Hello, good afternoon, and a warm welcome to all of you on behalf of Mega Lifesciences. For today's call, we have with us here our CEO, Mr. Vivek Dhawan.
[Foreign language] Vivek, I'm Vivek here, joining from our office. Thank you.
We have our CFO, Mr. Thomas Abraham.
Hello.
Deputy CFO, Mr. Manoj.
Hi everyone.
Our Company Secretary, Mr. Sujintana, and myself, Francis Rego. We'll be starting today's call with a brief introduction and synopsis of financial performance for 1H 2024 and 2Q 2024, followed by remarks from the CEO on the financial performance. Then we'll open the forum for Q&A. While asking questions, we request you to mention your name and the name of the institutions that you represent. Starting first with 1H 2024 financial performance. Overall revenue in 1H 2024 was at about THB 7.7 billion, flat on a Y-o-Y basis. Mega We care , Pharma, and OTC business continued to show healthy growth. Maxxcare Pharma business continued to show growth, while Maxxcare consumer business revenue in Myanmar declined, as we had guided earlier. Brands revenue in 1H 2024 was about THB 4 billion, reflecting a growth of 2.5% on a Y-o-Y basis.
Mega We Care , Pharma, and OTC business continued to show healthy growth, while there was some sluggishness in Utah business, primarily on account of COVID-friendly products. Distribution business revenue in 1H 2024 declined by 8% on an adjusted basis. The adjustments were made for dual currency effect in Myanmar. Maxxcare Pharma business continued to show growth as guided. The decline in Maxxcare revenue is fully attributable to the decline of consumer business in Myanmar, which has a very limited impact on profitability as guided. Overall gross profits in 1H 2024 improved to 47.7% of operating revenue, as compared to 44.7% in 1H 2023, mainly due to change in segmental mix. Branded business gross margins remained stable at a healthy level of 65.2% in 1H 2024, which was quite similar to 1H 2023 gross margins. Distribution business gross margins improved to 25% on an adjusted basis in 1H 2024, as against 23.1% in FY 2023.
Gross margins of distribution business are influenced by principal mix amongst other factors. SG&A expenses in 1H 2024 were higher due to planned spending, representing 28.7% of operating revenue, as compared to 26.8% of revenue in 1H 2023. We expect SG&A to normalize very well. Reported net profits in 1H 2024 were about THB 991 million, as against THB 984 million in 1H 2023, flat on a Y-o-Y basis. The improved gross margins in 1H 2024 were offset by increased planned SG&A, which resulted in flat reported net profits. Adjusted net profits in 1H 2024 were about THB 1.051 billion, as against about THB 1.1 billion in 1H 2023. Adjusted net profits declined by 11% Y-o-Y, mainly due to the impact of forex loss in Nigeria on account of depreciation of Nigerian Naira against the U.S. dollar in 1H 2023. Operating cash flows in 1H 2024 were healthy at about THB 1.6 billion, representing 162% of net profits. We continue to be a net cash company with a strong balance sheet.
On the CapEx front, we have spent about THB 99.7 million towards CapEx in 1H 2024. Majority of the spending was towards maintenance CapEx and capacity expansion for manufacturing operations in Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia, as per the plan. Going forward for CapEx plan, besides the regular improvement and maintenance CapEx, which is incurred every year in the range of $3 million-$4 million, we have planned an amount of THB 420 million to be spent towards the ESG project, which accounts for around THB 20 million, and that is for the ESG in the manufacturing operations. Another THB 400 million is expected to be spent towards adding new dosage forms, warehouse, and plant upgradation in the newly acquired Indonesian manufacturing plant.
Moving forward towards second quarter 2024 performance, overall revenue in 2Q 2024 was at about THB 3.95 billion, flat on a Y-o-Y basis. Mega We Care Pharma and OTC business continued to show healthy growth in second quarter as well. Maxxcare Pharma business continued to show growth, while Maxxcare consumer business revenue in Myanmar declined, as we had guided earlier. Brands revenue in 2Q 2024 was about THB 2.14 billion, reflecting a growth of 6% on a Y-o-Y basis. Both Mega We Care Pharma and OTC business continued to show healthy growth, while the Nutraceutical business, which was sluggish in first quarter 2024, has improved in 2Q 2024 and was flat on a Y-o-Y basis. Distribution business revenue in 2Q 2024 declined by 10.7% on an adjusted basis.
