Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Arvind Ltd Q2 FY25 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Satya Prakash Mishra. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's call to discuss the financial results for the second quarter and half-year ended 2024/2025 for Arvind Ltd. With me today is Mr. Punit Lalbhai, the Vice Chairman, Mr. Jayesh Shah, Director in the Board and Group CFO, Mr. Susheel Kaul, our Managing Director and President of Textile Business, and the Chief Financial Officer of Arvind Ltd, Mr. Nigam Shah. The financial results and related presentations were uploaded to our website. I hope you had enough time to go through it. I'm happy to report that we are back on a growth path again after a slow start in quarter one. We have been able to make up some of the ground that we lost in quarter one, which is positive.
For the first time in the last three years or so, all segments of our business have reported positive trends in volume, realization, revenue, and EBITDA together, which indicates toward the progress of our twin strategy of One-Arvind and verticalization. We continue to work in a very challenging macro environment where active conflict in various parts of the globe creates wobbles in supply chain, and some prediction toward a pessimistic economic outlook adds to the pressure. However, there have been green shoots in areas like revival of demand in domestic front aided by festivities of quarter three and spring of 2025. Our industry-leading sustainability credentials with differentiated product offering continues to attract more and more marquee names to our customer portfolio. We are very confident that this trend will help consolidate our position in textile business and drive growth for the future.
Now, coming to the results for the quarter two of FY25, as I said above, all key segments of our business have reported positive volume growth and a stable realization, which resulted in an overall revenue for the quarter to register a 14% growth and stood at INR 2,188 crores. This is the highest quarterly revenue in past nine quarters. EBITDA for the same period, adjusting for a spillover cost of mainly air freight of INR 11 crores, mirrored a similar growth in revenue. Reported EBITDA stood at INR 221 crores. Similarly, adjusted EBITDA margin reflects a last-year margin of around 10.6% on a YoY basis. Apart from higher logistics costs that I've stated above, some of the fixed costs like salaries have been given an impact in the quarter two that has increased some of our fixed cost.
Profit before tax during the quarter gone by is in line with the revenue growth that I've spoken about and increased by 20% to reach INR 135 crores. However, some impact on deferred tax, which we will speak about to the tune of INR 29 crores, has eroded the profit after tax. There is no cash flow impact of this transaction, and if we adjust both exceptional items, the profit after tax during the quarter gone by would have stood at INR 97 crores. ROCE during the period, on a rounded basis, improved by 150 basis points to reach 13.9%. Coming to the segment-wise performance during the quarter, Textile Division revenue stood at INR 1,633 crores with an EBITDA of INR 168 crores, translating into an EBITDA margin of 10.3%.
This is one of the better performances of the Textile Division in a long time and is duly backed by volume growth and a good mix of products and customers with stable realization across individual product baskets. In quarter two of FY25, Advanced Materials Division reported a revenue of INR 388 crores with an EBITDA of INR 60 crores, which is a growth of nearly 10% and 7% respectively. We have been able to maintain our margin, which stood at 15.3%. It is important to inform that some of the growth in AMD is skewed towards quarter three and quarter four, so we are confident of achieving guidance around 20% growth soon. Coming to our capital management plan, as guided earlier, this was to be a year of high growth CapEx to augment our garmenting and AMD capacity.
After its slow start in quarter one, we have regained momentum and spent about INR 167 crores in the first half of the year, which is nearly 40% of the annual plan. We are confident that we will hit the desired allocation by the end of this year. With this, I conclude my opening remarks. I now hand it over to Mr. Punit Lalbhai to give his comments about the results and the market.
Good afternoon, everyone. As usual, it's a pleasure to be here with all of you today and answer your questions. But before we get to questions, just let me give you my flavor on the quarter gone by. I think Satya has done a great and comprehensive job about describing what has happened. I echo his sentiments in that we are glad that we are back to business as usual, and the difficult first quarter is behind us, and now we can focus on the future. I think in a difficult overall environment, we achieved nine million-plus garments. I think that's a credible performance. I think despite all the supply chain disruptions created due to the labour strike in the first quarter, the team was able to normalize delivery and satisfy customers.
