Hello. Can you hear us? Hello. Good afternoon, everybody. Hi.
Good afternoon. I can hear you.
Oh, very good. Thank you. Okay. Welcome everybody. I think we are just about on time, 3:00 P.M., 3:01 P.M. I'm sure whoever has to join is here already, so welcome again to our Q1 2022 call. Thank you everybody for joining us today. My name is Vivek, CEO of Mega Lifesciences, Vivek Dhawan. I have along with me Mr. Manoj Gurbuxani, our head, Deputy CFO, and he's also part of the investor relations. He'll be taking you through our financial performance. I have Francis Rego, our Vice President, Finance. He's also with me here in the room. Thomas is not here, but he's also on the call. We are all here to answer your questions and take you through our performance for 2022 Q1. Before...
Without wasting any time further, I will hand it over to Manoj, and Manoj will now take you through the financial performance. After that, I'll speak to you for a few minutes, then we'll open the floor for questions. Thank you, everybody. Over to you, Manoj.
Thank you. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, everyone. I am Manoj Gurbuxani from Mega Lifesciences. A warm welcome to everyone for the Q1, 2022 earnings call. I'll give you a brief synopsis of the financial performance of Q1 2022. Our overall revenue has been at THB 3,820 million for Q1 , 2022, reflecting a growth of 16.8%. The branded business grew at 32.6%. All the regions performed well. Southeast Asia contributed to the maximum for branded business. Overall, for branded business, the sales has been at THB 1,955.4 million on 1Q 2022, reflecting growth of 32.6%.
In terms of revenue mix between branded business and distribution business, branded business contributed to 51% of the overall revenue as against 45% in Q1 2021. The distribution business contributed 46.8% to the overall revenue as against 53.4% in Q1 . Overall, the distribution business in Q1 grew at 2.3%. In terms of Southeast Asia and Indochina contributing to the overall revenue, 86.4% of the business came from Southeast Asia and 76.9% came from Indochina.
In terms of gross margins, our gross margins have been at 44.8% of the operating revenue for Q1 2022, as against 38.4% in Q1 , 2021. The relatively higher gross margin is because of the branded business contribution higher to the overall revenue, and which has resulted in a favorable segment mix and better gross margins from the branded business. Branded business overall gross margin has been at 69% in Q1 , 2022, as against 64% in Q1 , 2021. The overall gross margins of Mega WeCare business is influenced by revenue growth, by product mix, by country mix, and the level of output among other factors.
To a limited extent, the improvement in gross margins in Q1 2022 is also because of the depreciation of Thai baht against U.S. dollar. The Maxxcare business gross margins has been at 18.8% as compared to 16.8% last year. The net margins of Maxxcare business have been at 55.1% as against 51% last year. The gross margins of Maxxcare business are again influenced by the product mix and service mix among other factors. Similar to the branded business, there has been a slight improvement in the gross margins of Maxxcare business, which is driven by depreciation of Thai baht to U.S. dollar.
The overall SG&A has remained steady at 25.9% of the operating revenue in Q1 , 2022, as against 25.5% in Q1 , 2021. The reported net profits have been at THB 613 million, reflecting a growth of 84.2%. Adjusted net profits, which are adjustments towards Forex losses of new businesses which are investments in the future, and the significant non-material one-time income and expenses. Our adjusted net profits have been at THB 635 million, reflecting a growth of 72.6%. Overall, the
Overall the profits have increased primarily because of the growth in the revenue of branded business and better segmental gross margins, which resulted in higher gross profits and higher net profits for Q1 2022. We have spent around THB 130 million towards CapEx, which is majority coming from our spending towards consolidation of manufacturing operations and capacity expansion in Thailand. Overall, we plan to launch as per plan 23 unique formulations in FY 2022. 12 of them coming from Nutra and 11 of them coming from prescription pharmaceuticals. With this, I would request Mr. Vivek to take us through the year 2022 and ahead.
Thanks, Manoj. I hope you have got a flavor. You've already seen our MD&A, and you have most of the information you need. I'm sure you're looking at a couple of things. Number one, Myanmar situation. Yeah, Myanmar is in difficult situation. I'm sure they're also struggling with currency and things are gonna get difficult in terms of imports and availability of foreign currency. But the good thing is, as we have mentioned, we are in the pharma business, and a large part of our profitability and a large part of our business comes from medicines. We hope that this will not be impacted as severely, and we should continue to deliver at least if not equal to what we did last year out of Myanmar.