Maxxcare Pharma business continues to show growth as guided, and the decline in Myanmar revenue is fully attributable to the decline of consumer business in Myanmar, which has very limited impact on profitability, and this is all as we had guided earlier. Overall gross profits in 2Q 2024 improved to 48.5% of operating revenue, as compared to 45.7%. This is mainly due to change in the segmental mix. Branded business gross margins remained stable at a healthy level of 66% in 2Q 2024, which is quite similar to 2Q 2023 gross margins of 65.8%. Distribution business gross margins improved to 24.9% on an adjusted basis in 2Q 2024, as against 23.1% in FY 2023. SG&A expenses in 2Q 2024 were higher due to planned spending, representing 28.8% of the operating revenue, as compared to 26% of revenue in 2Q 2023. We expect SG&A expenses to normalize by the year-end.
Reported net profits in 2Q 2024 were about THB 513 million, as against THB 531 million in 2Q 2023, which is flat on a Y-o-Y basis. Improved gross margins were offset by increased planned SG&A, which resulted in flatness in reported net profits. Adjusted net profits in 2Q 2024 were about THB 557 million, as against about THB 641 million in 2Q 2023. Adjusted net profits declined by 13.2% Y-o-Y, mainly due to the impact of forex loss in Nigeria due to depreciation of Nigerian Naira against the U.S. dollar in 2Q 2023.
Yeah, I understand.
I request our CEO, Mr. Vivek Dhawan, to share his remarks on the financial.
Thank you, Francis. Kapunakhap, Vivek, Nagap. I'll speak in English. Maybe there are a lot of people who are also from English-speaking parts of the world. As you have heard from Francis, we've had a healthy first half as far as our brands are concerned. I think we've been directing you clearly that the distribution business in Myanmar, which is the largest part of our business, is affected by the conditions in Myanmar, which are beyond our control. Largely the consumer side, Pharma still remains stable. We had a reasonably good first half on the Pharma side. The second half also, let's see how things are. We are hoping that it will continue. The Pharma side is okay, and the great thing is that the branded business is doing well.
We have also, in the past, guided you that you saw an extreme peak in 2022 with the COVID products, and things then, and they really grew phenomenally high in terms of value. When we look at the COVID range of products and compare 2019 and now, we are still better than 2019. It has given a bump to those products, and many products that were COVID and not in our list now are major contributors today. That is the good side. The sad side is not the same as COVID. Having said that, all the other products, which are non-COVID, even compared to 2022, 2023, are growing. The branded business is looking good in most places, and we are hoping to see, as we have promised, up 5% in that range in this year.
We believe we should get there with the branded business in the year 2024. With the pipeline that we have, the drug, there are about 170 products, as I see here, which are new products registered, applied for, under development. In some form or the other, they will come and get approvals over the next one to two years. There is a whole category of drugs, pure pharmaceuticals, which some are in government, some are privately sold, some are unique formulations. We are doing a lot of work in that area, so the Pharma business will definitely become bigger. It has already grown and become a sizable part. I think now it is nearly 40%, approximately around there.
45%.
45%. OTC, if we put, we also say, because we put it in consumer health, 40-60, and about 5%-8% of it is consumer health, which is part of the consumer health. By law, in many countries, it's medicine, but we treat them as consumer health. 60-40 already from 20%, and we have gone up over the last four or five years to nearly 40%. It's not that the consumer health is not growing. Consumer health is also growing reasonably well. We have a lot of products in pipeline, and we see growth opportunities because we have just got a few registrations in Indonesia, Malaysia. Some new products are just getting launched in the consumer health area and these markets as well. That's a good sign.