And despite incurring significant air freight, they have still been able to deliver a great performance on the textile side. And I think AMD continues to have a strong outlook going forward. If we think of H2, both businesses, textiles and AMD, are looking to have good demand, especially textiles, which is probably looking at all-time high sort of rates of demand. I think another important thing that we are going to, on the cusp of doing, is signing an agreement that will take our renewable energy to 80%. Our sustainability commitment is very dear and important to us, and we are market leaders or perceived as market leaders on that front, and we want to continue to maintain this position. It's very valuable to our customers, both in AMD and textiles.
And therefore, we'll continue to invest here, and this new investment will take our renewable energy to 80%, and it will also help improve our margins going forward. I think that's pretty much a flavor of where we are. I would love to open up the floor for questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from Akash Poddar from Invesco Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So just wanted to understand a bit more on the Advanced Materials Division, AMD piece. So yes, you highlighted the second half is going to be stronger, but I would have thought this quarter should have also done well given that there was some spillover from the previous quarter. And typically, we look in the past also we've delivered 20% plus volume growth in this category. So if you could just talk a bit about the push and the pulls that have transpired in this quarter, and then entirely for the full year, are you still confident that you will see 15% plus value growth in this segment? So that's the first question.
So I'll answer the second part first. I think, yes, I am personally quite confident that we'll see that sort of value growth. I think if you look at the volume growth, even in Q2, it is quite good. We had close to 15% volume growth in most of our segments. I think there was also a significant amount of price erosion because of raw material prices collapsing in several important raw material categories. So in a sense, we were swimming against the tide on the realization front. However, I think even factoring all of these things, the demand looks good enough to where we can make up.
I think if you look at quarter two, Human Protection is where perhaps compared to our initial estimates, we would be lower in terms of what we achieved, and that's mainly a result of one of our large customers having unexpectedly low demand. However, we have compensated for that in quarters going forward. So I think if you look quarter- on- quarter, you will have certain ups and downs, but on a few quarters together basis, I think achieving the kind of growth that we've always been guiding should not be a problem, and I don't see that as a problem going forward.
Perfect. Thank you. And just second piece is just more of a clarification on the garment bit. So obviously, you talked about that second half is going to be better for the garments given the way the typical seasonality sort of plays out. So just clarifying, we are still expecting that we should be able to do 40 million sort of an overall volume run rate for the entire garments piece, right?
I think we'll be slightly short of that, but not significantly. I think this quarter also will be nine plus slightly higher than quarter two, and quarter four is when we will breach the 10 million mark is how I'm seeing things.
Perfect. Thank you so much and all the very best.
Thank you. The next question comes from Vikram Suryavanshi from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, sir. Just on our capacity addition opportunities now, Gujarat Government has also announced the textile policy. How do you see?
The price is a little unclear.
Vikram sir, if you're using the speakerphone, may we request to use the handset mode, please?
Sure, sure. Is it audible now?
Better. Much better.
Okay. So I wanted to understand our expansion plan opportunities, particularly in line with what the Gujarat Government has now announced, the textile policy. So will it help us to further consider the new expansion within the state, or will we continue to look at MP or other states for expansion plan?
So I think Gujarat has announced a very good policy. I think it will be advantageous for us because Gujarat being our home base, there is some base load investment that is always going to be planned here because of the concentration of management capability here. And so to that extent, this will help. I think Madhya Pradesh, Odisha is also something that we will consider, especially from a labour cluster availability perspective, especially from the perspectives of garments. But I think from the perspective of AMD, I think Gujarat with the new policy is looking extremely attractive. Of course, we have to get into the fine print of the policy. It's quite recently announced, and we'll be actively sort of evaluating our opportunities to invest in Gujarat.
And post-Bangladesh issue, how is our interaction with the customers in terms of shifting to India and in terms of opportunity landscape? Are we seeing material change, or it will take some time? How is your reading with the customer?
