026 with a 3% volume growth.

Of course, the year was marred by various issues, whether on weather or on regulations. As you look towards FY 2027, and assuming a normal season, and you clearly said supply is not an issue, from a growth perspective, do you think this will be the year when we can probably aim for that mid-to-high single-digit volume growth with probably a mid single-digit kind of a pricing on the underlying basis?

Is

there some good confidence on that?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

I think absolutely. I think will be very disappointed with the effort we've done, which I talked in the beginning on structural levers to drive category growth, the investment we have made on getting cold beer, the networks, the premiumization, the brands, and innovation.

We think this should be a high single-digit category growth here. Our own forecast is somewhere between 6% to 7% volume growth, and it should translate to a double-digit revenue growth.

We're already seeing that momentum in the first quarter. As I said, barring that some of the structural things which we did, our secondaries were up 8 8% to 9%, and our volume is up 4%, and premium is up 16%.

That just to add, that gives us confidence. Of course, we, like I said, we keep a close pulse on what's happening on the demand, but we're also confident because we're cycling, like you mentioned, these two quarters from last year where demand was absolutely muted because of adverse weather and other elements playing their part.

Knowing that will in itself create tailwinds for category and volume growth in the quarters to come post the peak season, we're quite confident that we're on the right trajectory for this one.

I'll just add and I think while this will be the momentum and the growth, but I'm very clear, I'm not going to hesitate to take tough calls where in the states the structural profitability is not there because of regulators. This is a time when the industry is in the crisis, costs are going on, we are not going to do charity here.

I am also very clear that if we have to take some tough calls, we will take the tough calls.

Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question.

I just wanted to understand basically the gross margin expansion that has happened, given that the realizations were also down, and you had an infusion of new bottles also. This gross margin expansion that has happened, is it purely state mix or if you can explain what has led to this gross margin expansion?

How should one look at that? When you say this 400 to 500 crore of impact, how much of that impact will be seen in the gross margins?

That's actually two questions. First on the margin expansion that we see on Q4, I think there's one element of source mix that also plays there with the accounting.

I think we also are very happy that we see that the work that we are doing on premiumization, that while we made some conscious choices on MBI, we also see still improvements in the efficiency of our operations, of our procurement, that really helps support the sustained and long-term growth of our gross margins, including the capability. The hard work that we've been doing on pricing, if we see that especially the width of the pricing that we've been able to get over the past 12 months, and that we're also anticipating as part of the mitigation for the time to come, is a proof point that we're really taking up the role as leading the category, and taking up the conversations with the regulators that no category can survive without pricing.

All of that is resulting into a healthy margin expansion that we see, and that we are really going after to sustain it as part of a winning strategy. For the outlook, like Vivek mentioned earlier, that cost pressure will have an impact on our materials, either direct or indirect, which will lead to an increased cost of production.

We do see that with the pricing that we've been able to capture, and that will start hitting our P&L in April and onwards, we further identified, and states like Telangana and others that are significant in volume, if we succeed in pricing, it will have definitely an impact, even if the in-state profitability may still remain marginal given the size. On the total margin development, it will have a big impact.

In that sense, we closely monitor. Like Vivek mentioned, we need to make the right choices, first for the consumer to be able to supply, second in some cases the hard choices if business turns out not to be feasible, also to protect our long-term margin.

While we first and foremost remain a growth company, we of course take a look at the margin. With the current outlook that we use, we don't see too big of a drop on margins, especially taking into account the growth that we've seen so far.

We keep a close eye on it. The bottom-line impact in absolutes is currently our bigger concern.

Got it. That's helpful.

Thank you so much.

Hello, thanks for the opportunity. One question is regarding the capex announcements in UP and the other two bottling projects.

When are they expected to come online? What is the level of cost savings that we should expect from these capex coming on through?

I think UP, as we said, the civil work has started. We expect our brewery to start by end of next year, sometime before end of next year.

I think the two can lines we expect to inaugurate before end of July this year. Depending on monsoons or some other factors which come in.