At the same time, as I said, the Pharma business is also looking up in most markets. New ones, old ones as well, and new ones that are coming off patent. We have a large pipeline. At the same time, our plant in Indonesia, the plant is now under construction, already being built. We have a deadline of quarter three, 2025, to have it ready and hopefully operational. There will be, but at the same time, because we have the old plant ready, the tech transfer, the development work is all going on. We have, over the last two years, tripled the capacity production output from the same plant. Already, we are producing at three times than we were doing two years ago. All that is happening in Indonesia, volumes going up, new products getting registered, new tech transfers being done, over-the-counter products being launched soon.
With that, our combined strategy, we are still very hopeful as per plan to, what was that, 2030, to reach what, $40 million, $50 million. In the next five years, we are planning to get to $50 million. I think 2027, 2020 year, we are looking at $30 million. That was the original because when we started at 2023, so five year, it was a $30 million plan. I think we are working towards that. We are edging towards that $12 million this year and hopefully moving in that direction, right direction. That is Indonesia for you. Vietnam, as we promised to you, we have not yet, we are in the process of finalizing the land deal as approved by the board. Hopefully, it should be done within this month, coming month.
It is a regular process of approval that all it takes before we start building the plant. That is Vietnam. Other than that, I mean, there is nothing more than that. I think everything else is as normal, but we are pressing the buttons and we are looking at growth. You know that we did open Congo this year in Africa, which has just started, but all of these are again smaller markets. They are not huge. Population is huge, but the markets will take time. We are registering products. We also opened Zimbabwe. Most of the sub-Saharan East Africa from right from Ethiopia down to Zimbabwe, we are covering most of them. Very few are left, I think. On the other side, we have only done Nigeria and Ghana, but we are evaluating. We are also looking at Angola and some other markets. This is work in progress.
They won't have a major impact on business. East and West Africa, where our focus is, we are working on that. The rest is all Southeast Asia. That remains our focus with a bigger pipeline and a focus on Consumer Health and Pharma. These two remain the main focus areas. The rest is supportive. The food business we had is merged into the Mega Consumer Health Division now. The baby range and all are being sold for children, growing children, etc., as a part of another offering under the Mega Range. Wellness centers continue to support, educate, provide services to our clients and pharmacists and doctors and consumers to help them live a healthy life. Lifestyle change management, that's not a profit-oriented business. That's providing support, knowledge, education as a part of our service to the community. We continue to do that.
That's also going with our We Care platform. Also, in most countries, we have launched some of them for mother and child for diabetes in Myanmar. In other countries also, we are looking to provide help to the doctors in the countries where they can manage their patients better, or patients can manage their health conditions better with help, advice, support, as well as tracking their own health. These are not being monetized, but they are part of our brand building exercise of Mega We Care to become a landmark, a brand that people associate with, and a brand that actually cares for their wellness. That is part of our journey, part of our promise, helping people to stay healthy as long as they live, and we continue to do that.
From my side, I think that is probably all. I would now open up the floor for questions, and I believe there are some that's coming on the chat. If some things you want to ask, please, like always, just identify yourself. Let us know who you are, where you are from, and ask the question. We are all here to answer your questions, please. We are open for questions now. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
Any questions from everybody there? I see a lot of you are there. If you have any questions, please ask.
Yes, Linh, please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Maybe I'll just get the ball rolling a bit. I know you mentioned on sales quantum, the growth, it was partly due to a high base last year. Could you comment on maybe if we exclude any sort of COVID-related products, how would growth have been? What kind of, I guess, a bit of a guidance, what kind of stable sales growth do you expect over the next year?
I think 5% is what we are saying. Next year also, as per our plans, it will be a little bit higher because a lot of products are getting launched. I am hoping, our hope is that next year will be a little bit more higher than this 5%-6% this year. 5%-6% is after COVID because COVID products are not growing. 2020 COVID, if you look at 2020, it declined. If you look at non-COVID, it will be much higher. The growth rate will be probably in a range of 7%-8%.
Yeah. Even Pharma?