Yeah, so short term, no change. No change for a number of reasons. The first reason is Bangladesh did an extremely good job in getting back on track, at least large parts of Bangladesh did a good job in getting back on track. And two, because short term, there is really no capacity available in India for them to shift overnight. So I think the Indian garment industry has to get back on the front foot to create all the capacities before customers can think beyond their normal plan to shift to India. I think India is definitely on their sourcing matrix more now than ever before, and they want to source more and more from India. But if they have to accelerate beyond their existing plans, we also have to accelerate in terms of capacity creation, which will happen, I suppose.
And I think medium-term events like this will always create the risk management teams at all the customers' end to focus on sort of risk mitigating that sourcing structure. As I've always been saying, Vietnam and Bangladesh were already approaching saturation as too many eggs in one basket for many customers. I think from that perspective, this unrest in Bangladesh only reinforces the need to have more sourcing locations, and India ticks a lot of boxes amongst the future candidates for further diversification. So I think the opportunity was always interesting and remains interesting even after the unrest.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Prerna Jhunjhunwala from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, sir. Am I audible?
Yes, yes, you are. Hi.
Hi. So I had a question on Bangladesh. During the quarter, there was disruption in Bangladesh. Despite that, we've been able to achieve very strong volumes on export front in denim as well as in the woven fabrics. Could you just help us understand what went right for us, whether these volumes that we did in denim are sustainable, or it was some kind of pent-up push that we did during the quarter two, which came in from Q1, something like that? I mean, just trying to understand what happened during the quarter for the volumes.
See, most of the business in Bangladesh was supported by the brands itself. So where there used to be challenges from the banks to get involved, the brands will come forward and give the guarantees. So what Punitbhai said is very right. That is the reason how Bangladesh swiftly came back because it was also the requirement for the brands to gear up on the capacities because they needed the capacities as they had retail shops. Otherwise, we would have an issue. So since the brands supported all the banks and all the demand portion, the demand remained undisturbed for us.
Perhaps a couple of quarters, a couple of weeks of demand was impacted. To that extent, it would have been slightly better, but as Susheelbhai rightly mentioned, not significantly so. I think when we look at denim, quarter three is always the low season for denim. We should compare quarter one, two, and four to one, two, and four, and three to three. Three is a low season. We do expect a slight dip in denim volumes, which is going to be more than made up by growth in woven volumes. It's the best quarter for wovens. It's the worst quarter for denim. Quarter three going forward.
Okay. Do we plan any capacity expansions in denim given that we have reached 90% utilization this quarter and the outlook for the business continues to remain strong?
So I think we are going to expand denim as a category through the verticalization route by adding more garment capacity. I think this business lends itself much better to verticality. More and more of our customers want a full package, and our realizations and control over the supply chain also increase with verticality. We don't want to remain very highly dependent on fabric sales to Bangladesh. So we will grow, but we will grow through garment expansion. So no fabric capacity additions are planned in d enim.
Okay. The next question is on CapEx. You spend around 40% of the CapEx for the year. Can you just give some clarity on where have we spent? Where can we see capacity additions during the year, and where it has already happened?
So we have spent broadly along the line that we were planning to: one-third, one-third, one-third. One-third going towards AMD, one-third going towards garments, and one-third going towards everything else, including fabrics, fabric differentiation, and automation, maintenance, things of that nature.
Okay. So is it percolating into capacity expansion in this quarter or third quarter, fourth quarter? It's what I wanted to understand.
It will give some capacity expansions in woven because there's a transit time involved in any CapEx. Once you start doing any CapEx, it has around six to nine months of total right from the building to execution time, so it will have a transit time, but it will start growing from Q4. Late Q4, it will start growing.