The work is going on full speed. I think it is going to provide first growth opportunity and growth potential, because Telangana, for example, because of the economics, we have not been selling our cans.

I think we have almost less than 2% market share on a segment which is growing. This will definitely step up, because consumers are looking forward to our brands in the cans when we go to the market, and so it will definitely have a competitive impact.

We have also made capex investment on coolers. This year, we are deploying further 16,000 coolers, and we are also seeing that is also helping in consumption of the brands to really do that.

I think it will have an impact on growth, but it will also have an impact on localization of some of the imports we do will become local, and will, of course, in a competitive context, some of it we will absolutely invest back because in some of the markets, it will take some time also to build this back.

Thank you. Sir, just clarification to this is that, our 200 crores of savings that you've been talking about does not include any potential savings from the new capex?

No,

no. Because

it is fully on, and of course, we continuously work on how can we make the investments more efficient, but that is nothing to do with this, because that is absolutely operating expenses, extra pricing, efficiency in the spends, ROI, people productivity, all every single thing.

Yeah. Of course, as part of that plan, we're taking a close look at our total investment plan, and we do make some choices in smaller investments that we postpone in order to push back on the depreciation as well as prevent the cash going out, but not for these large growth-oriented investments.

We continue to go full throttle on these, because we believe that that is what's needed in order to lead the category growth.

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

Hi. Thanks for taking the follow-up.

Just one question on where we've ended the year in terms of premium mix in volume and value, if you could just give us that number. That's it from me.

The last year, the premium volume growth was 21% for UBL, and we grew market share in premium with 21% volume growth. Our premium mix in our portfolio is still less than 10%, it's a 100 basis point improvement in our salience to really bring together.

The encouraging part is despite all the challenges in the category, we ended up with a 21% growth. The most important thing is we were able to localize most of our premium portfolio, Harit, and that is also reflecting in our gross margins, because there are eight locations where we are now locally producing, which is translating into gross margins, which I also mentioned in the last call that you will start seeing the impact.

Got it. This number that you mentioned is on the premium mix is just sub 10% is volume?

Volume hit up 21%. We are talking volume here.

From a value point of view, I don't have the exact number, because it varies by state on revenues.

Perfect. Thanks a lot.

Thanks for the opportunity again. Sir, wanted to understand as to has the category seen any tailwinds from Maharashtra after the IMFL price increases there?

Given that you've done a lot of initiatives in Maharashtra over last 18 months, is there any tailwinds which is still leftover in terms of benefit over the next 12 to 18 months?

I think Maharashtra the category is growing upward of 20%, and our business is going upward of 20% as well. I do think this will continue.

I think it's a structural change which will continue to expand the category, and we know there's a lot of investments are coming in Maharashtra both on innovation and the category. We are also seeing economy segment in Maharashtra expanding.

We saw that in Karnataka that when economy segment expands, a lot of consumers, they switch their choices from low-end spirits to beer, and especially with this, we see that trend going in Maharashtra. I still think the opportunity in Maharashtra is huge.

The way we are looking at Maharashtra is every district as a country now, we have gone to the next level. We see a lot of category growth opportunity within Maharashtra with the same policy regime in large number of districts versus if you take out Mumbai, Thane, and all.

I think Maharashtra will be a growth pillar unless some dramatic shift happens in the policy over the next couple of years.

Right, sir. Thank you.

Thanks. Two quick questions.

Vivek, last two years, you have done a lot of new launches, innovations. Which ones are you most happy and where are their learnings?

London Pilsner and Heineken Silver, etc. Related question, which other markets you want to now locally manufacture Heineken Silver or any other part of the portfolio in the next two years, any plans you can share?

No, I think the most excited we are is about Heineken Silver first. I think Heineken Silver is not only expanding the category, but it is actually delighting the consumer.

It is a 100% malt beer to do that. We have seen a significant growth.

We had a bump up because Karnataka, we were not able to produce locally, but now that thing is over as well. We are actually able to produce.

We are going to expand Heineken capacity into more places in the next two years, since you asked, and maybe more. UP, as I mentioned, in a greenfield brewery, it will be world-class brewery with Heineken's facility, and that will serve the north trade.