Pharma is even much higher because it's coming at a smaller 40% base. Pharma is higher, and non-COVID will be higher also. Because COVID was 46%-48% for two years, now it will come down and back to the, it's still higher than the 2019 number, but it's come down. That means we are growing the other products at a much faster rate. To be able to, on a total base, we are still showing what? What did we show? 4.5%?
We grew by 6%.
Half first half is what?
First half is around 2.5%.
2.5%.
First half is 2.5%. They were all carry forwards also that year. The second quarter is what? 6%. We are hoping that on an average to the year, this year, we could probably end up at 5%, + 5%, around 5.6%. Branded business only, not the distribution business. Next year can be a little bit higher. It should be between the 6%-8% range. We have to, I mean, we are doing our LEs and we are doing our budgets again by October, November. We can give you a better idea. That is the plan, actually. If you look at the plan, it is probably in that range, in that range. More detailed, more detailed meaning internal evaluation, at least what we plan can be provided in the November call.
I'll just quickly follow up there. Do you think something of about 10% is a bit too difficult to achieve given your scale? And does this 6%-7%, do you think it represents a slowdown versus historical trends?
I think, and I'll see if you really get into the sales of branded business, Nigeria has declined significantly because there has been a huge increase in, I mean, increase in prices because of the devaluation in the currency. The huge depreciation, I mean, huge decline in Nigeria, plus the decline that's happening in the COVID products. If you negate all that, I think we are very close to 8%-9% growth in branded business, which gives us a lot of confidence going ahead because this year we are planning to launch around 40 products. Now, that 40 products, because of COVID, we couldn't launch many products in the last two, three years. That's where we had a gap. Now, with all these new products going in, they will all add to 2%-3% of growth.
With all this in place, I think going ahead, we probably feel more confident that our branded business should be more stable and growing at a very stable pace, provided there are no more COVIDs and stuff like that. I hope that gives you a better perspective on the branded side. On the distribution side, unfortunately, as we had guided, the consumer side of the business has declined almost 50%. If you look at the Pharma side of the business, it is still stable. This is exactly what we had guided. Yes, we had said that Pharma business will not disappear, but consumer business will. Despite the fact that consumer business has declined by 50%, our bottom line has held. Again, we had guided that the impact on the bottom line of the consumer business is very limited.
All what we had actually kind of guided you is going to plan. That's what we could say as of now. Thank you.
Also, Nigeria. If their currency is more stable after this, that means that negativity will go away, and then we will start to see unit growth. We are already seeing some unit changes and growth happening in local terms and units. We will see some unit growth also coming back. That is one of the, yeah, Nigeria, which was a big currency change three times or something like twice.
Yeah, 3x . I think it time.
When it's looking, it's coming back slowly. I think that's something that's good. With all that happening, maybe we believe if we take that out, then we are probably growing at 8%-9% and with more product. That opportunity, the chance of that 8%-10% happening next year is higher. That's where we are coming from. I'm not saying that we do magic, but it is the logic behind it that now that COVID being out and then the new products coming in and the old ones also growing, some are growing slower, but the other new ones are growing faster. Put that together, we should see that we have a very good chance to grow that 8%-10% range next year.
Thank you.
Yeah.
We hear some noise in the background. Could you please mute yourself? [audio distortion]
Hello. I have two questions for you. I just want to know about your business in Myanmar. I mean, did you expect any further decline in consumer product sales from the level you have achieved in the second quarter?
I can't see my -- Burma predictions are as good as you and me. We both live here. We have people on the ground. Conditions are not getting better. Pharma can remain stable. That's what we really think about. We don't very much want to make predictions on consumer. We don't want to be forecasting anything, but we think that if the Pharma remains, our bottom line can remain intact. Let's see what happens in the next six months in Myanmar. It is not a political discussion, so I won't talk about it at all. If something changes in Myanmar, things may turn around. At the moment, it is focusing on Pharma for Mega.