To clarify, we are expanding our wovens' footprint because it also serves AMD. So to that extent, that investment is also an AMD-specific investment where the wovens' capacity is increased so that our substrate for our Human Protection business in AMD, we can grow our capacity there. So that capacity will be coming on stream towards the mid of Q4. So a little bit, we will see a flip in Q4, but this will hold us in good stead for next year mostly. I think some of the investments that were made in garmenting are already paying dividends. So those will also kick in fully for Q4. That's how Q4 volume is higher. And also, a lot of those investments are there to help us improve our margins and to make our people dependency better. In a highly uncertain labour environment, a lot of CapEx was targeted towards automation.
So it will give us higher volume. It will also give us better costs. So those are the investments that will kick in in Q4.
Oh, understood. Thank you, and one last question on bookkeeping. We've seen depreciation cost declining on a Q1, Q2 basis. Is it sustainable, and the reason for the same?
So some of the assets, particularly the Ethiopia assets, got written off, and that is the reason why the exceptional loss. In fact, since we are investing and accelerating the investments towards the second half, you will see an increase in the depreciation charge, and it may go back to where we were earlier.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. The next question comes from Suryanarayan from Sunidhi Securities. Please go ahead.
May I order this, sir?
Yes.
Yes. Yeah. Congratulations for good set of numbers. So first question is that, as you said, the wovens is related to the protection area of the AMD. So my question is that, are we going to increase the capacity beyond 127 million meters, what we have initially said?
You can go ahead. Susheelbhai has answered this question.
We are going to in the woven. It will be around 135-140 million meters. It will depend on the product mix, but we will touch that level of the capacities now.
Okay.
It will be a combination of AMD and wovens.
Okay, so in that case, that extra capacity will be because you were saying from Q4 onwards, the tax will be visible, so that would be available for FY26, I guess.
Yeah. It will mostly come for the next year.
Yeah. And another point is that now in the garment facility, the ultimate aim of to achieve around 60 million pieces. So that will be achievable in maybe next year. So this year will be contingent somewhere around 40 million pieces.
So I think broadly correct. I think we will add more than 10 million pieces next year and exit at a run rate that is approaching 60 for the year after.
Okay. Okay. And sir, regarding the AMD area, what I am seeing that the composites have given a very good comeback because of Industrials as well. So I mean, it is heartening to see, but the Human Protection is still lagging because you were doing fantastically well last year. So any reason for that?
Yes. As I mentioned, one of the major customers, the orders that were expected didn't come in because of their own market performance. And so in a very short period of time, it is not possible to backfill those unexpected changes in demand. And so it was a soft quarter from a Human Protection perspective, but composite sort of did well, and so did Industrials, which last year was a little bit under pressure. But that said, I think going forward, we have good demand even in Human Protection, and so we should be back on track in the second half of the year.
Can we have a run rate of around 10%-12% minimum?
Yes. I think that should be possible. We are already at that run rate, so it should be possible to continue and do better than that, in fact.
Okay, and industrial parts, sir, is that any railway component coming in?
No. So, the railway component falls under the Composites section where we weave glass fabric and then use several types of molding technologies to make railway parts, all kinds: driver cabin, toilet, interiors, window panels, door panels, all sorts of composite parts.
So out of 160 million, how much is related to the railways, particularly revenue?
Currently, the railway revenue is quite small because it is a new division. About 10% of the overall composite volume would be railways. Not more than that currently, but that's the segment that we expect will develop and grow better.
Regarding defence clothing, we were actually expecting some major orders. Any update on this?
So we are doing a good amount of defence. So defence is embedded in the Human Protection numbers, and there we are participating in several product categories for the Indian Army, Indian Navy, and we are also on and off doing with Indian Air Force. So all three, I mean, defence is a very important part and will become even a more important part of our product portfolio going forward.
So, minor debt has come into the long-term side. So is it temporary, and our exit will be what we were last year?
Yeah. So this debt is temporary, which we have borrowed at the time of Q1, this industrial unrest. So I think we have already started repaying. So at the end of year, we are expecting the debt load remain same, I think around 400 level.
Taxation will be remaining same?