The growth that we had planned and things that we have planned for Myanmar is going to be difficult, especially in the distribution business, but let's wait and watch. We are still there, and we plan to remain there, and we keep our foot in Myanmar, stay fixed there because we have a long-term plan. We have a double in five years plan in 2025, so that will still continue. That's the story behind Myanmar. The other story that's emerging is Ukraine. Yes, there is war on, but the war is now largely in the Donbas area. I think Kyiv and the other areas are now more open and things have started to move around, Lviv and all, where we also have some storage and warehouse. We are looking at moving stocks to move to Poland and all that.
We are doing some businesses starting to move on in again. Pharmacies are open, and we are supplying medicines. We are importing medicines. We do hope to continue doing pharma business in Ukraine. For us, it's largely pharmaceutical there. Though there will be some impact, but I think in the overall scenario, looking at the percentage of business that Ukraine contributes and the bottom line, it'll be very nominal. Even if there is an impact. I mean, Sri Lanka has some impact as well. That was also contributing, but there is a problem, but we work on LCs in there. Hopefully, if some IMF and other things improve, we should see some improvements in Sri Lanka. These are two, three markets of concern.
Having said that, being in the medicine business, things don't look that bad. A lot of our other markets are performing far better than planned, especially Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and all our other markets are doing well and compensating for some of the minor impacts that we have from these three markets. Other than that, what about going forward? We still believe and we maintain our guidance of doubling our business in 2025 compared to 2019. We hope to get to that THB 2.5 billion mark in bottom line. We are very close there already, but that's the past that is COVID-related. Though we have a very good quarter, we still think that we want to wait and see how things look like in the ongoing quarters.
It's just not a one-time COVID impact because COVID is still there and people are still dosing products which are related to immunity and keeping themselves safe from COVID. At the same time, having said that, a lot of our products, not only the hospital business, has come back and there's more footfall. There's a growth in the pure, what we call the pharmaceutical healthcare, pure prescription business has gone up. Across the range is not only vitamin C, vitamin D that we talk about as growing. A lot of other products that are not related to immunity have also shown good growth.
I think generally wellness, wellbeing, and people are looking up and looking at other health areas, herbal medicine, and the whole range that Mega has, probiotics, medical nutrition, herbal medicine, all of them are seeing an improvement in sales. Though the COVID-related immunity products have also grown. Whatever impact that happens, we believe they will reach a new high and probably stay there. That's the story behind our branded business. With that in mind, we still think high single digits around that single-digit growth is possible. We were looking at a flat year 2022, but in that mid to high single-digit growth is potentially possible. That's what we are seeing based on the Q1 results.
We'll keep updating you every quarter how things go along and so that you have a real picture and real feel of what's actually happening on the ground. That's the story of what's going on forward. Manoj just mentioned we plan to launch 23 new products in 2022. We have 39 new products being launched over the period of 2021 and 2022. That should probably also help in our momentum in growth. We have a strong pipeline of 176 new products under development. This should also help us in the next five years and going forward to grow our businesses in all areas.
I mean, a lot of them are in pure pharmaceuticals, but as well as foods and food-related plant-based foods and products in the plant-based area, which are also supplements and other products for adults, for mothers, for children, for adult nutrition and over-the-counter drugs. New dosage forms in drinks and liquid formats and sachet formats are also expected to come out in the years to come. New initiatives you have heard, I think in the past, that we have started the ESG initiative, though we practiced this for a very, very long time. We have not announced a lot of things that we do, but we've always had solar, we've always had what do you call? Variable motors, LED lighting, water treatment facilities and reusing water, et cetera. Including single-use plastic.
We use completely recyclable plastic in the company. Most of our packaging, only PP. They're not multi-layered plastic that we use. The kind of work we are doing in every area to bring down reusability and working with sustainable ingredients. That is something we do. We have a very good record with employees and management and teams which have been with us for a long time. We have a very good mix of men to women ratios. In terms of religion, caste, size, color, we have no discrimination policies across the world. We work in many, many developing countries. I think we are already up there, and now we are putting that into a well-documented process so that we can not only do that, but make it a habit in the company.
It's not about getting qualified or getting a certificate, but also doing it regularly across the board in all the three areas, environmental, sustainability and governance. That's also put in. The ball started to roll, and hopefully we are very confident that by the end of this year, early next year, we should have the basic approvals and get ourselves certified. In terms of CapEx, I think Manoj already said we do about $2-3 million in regular maintenance work, and we have approximate THB 37 million approved in projects during 2022-2023, right? That's largely towards Thailand. We are rebuilding the facility. We had an old plant. It's in progress. We are hopeful later by Q4 , we should be ready.