We are focused on Pharma, get products in, make it available, sell where there's demand for product because we are in that country with those products for more than 25, 30 years, and our products are well established. We think that if we can do that, we'll be able to at least achieve, if not the revenue, but the bottom line goals and be able to continue overall growth rates as we are talking about, including that situation in Myanmar, unless something drastically changes there.
Okay. Could you please elaborate a little bit more on what is your planned spending that is mentioned on the MD&A that has caused higher SG&A expenses?
Yeah, but what happens in it, you also know in business, we do not quarterly, we do not equate and say equal spending. I think in the beginning of this year, we had a plan and we have invested money from a marketing perspective on advertising on above the line this year. That is part of the plan to build a Mega We Care brand in the country. In Thailand, you must have seen us on TV, on billboards, etc. This is an additional spend which does not show automatically growth in bottom line, immediately turnover top line growing, multiplying and that way. It will taper down in the next half, right? Over the end of the year, it will probably become average out. You will see some uptick here now, but you will probably not see it in the third, fourth quarter. That is how it works.
We are now, over the next five years, we'll have a new strategic plan. As our brand becomes bigger and we want to multiply, we'll be spending more money on ATL, less somewhere else. The mix will change and you'll have some quarters having higher because you don't spend it all through the time. Sometimes there's holiday. No point spending during this season. Nobody's here. You don't spend money in July, August. People don't watch. They're on school holidays. Some countries are during Eid, there's no spending. In some countries, there is no spending during Chinese New Year and Songkran. I think the timing varies when you start going on ATL. You select periods to put money on TV and all that. Overall, you will probably end up in that 27%-28%, 27.2% range.
I think that's what we've been hovering around for a long time. Plus minus should not be very far, very far. Unless one year, if we decide that we are going aggressively to build our brand for one or two years, then we'll inform you that our plan this year is to spend two years to go above the line because a lot of our business is not above the line. T hat's the situation at the moment.
Is it typical that your second half expense, I mean, SG&A expense is typically lower than in the first half?
Yeah, because the sales are higher, sales related. Most of it is to do with sales related. It's promotion expense based on sale in. So it's related to sale. It's not ATL based. It's not unrelated. When you go on TV, sometimes you're proportionally much higher of the sales. You also have the second half is mostly promotion, sales related. When you sell, you have commission, you have travel, you have all the other things that we pay. It's to do with the sale, unit sold, value sold. You will find that it's quite standard. It's lower. Sales also is higher. Average, I don't know, historically we were 55, 45, 52, 48, 50, 47, 53, something like that, right? Every year is generally, except one year or something, we were a bit more equal because of COVID time.
It was more because that time COVID went up in December or February. The end year sales went up a lot. People bought a lot. Generally, if you look at history, 10 years and you take out the COVID, you'll find THB 45, THB 46, THB 47. You'll have a higher sales. I mean, everybody has. It's not us. It's also designed that you close the books and people buy whatever is the agreed quantities to meet their targets, etc. 3%-5% is excused. Not very much. 2%-3% is excused towards the end. Also season, also holidays, more holidays in Chinese New Year and all this in April, Thai New Year. End of the year, less holidays. All these things make a difference.
Okay. I think that it's fine. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi. This is Peter Humbs from Sparks. Can you hear me? Yeah. Is it clear?
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just wondering, for our branded business, is there any change between the Pharma product mix versus the new nutritional product mix? Are we seeing that the Pharma product mix increasing?
Yes.
Even?--
Yes, you're right. Yeah, you're right. I think we just mentioned the Pharma is 40% and is growing at a faster rate. It's got a much higher growth rate in the first half compared to the consumer health. In the consumer health, we have both. We have supplements, vitamins, herbals, nutritional, medical nutrition, probiotics. Plus we have over-the-counter, as depend on the definition, but we call it self-medication, like Gofen, Lories, Progas, all the. They are registered drugs and they are for an indication, but they can be self-medicated. That had a slower growth, but excluding COVID product, that's also growing 8%-7%, 8%. Pharma is definitely growing faster in the first half. Also going forward, we see because the number of products coming out in Pharma are much larger in the pipeline and the market size also is much bigger in the countries we operate.