No. So in terms of taxation, right now, there is a one-time impact due to deferred tax and due to, I think, the last change came in the Finance Act in the month of July. So this is a one-time impact. I think going forward, the average tax rate will be coming down.
I mean, let's say if you discard that element, what will be the normalized rate of taxation?
So it will be around 25. So it will be normalized, which is around 25.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. I'll come next.
Thank you. The next question comes from Vikas Jain, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. So my first question is with respect to the textile margins overall, right? So if we just look at a broader performance across segments, we have done really very well in terms of volumes across denims, across wovens as well as your garments. However, our margins have been broadly at close to around 10%-10.5% odd levels. So what exactly will play going ahead, most likely in the second half, which will improve or even take the margin levels back to that 11%-11.5% and even beyond that?
So we have a lot of work to do on margin expansion, and I think it's more than a quarter-on-quarter goal. It's a few quarters goal where we are investing in automation. We are investing in better processes. We are investing in newer technology. So all of this put together, as I have spoken earlier also about, I think 200 basis points is something that we can target over a year, year and a half, couple of years. That's the kind of target that we are taking. Margin expansion is always a hard effort, quarter in quarter out discipline type execution job, and we are all on it. We recognize that there is an opportunity to improve, and we will do that. And if we are able to unlock that, then our return on capital employed will jump further to very interesting numbers.
Correct. Correct. Well, sir, just to be a bit more precise, let's talk about garmenting segments, right? So 9.2 million-9.3 million pieces is the run rate right now. So what I'm trying to understand is, is it like there's enough room for us to improve the product mix on the product mix side so that our garmenting margins improve and hence our overall textile margins go up? I mean, is it kind of more?
Margin is a function of two things. One is product mix, and second is efficiency.
Efficiency. Correct.
Our efficiency needs to go up, and our product mix needs to improve, and we are working on both. For example, our knits, our margin expansion for that one product category will, from quarter one of this year to quarter one of next year, where we already have visibility, will grow by almost 30%. So that kind of margin expansion is happening in one of the product categories where we were first restricted to commodity type orders. Now we have made investments in things like garment dyeing, in things like seamless garments, in fleece, in washing, so in printing, in embroidery. So all of these types of value additions will increase the margin.
That effort also has been invested in, and continuously, the effort is to invest in better automation, less people dependency, de-skilling the operations so that our 50%-55% efficiencies can go to 65%-70%. Both these things put together, we'll see margin expansion, and I think the largest scope of improvement is there in garments. We've been working on building up volumes. I think now, parallelly, we've started a process of improving the quality and improving the efficiency of orders.
Correct. Correct. Because the reason why I ask is, while earlier, the cotton price as well as our product mix did support the realization front, but now when the volumes are up and we are doing some very strong set of volumes, but then the realizations have been on a year-on-year basis, we have been toned down, and hence the growth profile. Let's talk about year-on-year growth for garment. That has been relatively on the lower side. So that's what I want to try to understand. Can product mix compensate for that?
It can.
Yes. Right. So, second question on the AMD front. In the press release, you did mention that one of the mass transport customers did see some, and you also mentioned you see some challenges. So, has that, what is the situation as on date as it stands, normalized, or can we expect some more normalization or pain in 3Q on this?
So mass transportation business is quite small in terms of the overall business, and it's a project business. So there will be some quarters where projects will be low, some quarters when we are firing on all cylinders. The business perhaps that you are referring to is the Human Protection business.
Correct. Correct. Yes. Human Protection.
Now, the overall sort of the growth in Human Protection is slightly slower than it has been in the past, and what we would expect from our guidance. That I had already explained is because of that couple of customers seeing an unexpected lower demand. We haven't lost any business to competition, or we haven't lost the customer. It is just that the market conditions for them are not what was expected, and so we have to now compensate with other customers, and that effort has gone successfully, and we should be able to be back on track with demand in Q3 and Q4.