The new plant that we are building, including some new additional liquid lines and some other areas, we are trying to get into packaging improvement and debottlenecking the plant so we can do more. We're putting up lines that can increase capacity for both softgels and other formats, tablets, OSD facility as well. That's working properly. Indonesia, we also are going to start building an additional area and to move 1 or 2 of our softgel lines there as well. 'Cause we've just started hoping to get our registrations for softgels. We have about three or four years before we have to start. It takes about three years to build, install, and then we'll start local manufacturing. That's the plan. We are working towards also starting that work in Indonesia. That's our.
In terms of things, new initiatives that we are working on. With COVID, I think a lot of concerns will remain what happens when COVID is endemic and people are not as concerned. I think that's happening already in most places. I think people are getting normal, getting used to it.
Over two years, they've been consuming some supplements, and fortunately, Mega being their choice partner, being a credible partner in this area, in the countries where we are and having done it for the last 30 years, there has been. It's been good for us that people use our products, and they have built a relationship with us. We believe that this will continue, and they will not only. The vitamin C and Ds, which have reason to continue and carry on, not only for COVID, but for other reasons as well.
We hope a lot of these things will become a regular part of our business and maybe also flow over to other products that we do from cold and cough, Eugica, to gut health, to pain management, where we have very phenomenal and fantastic products in the market. A lot of things we had difficulty trying to educate, we probably will be able to do a lot more with our consumers. That's likely. Probably that's about it. I think other than that, we have talked about every area, Myanmar, Ukraine, Sri Lanka. We've talked about our plans in the new capital CapEx that we are doing. COVID and impact on our business, new product pipeline. Our new businesses that we started.
I mean, I'm sure you'll be interested to know, sometime people have want to know what proportion, How does our business break up come up in the brand business, which is, Manoj just explained that our brand businesses, they would come about 50, 51%, 51-point-something percent this year. This quarter, sorry. So it's grown, and that's the real reason why our profitability has shown great improvements. A, growth of that, B, because of some dollar to baht rate, which has also shown some proportional gains on our end, 3.54% approximately. The other also comes from capacity utilization. When we produce more, our overheads are remains the same, and so we see better margins coming through the whole value chain.
Those all things put together improve our results. If the branded business grows, I think we see better results. This is an example of what's possible. In spite of that, also some of the cost structures have not grown as much, and maybe spending also hasn't grown as much in the Q1. Sometimes in the good days, it would be on advertising on TV, et cetera, in the Q1 , but this quarter maybe it's a little bit lower. Our gross margins have remained. SG&A has also remained between 20 steady 26 point.
25.8.
25.8, sorry, below. Generally it's between 26% and 27%. It's more towards the 27%. A percentage point here and there as well because of SG&A. All these are adding to improved margins, improved profitability. Africa, yeah, we do not share that information in detail, but yes, Africa is also doing well, growing. All markets in Africa are growing, and we still continue to believe and invest in Africa. That's our next future. In the next five years' time, we see that should also become a sizable 20%-30% contributor to our overall growth. Not that Southeast Asia is still the largest and will remain the largest as long as we are in this business. Indonesia, after we took over the plant, we have now got a few registrations.
We have put a lot of products. I can't remember the exact breakup of how many we've done. There are 20-30 products with new drug registrations going on in Indonesia, and some have already started to get approvals. We should be launching them soon in the coming few years. As per plan, 2030, we are looking at about $50 million. We think we should get there, and we are moving in the right direction. In Indonesia, we should also hopefully probably launch Gofen in Indonesia also sometime in Q2 , 2023, if approvals and all come through. CBD, everybody has a question, what's Mega doing with CBD? We are still at that same situation.
We have supply sources now that our partners are all now who are growing and extracting. There are a few plants in Thailand who are doing it. We are working with some of them, and we hope to have the ingredients available to do trial runs. Meanwhile, we are working with the Thai FDA in terms of approval pathways. If things go very well, let's assume by the first or Q2 2023, we should have some products in the Thai market. High-quality CBD products made with special technology, which improves availability and probably has some benefits on human health. We should be looking at launching them. We also launched Fah-Talai-Jone in Thailand, our brand Viruno 60, and that's also been very, very successful.