Pharma will grow probably at a faster rate. How the ratios will change, we'll find out, but it could be in one, two years' time, two, three years' time, it could be 50-50. It's possible. It's very likely because the number of products they are coming up and growing, and this also growing, but in spite of that, it may end up at 50-50 in two, three years' time. We haven't looked at those numbers, but I think we'll get there. We haven't seen where to see our target and plan, but I think we'll probably get there.
Indonesia Pharma will also?
Yes. Indonesia also, yeah.
I see. What is the GP margin difference between the Pharma versus the consumer health?
What is that, sorry? Oh, gross profit margin. Similar.
I mean, it's actually very similar over a period of time. See, I think one other thing that you probably want to also look at is we have always said that if our growth in planted business is 5%, your bottom line can grow at a faster pace. Now, if you look at this first half as well, if our SG&A was within that 26.5% mark, our bottom line, on a reported basis, would have still grown at 10% or thereabout, despite the fact that our branded business has only grown at 3%. Just to reinforce our guidance that we have always guiding you, branded business is very critical, and if we can grow the branded business, the company will steadily move on the track that we expect it to move. Thank you.
I see. Maybe my last question is on the Maxxcare , the distribution side, because we are seeing that actually our GP margin has improved quite a lot. Yeah, can you maybe elaborate more about why?
Is that I think you can elaborate.
Yeah, you want to elaborate?
I mean, it's basically because the branded business has grown at a faster pace. The gross margin of branded business is 65%, while distribution is only 25%. It is purely because of that, the growth in branded business is faster than distribution business.
Can you Maxxcare ?
He's talking about Maxxcare ?
Maxxcare . Yes.
Oh, Maxxcare ? Sorry, sorry. Maxxcare business is basically because the consumer business is less contributing. As the decline is happening in the consumer business, the gross margins of Pharma business are higher. That is why the gross margins of distribution business are looking up overall on an overall basis.
I see. That's also the mix for the Pharma because we are selling that Pharma mix more. That's why on the distribution. Okay. Yeah, understood. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you.
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
[Foreign language]
Go on, Narumon. You can please ask your question.
Thank you very much. I have a couple of questions. Narumon from KKPS [audio distortion], I have a couple of questions. First, it's about the marketing expenses. Actually, I'm sorry, I didn't hear well. You said that the marketing expenses is around 2%-3% of sale. Is this budget equal to the historical, I mean, during the pre-COVID level for this level? I'm just wondering how can you review your efficiency on the marketing expenses translating to your sales, I mean, your top line? It would be great if you elaborate on these expenses and how can you review this, the result for what you pay?
I don't know if we said 2%, 3%. SG&A is 28%.
Yeah.
28.7%.
28.7% is our SG&A for our business. That includes everything. It's also max care, other things. We don't declare separately how much money we spend on ATL or BTL. One is above the line and one is below the line. For branded business, it's not all 28% is not branded business. We also have other things, delivery expenses, other administrative expenses. Marketing expenses in that is a part of that SG&A, right? How efficient we are, I'm sorry, I don't know how I can explain this to you, but it shows in our results. We are delivering a profit every year on our branded business, whatever at rate.
If you compare industry peers, we are doing equally or a better job compared to, if you look at, there are many Kalbe Farma, Blackmores, other people, and you can see how is our outcome versus Maxxcare is not a branded business. You take Maxxcare out because it's a margin business. If you take the branded business and see our gross profit and our profitability, I think we are equally or better than our peers in marketing, using money and making a profit on our business. That's all I can say. How do we decide where to spend? It's a branded strategy. Some we go above the very few we go above the line. Most of it we go below the line. A lot of some of it, medical products that cannot be advertised anywhere. They go to the doctor, they go to the hospital, they do conferences.