Correct. And sir, one last while you did allude to a lot of factors, but we have mentioned one line that from the 13.9% ROCE that we are right now in 2Q, we target to move up to around 20%. So just trying to understand what are the major areas where we will see the improvement, and that will drive the ROCE to 20%?
So if the overall margins increase by 200 basis points, we are almost likely to be very close to being there.
Correct. Correct. Correct, and this you're talking about the textile segments, right?
Overall, I think.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Understood, sir. Thank you so much, sir, for answering. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Vimal Sampat, who's an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening. First of all, congratulations, Punit Bhai. You took a very bold call on expansion of garments when your capacity utilization was less than 50%, and many people had questioned about it. So great foresight for that. Now, on garmenting only, what I understand that even in South, they have received a lot of orders. Some big groups in South, they have received a lot of garmenting orders, and they are saying that in next two years, there will be nearly double garmenting, and the volume will be double. So how do we stand? And second thing, you have talked about this investment in renewable energy. Can you throw some more light on that?
Sure. So I think as far as garmenting goes, currently, anybody who is a credible garment player who has capacities will be full because the demand scenario is pretty good, and India is a preferred location where people are wanting to diversify their sourcing metrics too. So that explains why everybody has a good visibility and good order book. As far as growing double, I mean, I don't know whether doubling in a year is a great idea or possible at our scale. I think garmenting.
You're talking in two years. Two years.
Yes. So we are thinking of increasing 40% or 50% in two years because garmenting is a very execution-heavy business, and we don't want to go overly aggressive and then disappoint both investors and customers by faltering on the execution. So I think this is a good and aggressive plan that we have been guiding towards to try and reach 60 million garments by 2027. That was the original plan, and I think we should be able to achieve it. As far as renewable energy goals, last year, we signed a power purchase agreement in the group captive mode using wind and solar, which took our renewable energy component close to 50%. Now we are signing another such agreement after the amendment of the Gujarat policy. It has removed the cap. There used to be a 50% cap.
That cap has now been removed, so we are now going to the maximum possible extent of renewable energy, and we should be upwards of 80% renewable energy after we sign the next PPA.
Okay. Thank you.
Of course, it will take some time to reach there because the execution and all will happen. So sometime next year is when it will take about a year to reach.
Okay. So second half 2026.
Energy to come.
Yeah. So second half 2026, we will be there.
It will happen in beginning 2027 is more likely.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Varun Gajaria from Omkara Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, so I just wanted to understand, we are looking at 10%-12% growth in FY 2025, right?
Overall for the government, yes. It's looking like that.
Okay. So if you could tell us what will be the key drivers for this kind of growth? Because it seems in first half, we've grown around 6.5%. So if you could just.
Yeah. So I think quarter one has to be ignored because of the strike. We had a labour strike and significant erosion of top revenue because of it. I think if you look at now, the run rate quarter two grew at 14%, and that kind of trajectory is looking likely in Q3 and Q4. That should then bring the even full year number to double digits.
Okay. Sir, so how is the order book looking like, and what is the kind of execution that we've done in the first half?
So order book is good. Quarter one was a very tough quarter because of the strike, as you know. Quarter two has, in my opinion, the company has bounced back well, and quarter three and quarter four are looking good from a demand perspective. We have to ensure that our execution is on point.
Okay. Would you like to put a number to what percentage of order book has been executed in the first two quarters?
We generally don't guide about future order book percentages and all of that. That granularity, we don't normally get into, but it's very good, as good as can be. Let's put it that way.
Okay. Sir, so right now, how is the export market looking for garments?
Extremely good. For us, garment is almost a 90% plus export business, and it's looking good. Our capacities are full, and we are in expansion, so it's looking good. We have high visibility.
Okay. And from here on, will there be any scope for realization, for expansion and realization?
I did not understand your question.
I'm just saying that from here on, will there be any scope for expansion in our realization?
So our realization depends upon the product mix. So if you saw this quarter, in fact, we had a higher share of mix, and that resulted in a lowering of the ASP. So I think going or measuring the performance or the margins of the textile business, realization would not be a right metric. I think the way we should see is purely the mid-term margin, and as the product mix and the efficiencies improve, we see margins going forward, improving further.