It's a three capsules a day product we launched in the Thai market. That's also done well. We're looking at also registering that across many of our other markets as we go along. That's the Fah-Talai-Jone brand name, Viruno 60, that's in the market. Our overall contribution, generally our Nutra business is about the 62%-65% prescription drug, about 28%-32%, and OTC over-the-counter drug like Gofen, 8%-10%. This quarter is somewhere there in that range. They're not very far away, that's the general range at the moment. That's the ratio. It hasn't changed very much, I think, going forward. Maybe in the next few years, by 2025, the prescription drug business ratio could be slightly higher than what it is.
It could be moving up anywhere between 35%, I think with the plans that we have in place. The prescription business as at overall will probably become slightly bigger in the years to come. Other than that, Natural Health Foods, Baby Natura, Dr. Drink, we have all consolidated under one company called Natural Health Foods. Now it's part of our whole branded strategy. It's called Natural WeCare. Like we have in Mega, we have prescription, we have consumer health. This is natural healthcare, so all-natural products, plant-based products, no additives, vegan-related products, and coming from plant origin, all-natural, are going to come under this. This is going to be marketed online, offline, and including in shops. Now we are building a portfolio and working towards it. The business is growing. We have just launched it in Cambodia.
We have just started to launch in Vietnam. Myanmar, due to restrictions, we are going to delay. I think we are adding this to our portfolio. In many markets we are, and slowly you will see this also become one part of our product range. That's the Natural WeCare or Natural Health Food category. Baby Natura, Mom Natura, Dr. Drink, et cetera, products that come under Natural Health Foods. Wellness WeCare, that's our social enterprise, and that's something that we are very proud of, and we are doing a lot of work there with Dr. Sun and his team there. We've got two doctors. We've got traditional medicine doctors there. We've got a WeCare Clinic, and we should also be able to prescribe CBD and herbal medicine there.
We have an Ayurveda massage and physiotherapy training center, a great kitchen, the WeCare Kitchen, where we teach people how to cook and eat. Actually, we help people to reverse and prevent disease. It's not only about pills. It's helping people along their journey, whether they have heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure, joint pain, back pain, all kinds of other gut health. They come there, they learn and maybe do some lifestyle modifications, not only with pills. We also have the medicines that we sell, but also connecting with the consumer in their journey towards good health. Other than that, one of the most other important initiative is Good Health by Yourself. We are doing that for our employees across the world, 6,000 people.
Starting at home, we are running a program for a long time now, three, four years now. We are doing more to improve our own employee health. There's a lot of data around the world you will find that shows that employee health not only results in better performance, better outcomes, less absenteeism, et cetera, good health. Beyond that, they remain healthier. Forget the savings the company probably makes on insurance and their absenteeism, but I think the real outcome is their own good health and the time they spend on medical treatments and looking after their families, as they are not a burden to the society or to the government. That's something that we honestly believe, and we spend.
We have a wellness, what we call the Wellness WeCare Foundation, which actually spends about 2.5% of our income on social initiatives and help that we can do across countries where we work. This is part of that plan. It's a social enterprise, and we are proud to add and do a lot more things in this area. The other area that we are still working on, health at home. We mentioned to you before the digital transformation, our WeCare app. We have developed. A lot of work is going on in that area. We are testing some.
Beta testing is going on in certain areas in diabetes, working with HCPs and patients and onboarding them, so they can keep record, track, and consult with their doctors across the whole value chain. It's not an independent standalone app where we're trying to make money. We are offering it to people for improving their lives, helping the doctors in their patient relationships. Mega being a part of their whole journey is also participating in their wellness program. That's the idea. That's also work going on, is work in progress. So far, April is doing all right. I mean, there's nothing to complain about. We have still done well. I can't give you any more details on how well we have done, so it's not shown yet signs of slowing down.
Things are all right, and we still see that Q2 should be still good. We don't know much about three and four yet, but Q2 should all be still fine. That's all from my side. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm open, we are all open to your questions. Please tell us your name, your organization, and the question clearly, so we will try and reply. In case we can't, we'll do our best to get back to you. Thank you very much. Open to you.
Good afternoon, Khun Vivek and Khun Manoj . My name is Yuani. I'm from Maybank.
Yes.
Please, let me congratulate you for the excellent results.
Thank you.
I have quite a few questions, four or five, if I may. First one is your guidance is that is single-digit growth for this year. Am I reading this correctly? Is this the overall growth, or do you have the breakdown into branded and distribution?
Yes. We still think the distribution business is not gonna see much growth. It'll probably remain flattish anyway because of issues in Myanmar and that being our largest market. We don't see that really growing. Before we used to have, 10, 20% growth with consumer businesses, and that's not going to happen. Flat or a little bit lower, 2, 3% in that range, but bottom line should be fine. The real growth will come from branded business. Now, you take 50%, even if it grows a little bit higher, you still we still think, and it's probably taper down in second or Q3 . We believe that single digit, 5%-10%, higher single digit is a good aim. Looks like that. We have to wait and see.