We will also have a location in east where we are already started working, and hopefully by next year, we will have the Heineken facility ready in east as well. We're also looking at global Heineken network to see from a sourcing point of view, but we are very, very excited on Heineken potential.

Our recent innovation on Kingfisher Smooth is off to a great start in Rajasthan. The repeat rates are fantastic.

It's a great brew. We know in this category, it takes time for trials to build in, but we are very excited about it.

The work we have done on our draught beers is Ultra Max now, and even in Ultra. The recent repackaging and relaunch of the brand is doing very well.

The big learning is that it takes time to build innovations, we cannot measure innovation like in FMCG, okay, just build the distribution, it will come, because it takes time to create awareness, especially in a dark market. Second, we need to be on trend and ahead of trend versus me-too innovation.

Third, we need to make sure that we actually have our supply chain who can deliver consistency, because in beer, giving consistent supplies on innovation, especially when you operate large-scale breweries, you need lower MOQs and all are the learning which is there.

Thanks. Vivek, one last question on your remark on craft beer.

You have also been launching and the larger players also. My question was more on competition from some of the local craft beer like, I don't know if you have had a deep study of Doolally, for example.

Doolally, what we heard from lot of customers, very premium beer, but the taste, etc., of that guava, mango, etc., very differentiated, and lot of fan following. Do you have a product which can compete with these kind of products or it's too niche and as of now too premium, doesn't make sense?

No, I think flavors is one of the platforms in the innovation. There are different platforms.

You are talking about flavors. We launched Kingfisher Flavors in Goa and in Daman, and we had a very good learnings and response on product stability, consumer preferences to do that.

As I said, we have a huge pipeline of innovations. It is a combination of what we want to do and what we want to expand.

As a management team, we have decided to do fewer innovations, and very focused, and first win in few states and then expand it when we have the right insight, learning to do that. We consistently work with the local players to understand the new trends and how we partner with them.

I'm done.

Hi. Thanks a lot for taking my question.

My first question pertains to this sort of dependency is reducing in our own breweries. This is a one-time sort of action in Q4, going forward the supplies from own breweries will be normalized.

Is that a correct assessment?

Yes, yes. I think there will be an impact of our contract breweries, because in some cases, those states are growing faster where we have contract breweries.

One good example is Jharkhand, where the category has almost doubled since September, October because of the new policy of privatization of retail, and we don't have a brewery. There will be an impact of the mix where we don't have the breweries, but hopefully with some of the other changes which we expect in some of the other states where we have our own breweries, that will balance out.

If you keep those factors aside, there is no reason for us not to utilize our breweries fully.

Sure, thanks. Second question pertains to I guess some of the disclosures have been reduced, like your segment performance result, and second like a regional growth trend.

I would be particularly keen to have a data on the regional trend, which you have been highlighting for the past few quarters.

I think we thought there were many other questions in mind of people this time. We can always share the data later on.

It was not intentional to remove it. It was just that we added few slides on the war impact, and we said, maybe let's keep the macro picture and all, but if you're interested, we can share that part.

It's a good feedback. It was not a deliberate not to share.

It was more to simplify the presentation, let's call it that way.

No, thanks, everyone, for joining and your participation. I think results are below expectation, and we understand that.

Again, as I said, for us, we are in this game for long run. We want to play the role of category maker.

The category trend is positive. The effort is really paying off, and we need to do more effort on the policy front.

I think at the same time, I think it is a difficult time for the category. However, I think we're very committed to the category growth, we are very committed to brand building, we're very committed to run a very efficient organization, and we are very committed to be very transparent with you so that you can also understand what is coming.

For the first time, probably we are giving exact numbers in form of some guidance on the impact, and that was also a deliberate call so that you understand the magnitude of the impact. Because sometimes in other FMCG companies who are not regulated on pricing, they can mitigate the impact.

For us, there is always a lag between that, but having said that, as a UBL, we are fully prepared for the growth challenge. We are going to be aggressive, but choiceful, and we will continue to work on the structural improvement on our business.

Thanks, everyone.