Okay. So largely, FY 2025 growth should be driven by volumes, I believe?
Volume as well as product mix.
Yes.
Okay. And product mix. Okay. Okay.
It should be some larger component of the overall business, which should also drive that growth.
Okay. Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Akshay Kothari from GHP. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. So just wanted to know, K, currently, our AMD maximum risk, 75% of revenue will be from U.S.
So U.S. is a large component, so I think that figure sounds about right.
So considering if everyone is anticipating that if at all Trump comes to power, he has been talking a lot about tariffs and tariff base, so would we be impacted by it?
As of now, we don't know of any plans by the potential Trump administration if it's something to put tariffs specifically on India. I think what we have been talking about is mostly focused on China, but I think it's crystal ball gazing to think about these things at this point in time. I think we need to all wait for the elections to be done, and then it will take a while for the dust to settle, and then some of these policy initiatives will happen. So we'll be watching it carefully, and we'll adapt. In general, I think India is well positioned with its relationship to the U.S., irrespective of which government comes in.
So I think we should all bank on that to ensure that the future is good, and if there are certain challenges, we'll figure out how to circumvent them as and when those challenges are realized.
In terms of market positioning, U.S. and Europe would be the largest market for technical textiles?
Currently, yes. China is also quite a large market, and hopefully, somewhere in the not-too-distant future, India should also become a very large and attractive market.
That's great, and around only one quarter back, everyone was talking about FTA, and it seems that it has been backtracked, so what are you hearing about FTA with U.K.?
So I think our information is that things are very close to being closed. I think what happened is both governments sort of changed at the time when the discussions had reached the peak. So I guess once their other priorities are sort of well attended to, I think this will be picked up at some point, and we are hoping that in the not-too-distant future, we could do something with the U.K. at least.
Okay. Understood. Yeah. So that's it from my side, and wish you a very happy dividend.
Same to you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next follow-up question is from Suryanarayan from Sunidhi Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hello.
Hello.
Yes. Am I audible?
Yes. Yes.
Yeah. As I was looking at the cotton season near to, so for the next year, how do you see the cotton behaving, and especially when the MSP has been hiked by 7% , so how the cotton situation is going to be there, and whether the rise in the raw material prices, especially cotton, will be able to pass on to the end consumer?
So India is in a very unique position in that because of the 10% duty that has been imposed, it's not behaving according to the global indices. So global indices have dropped and then risen somewhat, but still much lower than where they were, whereas India has remained constant. I think the crop area is slightly lower than previous years, but also demand is very poor for yarn. Indian yarn is now not at parity at the price at which cotton is available. So broadly, we are seeing a bearish situation of prices remaining where they are or going down slightly. That's the current view. Of course, this is a very dynamic thing, and it keeps changing from week to week and month to month. So this is a space we, like always, will watch carefully and take appropriate decisions.
Like last time when we saw prices hitting their seasonal lows, we went long with cotton. So those kind of calls we keep taking on a periodic basis. So right now, we feel the situation is bearish, and we are not taking any long calls.
Okay. So because we do a lot of outsourcing of yarns, so in that case, due to the Bangladesh situation extending, so do you see that the kind of lull in the yarn realization will be helping us going forward?
So I think Bangladesh has very little to do with the overall yarn situation. I think it's more price and slowdown in China plus Indian prices being unattractive because of high raw material cost compared to the rest of the world. I think these factors are more playing a role in yarn pricing. However, the market very quickly adjusts to the new normal of pricing. So any move in commodities, either up or down, there is a small lag, but then after that lag, things adjust to the new normal. So I think any gains or losses as a result of those kind of movements are temporary in nature, and over a long period of time, they average out. So I wouldn't worry too much about that.
On the carbon thing side, on the policy front, so I mean, my understanding from different industry leaders is that it is a tough area, toughest area, I would say, in the value chain. So in that case, is the industry waiting for some government policies which are not materializing? That is why all the players are actually not.