That's our guidance based on some reasoning behind it, that if that doesn't grow and remains flat or goes down 2-3% the other side, but here the other businesses grow even in double-digit, you still average out at a higher single-digit. That's what we think. Again, we could be proven wrong, but let's hope that's true. We think getting to that high single-digit is a very good possibility.
Let me be more specific. If you say high single digit overall growth and your distribution is flat, it means that the branded probably grows in the region of 20%. Is that correct?
Well, you can use your imagination. I won't put words in your mouth. I think high single, it could be 5 also, it could be 10. 5 and above, right? 5%-10%. If you grow 10%, then yeah, then the brand has to grow 20.
Okay.
If it's 50, if it's 50/50, then it has to grow. Yeah, your mathematics is right. If it grows only 10, then the brand has to grow by 10 only if you grow 5. Let's see. We are in that range. I'm not very good at forecasting. I don't have a crystal ball. Looking at the market and looking at the scenario, and if some of those things that are growing very high today in the second, Q3 drops, then there'll be some correction. We have to wait and see. Though I don't think we'll ever come back to the same level as 2019, it is going to be a higher level, but it won't be at the peak that it is now.
If that also happens in the second, third, Q4 , then overall probably the total growth could be a little bit lower. We had already said we'll be flattish, maybe in the range of 2%-3%. Now based on this quarter's performance, we are saying higher, 5%-10%. Let's have a look and see how things go in the next quarter.
Q2 to date, what kind of growth do you see for both branded and distribution?
I can't. I'm sorry, I can't disclose that at the moment. It's only one month. Apologies. Sorry. I'm not in a position to say that, but I only told you that we are still doing well. We believe there is still growth. Things are still going well. That's all I can tell you. It's not a bad sign in the first month or so.
Okay. Next question on Thai baht depreciation.
Yeah.
If you, let's say if you take out that effect, the top line in the Q1 could have grown, what? Less than-
I don't know. I think what we have said is that there's a 4% impact on the bottom line.
I think.
Sorry, 4%?
4% impact on the bottom line.
Okay.
Thomas. Sorry, go ahead, Thomas. Yeah, go ahead.
Maybe I can take that. Yeah. On different businesses, impact is different. When it comes to brands, we think the revenue growth would have been lower by 8%. We have grown some 30-33, so it would have come to some 26%. On the distribution business, there is a Forex impact, but last year, Q3 , there was some one-time business we did. The last year's that one-time business we adjust. Including the Forex impact, I think we were flat. Same 8% impact on distribution business as well. It's on the top line. On the gross margins, I think there's an impact of 2.5%. See, this is again, we are in 35 countries dealing with 35 different currencies, and there are a lot of cross movements happening with every currency.
This is not exact science. This is a guesstimation that we are doing. Approximately 2.55% to the gross margin. That's a summary of what you're looking for, I hope.
Okay. Next question is Myanmar. Do you think we sort of see flattish sales, but it kind of dipped in the Q4 , I believe. Do you think we have passed the bottom in Myanmar?
Very hard to predict, my lady. The Q1 was still good. Branded business, pharmaceutical business is still good. Our products, as I mentioned, many times before, the product that we do, product we distribute are 30 years old in the country, so they are well-known, well-established. The consumer we reach out to, out of the 56, 55 million people is probably 2, 3 million people in the country. That's our consumer subset. Our hope is that a lot of our business will stay. Nothing should happen as long as we can get products into the country. As long as that doesn't change very much, if regulations and requirements don't change very much, we should continue to do business. Pharmaceutical should grow. Also grow, not only stay flat, should also show some growth.
Consumer businesses, if there are restrictions, I mean, the brands we have, if they can get stocks in and things like that, they should also probably grow. If there are restrictions, then it could be a little bit more difficult. It's a very flexible situation, but as I've mentioned that we do hope that in Myanmar, we believe that we should still deliver on the bottom line, but top-line growth may be flattish. That's our view on Myanmar.
Okay. Next question. In the Q1 in the branded business, was the growth broad-based, or did you see, more growth in any particular country?
Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, very good growth. Most countries, Philippines, we had good growth. They're all, plus or minus a few percent here and there. Some are a little bit higher, some are a little bit lower, but a lot of it's across the board. It's quite largely across the board, and Thailand's a very good performer, definitely. So is Vietnam, and so is Myanmar also in the branded business, did well. Not bad. They also did very well. Malaysia did very well as well. Philippines did very well. A lot of markets. I think it's across the board. Very few markets haven't done well. Ukraine you can discount out. You can take out Sri Lanka in terms of growth. They were doing very well last year, so that's a bit flattish. Other than that, most of our.
Africa has also done very well. Very well, yeah.
Okay. Last question. The hemp business, when will you start that?
I explained to you that hemp is not in my hand. We don't do growth, and we don't do extraction. There are two parts to the hemp CBD business. The extract that is made by companies who can make it to 0.2% THC, and they could provide us the, number one, the CBD distillate extraction oil, which is 0.2% THC at least. There are different forms for your knowledge, isolate and distillates. Isolates are pure CBD, and distillates are 60%, 35%, 50%, depends on. I think companies are getting ready. They are preparing, they are growing, and they are experimenting. Hopefully something in the next month or few months should be out in the market, and they should be able to stabilize their processes. That's part one. The part two is our part to make a product.
Once we have sample trials, we make a product. We have to have an approval from the Thai FDA to approve the finished product, and there are still some challenges in that area. Looking at all this, we are aiming, as I mentioned, Q1 , 2023. Any food registration or herbal registration, if they are in that category, still takes 6-9 months. Our hope is by the Q2 , 2023, we should see something in the market, if not earlier. That's the present hope.
Thank you.
Things change.
Yes.
We'll let you know. Thank you very much.
I have no more questions.
Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
This is Lena from DBS. Thank you for the presentation and congratulations as well on your great performance.
Thank you, Lena. Thank you.
I also have, like, a few questions. First question is, like, follow-up questions on sales. Not sure if you could please share more color on whether which product in particular did relatively well between, like, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and OTC in the Q1 , including which product, like Nat C, Nat B and stuff. Yes.
Very tough to answer this question. If I declare on this call every product, what they did in growth, it will be a very detailed business secret. I think there's growth I mentioned across the product range this time. It is not only one. Nat C has grown and Nat D has grown faster, and Viruno has grown faster. In countries where we sell vitamin, multivitamins have grown faster. There's a whole range. We've got a mega range. We have Eugica in Vietnam, which is a cold cough product, and we have a mouth spray, so that does well there. We have Vitacap in Myanmar. It does very well there. We have Nat D and Nat B and Nat C in Thailand, and that does well. We launched Viruno Sixty in Thailand.
That did very well, which is Flexigen. We have Nutrivita supplement. That did very well. I think there's a lot of products across the whole spectrum, right, which have done very well in the last three months. They were doing well before also, but they've just grown a lot more in this period. Other than the normal products also, when we say other, has Gofen grown? Yes, that's also grown. Has the pharmaceutical drugs also grown? There are a lot of drugs that we have, so there's not one single one that. We have diabetic drugs, and that depends on government tender, depends on suppliers as well. I think most of the business has grown, and some have grown more than the other, but most of the business has grown. It's across the board.
It's not only saying 3 product, Vitamin C has grown and become 10 times. No. It's a lot of products.
Okay. Thank you very much for your answer. Were there any, like, particular pent-up demand in the Q1, in your view?
Pent-up demand?
Yes. Like, yeah. From, like, lockdown and all, and COVID or anything. Just wondering.
I think there is COVID-related demand because COVID grew in the Q1 . I think Omicron went across and people had COVID. Number of COVID cases probably are the highest in this period now than compared to years before. Although it's not as severe, and though people are now used to it, they just stay home and quarantine and do self-isolation. There's a lot of things that have happened. Pharmacies give packs for COVID, governments dispensing packs from a number of items for people so they can stay home instead of giving Favipiravir and other drugs. I think people have used some COVID-related products, and there is an impact of that on it. At the same time, some is also habit. Some things they have also started to take regularly. They know that they.
This, there is still COVID around, and you better build your immunity. We also hope, as I mentioned behaviorally, when you do something for two years, you probably continue some of these behaviors. In some way, the wellness industry, the health industry, as human beings, as nature, if you have been through sickness, you have had COVID, you have experienced it, and you think that the another way, and I think this is very much, common knowledge, that being healthy helps you. It reduces the chances of having COVID and having severe disease. It's known. There are a lot of scientific evidence for that. I think there'll be some continuation. There'll be a new high. Some of it will come down, and probably you'll see that.