There are different types of spend on each type of product. The spend is decided by the product category and the stage, the life of the product, life cycle, where they are new, old, existing. I think it is a long thing to discuss marketing here, but you should compare us with peers in our category in the area and how well we are delivering as a company on return on investment and the money we are spending to create and grow the brand. Sometime you are in growth phase, you will have to spend some more money, right? That is all I can say.
Just to add to that, if you look at our history, you can see that this used to be, SG&A used to be 33%-34%. It has continuously improved to what it is now, which is around 28%-27.5%. That is, if you want to have a measure of efficiency, you can look at that. Just to add to this point, do you have Manoj?
Yeah. On the branded business front, after reducing our SG&A cost, our branded business yields EBITDA of 28%. Historically, also if you see, we have been at that level.
EBITDA of 28%.
I think the best way is to compare peers if you want. That's called benchmarking, but we don't do it. We are in a different category. We have a generic drug business and we have a consumer health branded business. Sometimes you want to compare Blackmores. They only have vitamin supplements. Other companies are MNCs who have few products.
Kalbe .
Kalbe, maybe you have to compare some peers who have similar categories and then see how well they perform.
Okay. Understand. Is it fair to say that we should see growth of the branded sales after you spend the marketing in the second quarter? I mean, in the second half, I'll look probably next year. You could see some growth for the branded?
I think we are already saying that we are growing the branded business in the range of 8% if we exclude the COVID product. If you heard us a while ago, we explained take out the COVID, which is anyway a decline from its peak. In spite of that decline, we've made up about, I think last time we said it's about 16% or 18% of our business is COVID product. That's declined. We have a reduction of 6%-7% there. We are still growing the branded business by 6%. That means the Pharma business is growing and the branded business, which is the consumer health, is also growing, excluding COVID products. All our business is growing.
We are hoping and we believe based on this logic because we have a lot of products in pipeline being registered that we have a good chance to see 2025 in a higher than the 5%-6% we are saying this year to go up to maybe in the range of 8% or more next year. That is what we are saying. We will come back with more details in November when we talk to you closer to date when we have done our budget. Looking at the facts today, looking at today's growth of both Pharma business and consumer business, excluding COVID, we are already doing that. We are already doing it. There is a very good likelihood it will happen. It is nothing to do with spending money. Spending money sometimes you do to build brand, build credibility, build a lot of things.
It is not an automatic. You spend $1, you get so much return. Not all marketing money is spent sometime on advertising generates immediate results. Anyway, you will see by the end of the year, maybe our SG&A will drop from 28.7% to 27.2% or 4% or 5% in the normal range like last year.
On regarding to 8%-10% growth of the branded product sales, what is the contributions from new product launch?
New product launch is always very small. It's 2%-3%. We don't have very large new products. When they get launched, they take time to register. But 2%, 1% coming out of these 20 new products is also large overall. If you're talking about 8% growth, 1%-2% come from new. It's already 1% or 2% coming from new products. When you have many, some are already launched this year. That will show results next year.
How many products you plan to launch per year?
Oh, many, many. I think if you read the SG&A and all, there are 38 products already planned to be launched. There are--
Last three years, they launched 30 products.
Last two years, around 30 already launched. We have 117 pipelines. 38 unique products in year 2024. 67 new products, unique products were launched from 2022 to 2024, last two years. 67 have been launched in between these three years. You will see some result in 2025 out of 67 products launched already. Some new ones will be launched again in 2025, which we will give you the detail. I do not have the 2025 detail of launch plan yet. 67 have been launched from 2022, 2023, 2024, three years from 2022 to 2024, 67.
[Foreign language]
Thank you [Foreign language]
Hi. Good afternoon. It's Andrew. Just more on the SG&A line again. I just want to say when you say the SG&A spend for the year will be 27%, is that 27% in the second half or for the full average for the full year?
It'll reduce because when they'll have correction, it will happen +27% something. It won't be exactly 27%.
Sure.
1% plus minus is in that range generally.