Policies are very good. I mean, it's nothing to do with government policy. I think it's a lot to do with productivity, the focus of our entrepreneurs to invest downstream rather than upstream. I think the industry has to now rise to the occasion, and I think we need to reinvent how garmenting is done in India. I think we need to have an opportunity to be leaders rather than followers in terms of how modernized, system-driven, and automated the garmenting setup is. So there are examples all over the world that have shown that it need not be this complex labour management exercise.
So we are also developing our own models to ensure that the future of garmenting looks very different, and we can create a new model for India where it's driven by robotics, it's driven by end-to-end sort of data movement, lots of focus on reduction of SMV, which is the unit of time that drives efficiency, a lot of focus on material efficiency, and sort of lowering of wastage. So all of this, we are actually in the process of building a factory of the future in Bengaluru where the state-of-the-art technologies are invested into, and efficiencies that are not achievable currently start to become possible with that kind of setup. So all those kind of efforts are on, and we hope to be able to sort of make a huge mark in putting India on the global map of leadership in garmenting. So all that needs to be done.
It's got nothing to do with government policy. It's all to do with how entrepreneurs are thinking about this industry.
So, your vision in that regard to go beyond 60 million pieces by 2030, what is your vision going ahead? Because you are the only group, perhaps, who is talking of moving to north or east where the labour forces are amply available compared to some of the southern groups who are actually sticking to their area only. So, what is your vision for 2030 for garmenting?
2030 can be a very different view. I think it will not matter so much where you go for garmenting because the labour intensity hopefully will become so manageable that all these sort of complex questions of going into back-of-the-beyond places to chase labour. I think we are trying to rewrite that script. That said, I think India needs job creation everywhere. So we have an opportunity as this industry to be part of that nation-building exercise. I think job creation is going to be one of the most important priorities of any future government, and I think our industry is the largest employer of people, and even after the reduced sort of manpower intensity will remain very important in this job creation journey.
So I think we will continue to explore newer areas, but we are also equally keen to explore newer models of manufacturing that sort of are modernized, our Factories of the Future, our Industry 4.0, and beyond, all of that.
And so your raw material intensity, or is it raw material to sales in the AMD side, will it be stable, or is it going to see some sort of downward cycle? Because.
Again, it's very segment-dependent, and it depends on the product and category. I think that's not a question that is relevant. I think you need to track it for each segment, and the general directionality will be that we will be upgrading the criticality and sort of quality proposition of our product mix to higher and higher and more and more profitable lines of business as we go forward and mature more with our portfolio. That's the general answer. For more specifics, you'll have to track segment by segment.
Okay. And is there any chance we are actually eyeing the aerospace industry in the Composites section?
Yes. Ultimately, yes, but there is a lot of lower-hanging fruit that we can sort of target first. Aerospace is a long lead-time business. You need a lot of time to get qualified for it. So we've started those exercises and processes and certifications, and at an appropriate time, we will see if we want to sort of invest heavily behind it. At the moment, we have enough engines to grow at the rate we want to grow.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have the next question from Prerna from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the follow-up. I'm still not very clear on AMD business, how we should look at the growth in that business, given that Human Protection is likely to grow better going forward than in the last.
In the first quarter, which was strike-impacted, I think the three quarters should be closer to that 18%-20% mark. 18% is what it's looking like right now.
The ask rate for the third and fourth quarter is much higher, is what I was just thinking when you mentioned 18%.
Yes, it is.
That's correct.
Yes, it is. And I think equally sort of good visibility of demand is also there. So we feel confident that we can do it for the nine-month period.
Okay. Understood. Thank you. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. That was the last question. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Satya Prakash for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone, once again, for participating in the call. I hope most of your questions are answered during the call. Me and my colleague, Sumanto, are just a phone call away for taking next questions if at all anything is left out. Looking forward to meeting you in upcoming conferences and will probably season's greetings for Diwali. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Arvind Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.