I mean, there's still COVID, so I think probably my feeling is that third and Q4 you will see some downward trend on some of the products, and some will remain higher than they were before. I mean, I'm not saying pre-COVID days. They'll come to a new high. That's why averaging out, we say 25, we should get to 25 with a very good likelihood that we will definitely get there.
Yes. Thank you. My last question is that, given your gross profit margin level was so high in the Q1 , do you think this can be maintained throughout the year, given continuous supply chain issues and rising energy price?
Will it be maintained? No, I think it won't be. I think there will be some reduction. My feeling is there will be some reduction in that. Not for other reasons also. I mean, it's just the mathematics also, right? If sales come down and you have other expenses will go up now, start to creep up, because some are also advertising, travel, other things will go up. It won't remain there. Right. It won't remain.
I think the gross margins of 69% of branded business, which is mostly raw material and input costs, it will really depend on the plant capacity utilization and the product mix. If we are able to maintain the momentum, it may continue. If the growth momentum comes down, which was like 26% normalized before, which if it comes down to that extent, it'll come down. What is sustainable in the long term is that, 63, 62%-65%. That is gross margins that we are comfortable with to sustain. If you look at our last 20 years, you can see that we have been maintaining that. Thank you.
Yep. Likelihood is gonna come down to that range. It is that 60%-65% range. This is what probably remains there now. Things are, you said, supply chain, shipping costs, prices going up. All these things are happening. It's obvious now with Ukraine, with commodity prices. We don't project 69%. It's happened. Generally we project 60%-65%, right?
Okay. Thank you very much, Khun Vivek, Khun Manoj-
Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
Hello. Hi. This is Patadon from Thanachart. May I please ask more about brand in Q1? In Q1 you made around THB 2 billion in brand, which is pretty high. Do you think if there were any specific reasons that caused such strong growth in brand? For example, have you seen any stocking activity, for example, because people back to hospital quite fast? Will there be any reasons that you don't think they will continue into Q2?
Personally, looking at the data that we have, we don't see stocking as a problem. I think there is the real demand. There is some information we have that we are also short in some areas because we didn't have enough stock in some areas. It's not stocking up. We haven't raised prices. We haven't given information that next quarter on prices will go up, so people buy and keep more. We have made no such guidance. It can't be because of price fears, availability fears. I think there is real demand, and there is movement of these certain products off the shelf. I don't think stocking is an issue wherever the products are moving. If that answers your question. It doesn't seem to be that way, and there is no reason for them to stock.
If there was a panic and shortage of stocks in the market, there could be. Fortunately, there is demand. We have stocks. We have had stocks. I'm hoping that the disruption is not too long. I mean, there are a lot of issues. You know, China. China lockdown, containers sitting in China, supplies are affected. Shipping freight lines, supplies are affected. Commodity prices, gas, wheat, sunflower oil, all these things out of Ukraine. A lot of these, another commodity price is going up. So yeah, there are issues. Having said that, if the supply chain moves and the products available, if the prices go up, and you have seen material costs in our business is about 27% in that range or even lower with more 20%, right? If it's working at full capacity, the plant.
The impact of pricing, this is also not very large, 1%-2%, and some of this is transferable to the clients as well, some of it. I mean, most people have raised prices. If you look around in most of the industries, it's being transferred to the consumer. As and when that happens, we are confident that we could also do some bits of it and increase prices in certain areas. Other than that, the key supply chain, as long as materials keeps coming and doesn't have blockages and issues, that's the big challenge I think we need to see. So far, we've had a good year. Last two and a half years, we've had good stock.
We've been able to supply products and having our own facilities, being able to manage production, supply, and adjust our requirements very quickly. That's also been good having the capacity available. Now we have to wait and see. So far we are managing. If something comes up and has a real disruption, we will let you know.
Yes, my next question is about the COVID cases. The cases started to come down in Q2, so do you think we can see some softening sales in brand over the next few months?
Yeah, I mentioned that already. I see. I think Q2 should be fine. Our feeling is Q2 still looks good, should be fine. Q3 , Q4 , that's why we are saying it's gonna come down. We are already telling you that it's gonna come down. That's why we are predicting between 5%-10%, single digits, above 5%-10% growth rates. Our expectation is that it's gonna come down. It won't come down to zero. We already had a base. The base is around, if you look at 2019 and 2020 and 2021 base, they've all gone up. Last year also we were up. It'll probably come out at a base and stay at a new level, right? It won't stay at the highest peak levels. It'll drop.