That's for the full year. The average will be about 20s, around, let's say, around 27%. Got you. Perfect. Just on sort of, I suppose, the operational leverage of this business, obviously you talk about the Mega weekend businesses, the branded business is growing 6% this year and hopefully 8%-10% plus next year. Obviously, we're trying to get an idea of how much of it is how much you spend on marketing and how much is G&A. I just want to understand the operational leverage in the business. Is the marketing spend likely as a percentage of sales to remain static? I don't know what the number is, but I want to assume as you're launching more products, that number won't really fall. It's the G&A part as a percentage of sales that is coming down that's giving you the operational leverage.
Can you just give us a bit more color on that?
I think generally G&A is an expense on manpower and all this, which does not grow at the same exponential rate as sales growth. Though we do add in new markets people. We are a growing company in new markets. We do not fold our hands and tighten our hands for growth. Our objective in the next five years will be to grow and try and double this business. That is what we are looking at. We want to double our branded business. We are going to invest money to grow it and look at the bottom lines as the outcome. This will be done. I think for that, we will have to spend on people, all kinds of things that we are doing. Having said that, G&A, you are right, generally as a percentage reduces with growth because you do not need as many.
Once you have the base office, manpower, regular med rep, sales rep, it does not multiply at the same rate. What goes up is S. That is marketing expenses. Selling is directly related. You have a promotion, you have a plan, you have a display. As you open more outlets, it is related to sales. You put in there and if you have schemes or annual targets, then you have it because if you have sales, then only you get it. One is sales related. If the sales goes up, you get more otherwise. Advertising in some cases, because as we become bigger in certain brands and we have come to a point where we can start advertising worth it, then you have an ATL expense, which is sometimes not exactly, cannot be related to sales. You will not get one-to-one result. You put $100, you will get result today.
That's where the challenge happens. But that's for a very small part of our business. That's why we don't see that changing 28% become 32%. Because if we don't do it, we can't do advertising for 40% of our business anyway, which is drug, right? And the other 60% also, there's another 40% you can't advertise because you're not allowed to say anything. FD doesn't allow, this doesn't allow. There's a lot of restrictions. I mean, we can't advertise coconut in this country. So there's no advertising for ibuprofen here. So the law restricts you once. So you have very limited areas where you put ATL money. So when I say that even if it goes up in one quarter or one year, you plan it and then it will not affect the SG&A or the selling expense by more than 1%-2%, I think overall.
That's what variation you're talking about. If it doesn't work, you spend money and you don't see it in sales, it'll be a 1%-2%. You taper that down over the whole year. Again, it flattens out to 27.2%-27.5%-27.6%, not very far. We do generally by design, by plan, or whatever you call it, by the type of products we have, we end up in that range. You look at consistently for 10 years, whatever we have done, it's somehow ended up there. When you were smaller or grown, the percentage hasn't moved very far. Though the sales have grown. You look at--
Would you ever consider splitting out for disclosure purposes how much your selling is and how much your G&A is as a percentage of sales?
We don't do it now. It's very difficult at the moment because a lot of it also you have to understand in our business is people. Sales is also related to sales, salespeople, services, training, expenses, commission. It's very hard to separate it out. We are paying them also as med reps or sales reps and doing a lot of activities on the ground. There are so many heads, ATL, BTL, below the line, there are 100 items. Now to separate them out is a lot of and 33 countries to bring that out. Very difficult job at the moment.
Understood.
Maybe at one day, I do not know. Today it looks very cumbersome, but an idea we can definitely discuss with you if you want to talk about.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay. I think we are close to time now. It's 3:49. If there are no other questions, we would like to thank all of you for attending the call and all your questions. If you still have any more queries, I'm sure Sujintana, for a Thai explanation, she's very well aware. She can give you all the answers in Thai, [audio distortion] and more later. Sujintana, we have Francis and Manoj, Thomas. We are all here at your service to give you facts as much as we can, honestly. We are doing our best. We promise you to grow the business, and we are hoping to continue this journey to make it stable, stronger as the years go by.
In spite of all the difficulties around the world, I think we are still hanging in there and doing our job, making it work, building brands in difficult markets where we believe over the years we can have a very strong, stable business. Once again, thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you again next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.