People who come in for short term, people who come in for to avoid the problem, but people who also eat, who are taking. As I say, there are types of customers we have. A, who consume regularly. B, who consume not so regularly. C don't consume. Now we have got non-regular consumers becoming more regular and new ones coming on board. Out of the new one, there'll be some drop out and some will stay. The more stay on because of the range and because the product that we have and the relationship we have and the Mega range of product for every area from cold, cough, allergy, pain, joint pain, eye health, brain health, heart health. We have the whole works, the gut health.
We probably will have relationships with the consumer and build that business there.
Yes, my last question is for Khun Thomas. I'm not sure if I got this right, but you already mentioned about the impact of the weak baht on the gross margins. In Q1, the weak baht helped the brand gross margin by 2%. I'm not sure if I got this right.
No, the gross overall combined gross margins had an impact of 2.5%. I think, you know, it is equally coming from both sides, branded and distribution.
Thank you. That's all.
That's why distribution also you saw an improvement in gross margins of 2% or something like that, so similar. Thank you. Before we go on to the next question, this is. We are getting into the last 10 minutes, and there are two questions on the chat that somebody has asked, Khun Kocharha. The first question is, will there be any upward revision on Mega's target of 2025-2027 target? So I don't think we are going to revise that as yet. When we cross that fence, then we will think about it. Next question, maybe you can take, Vivek. Lots of cash on balance sheet.
Yeah. I mean that's.
Plans of big capacity expansion behind the ones, besides the ones in MD&A.
Nothing yet. No revision. We have not done our new budgets. As I mentioned, we also believe that because what is COVID effect is only exception. On a longer-term basis, after correction and to do it consistently, and you have seen we have grown the business consistently and bottom line. In consistent terms, THB 2.5 billion still stands. If things change, we'll let you know. MD&A, yeah, we have cash on the bottom line, but we are not running around looking for acquisitions that don't make sense. They have to make sense, good sense. We bought Bio-Life, we bought Eugica. All of them have made sense so far. We bolted them on. We grew the business, and they have all done well for Mega. Now we are in the midst of doing what we are doing in Indonesia.
That's very important, so we are putting money there. Also, we are also spending money on a lot of new products, product development, including buying new products as well, licensing in a lot of products. There's a lot of plans in there. We have 176 products, and we're to get more. We are working a lot of these things that we are doing at the moment. Anyway, in the plant, when we invest and whatever else we need to do, we have enough, and more. We have a few more things to do in the plant here, looking at doing some expansion on solar area as well. There are some additional things we are doing. Preparing ourself for the next five, 10 years. We should have enough capacity. Then some new dosage forms we are also studying.
We haven't done work yet, but we are looking at new types of tablets and bilayered stuff. Those are not huge, a couple of $ million investment. They are not very huge. We are evaluating all these things on an ongoing basis. No M&A that's in on the book.
We haven't found anything that really fits into us so far. If something comes up, we will definitely. Largely, as I told you, we try and look at products area. We have bought some products in the past in Ethiopia, we bought it in Myanmar. If we get product portfolios or we get certain OTC brands, those are our key area that we're looking for. Not manufacturing, not extractions, not raw materials. No finished products in country. In one country where we have an operation, and we can add it along to our existing team.
There's nothing at the moment.
Okay. Time for a few questions. We got some 7, 8 minutes left.
Any more questions offline? Or offline if they come, whenever we can answer them. Anybody has more questions?
Yes. It's me again. I didn't quite catch your target for Futamed in Indonesia. Can you please?
2030, $50 million.
2030.
1030. 30. Today we are in 2022, eight years from now.
Okay.
To register, to expand $50 million. That's our internal target.
$50 million?
Yeah.
How much is it now?
For Indonesia to become a $50 million country between $40-$50-million-dollar country by eight years. That's our plan.
How much is it now? I'm sorry.
About $57 million, I think.
THB 7 million-THB 8 million.
About $7 million. $6-$7 million.
THB 6 million-THB 7 million.
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you.
If there are no more questions, maybe we can wind down.
Yep. If there are no further questions, we wish to thank you all for being with us, supporting us and believing in us. We are continuing our journey on that path to build great brands, love marks, build products with a purpose, helping people to stay healthy as long as they live. We are doing a lot of work in relating and working with the consumer, and we hope our business will be not only benefit, will be loved, and actually people will continue to use and consume our products from Mega We care. That's the future and we are confident that we'll get there. Thank you once again. Have a good day, and we hope to see you again next quarter. Till we meet again, all the best. Thank you.
สวัสดีครับทุกท่านครับ. สวัสดีครับคุณวิเวก. I'm calling off.