Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ankit Gor from Systematix Institutional Equities. Thank you. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Aisha. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of Systematix, I welcome everyone on the call of EPL Limited, formerly known as Essel Propack Limited, to discuss Q4 FY 2020 and FY 2021 performance. From the management side, we are joined by Mr. Sudhanshu Vats, MD and CEO; Mr. M.R. Ramasamy, COO; Mr. Parag Shah, CFO; Amit Jain, Head Corporate Finance; Mr. Suresh, Head Legal and Company Secretary; and Mr. Deepak Ganjoo, Regional Vice President of AMESA Region. I would like to hand over the call to Sudhanshu now, who can take us through the major highlights of Q4 FY 2021 and FY 2021. After that, we can have a floor open for Q&A. Over to you, Sudhanshu. Thank you.
Thank you, Ankit. Thank you, Aisha. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to EPL Limited full year FY 2021 and Quarter 4 FY 2021 earnings presentation. First and foremost, here wishing all of you faith, safety, and health. I hope you and your families are staying safe and are navigating these tough times well. Let me start with our EPL 2.0 mission. As many of you around this conference call will recollect, we defined our mission as market-leading revenue growth and capital-efficient, consistent earning growth. I am very happy to share with you that in the first full year of our new mission and ownership of Blackstone, we have made a strong start and delivered strong results for FY 2021. With that, let me talk to you about FY 2021.
FY 2021 is a year when we transformed EPL to deliver market-leading double-digit revenue growth. We demonstrated resilience in business performance. Despite the tough conditions which we all are aware of, we delivered business growth of 12%, double digit, as I told you, coupled with high teens EPS growth coming in at about 18%. With our focus on cost and capital efficiency, our return on capital employed has improved by 290 basis points and now stands at a very healthy 21.3%. I think the second big highlight of FY 2021 has been our ability to strengthen our competitive position across markets. We have either held to our wallet share with customers, in many cases, we've grown our wallet share with our customers, and in multiple cases, we've added new customers to our roster in this year.
We've seen some of the results this year, but we will continue to see a lot of the results of this work in FY 2022 and years to come. This is also a year when we've acquired Creative StyloPack in India. This is the beginning of our journey on M&A. You will see that our acquisition of Creative StyloPack is strategic as it strengthens our position in beauty and cosmetics. It is also revenue and EBITDA accretive, which is a key criteria for any acquisition as we look forward. Last message, the third big message I want to give you on FY 2021 is we delivered all-round strong progress across our identified levers. Let me quickly recap them. We will talk about them a bit more in detail, but the first lever, as you remember, was strengthening our portfolio, which is accelerating growth in personal care.
We've added over 120 basis points in this space. Our personal care contributes 46% to our portfolio. The second one was continued leadership in oral care. We've delivered 9.8% growth in this year in our oral care business. Where we are the leaders, we've managed to grow that segment even faster. The third one was improved performance in Europe. I think one of the key measures we put ourselves, and we'll talk a bit more about it, is the improvement in margin. We've actually improved our margin by close to 200 basis points, taking the margin in Europe to about 14.8% in FY 2021. The last lever, but a very important lever, is around sustainability. We've basically made a lot of progress on sustainability. We are driving leadership in this zone, and I will talk to you more about this as well.
FY 2021, we've transformed EPL to deliver market-leading double-digit growth, demonstrated resilience in business performance, strengthened our competitive position, and delivered strong progress across all our identified levers. Let me now talk to you about what we've done in managing the business in this pandemic. I've spoken to you about this in the past as well, but just to quickly recap, I think we've ensured that all our plants are operational. Supply enablement, OTIF, and customer service have been paramount, and I think we've given it total importance, something that I think we should, and that has been the most important piece. The second area we spoke about briefly is, it's about demand generation, it's about looking at new customers, new categories. I think we've done a lot of work in this space as well. We started the year with the launch of hand sanitization category.
As we've ended the year and as we are entering FY 2022, we are doing work on many other innovative projects. We are also doing a lot of work around hand wash and innovative options for people to handle the entire pandemic situation as they go forward. The third important pillar is around people and around employee welfare. I think we've given safety of our people paramount importance. We've actually put strong protocols in place across our plants everywhere in the world. We've actually made sure that we are responsive, we are listening. We basically help people wherever the help is needed. We have a full-fledged crisis committee, which has worked around the clock in these times and is actually constituting senior people in our company.
Lastly, like we should and we always have, we've managed to keep a very strong eye on costs and manage costs through our ongoing product mix. There are many initiatives which have already been taken, but there are more, and I'm going to talk about them as we progress further. With that, let me share with you the numbers. Our revenue for FY 2021 has come in at INR 30.916 billion, which is a 12% growth over previous year. Our adjusted EBITDA has come in at INR 6.472 billion, which is a 13.4% growth over the previous year. Our adjusted earnings per share has come in at INR 8.89. That is 34.6% growth over the previous year. With all our focus on capital efficiency, our return on capital employed has come in at 21.3%, which is a 290 basis points improvement.
Our business continues to generate cash, and I think that is making our position stronger. Our net debt has come in at INR 3.14 billion. This number actually is lower than last year if we were to take out the one-time cash proceeds paid for Creative acquisition of INR 1.675 billion. Adjusted for that, our net debt is at now INR 1.474 billion, that is almost half of last year's number of INR 2.76 billion. Our CapEx continues to be prudent. As you would gather, I think with COVID being around, our CapEx momentum has stopped. The full year FY 2021 has come in at INR 1.76 billion as CapEx.
If I were to deep dive into these numbers and share with you, I think our adjusted EBITDA has come in at 13.4%, but our EBITDA for the year has come in at a 9.9% growth, which is an EBITDA margin of 19.9%. Our EBIT and EBIT margin. EBIT has grown at 15.4%, and EBIT margins are at 12.3%, which is a 30 basis points improvement over the previous year. Our PAT has grown at 17.8%. Our adjusted earnings, of course, as I told you, if you were to take like for like, it has grown at a very handsome mid-30s in this period. Our net debt to EBITDA ratio now continues to remain very healthy at approximately 0.5 number. Overall, if you look at it, very strong performance in FY 2021. Robust revenue and PAT growth.
Organic revenue growth in this period is at 11.3% because you know the Creative acquisition happened effective February 1, 2021. EBITDA margins have been maintained despite very steep price increase and then COVID-19 situation. Our net debt to EBITDA stayed strong, and our focus on capital efficiency continues to grow our ROCE. With that, let me quickly talk to you about Q4 FY 2021. Q4 FY 2021, our consolidated growth has come in at 17.5%. We've delivered INR 8.1 billion, which is a growth of 17.5% in the commensurate period last year. On this, I also want to share with you that our standalone Q4 growth has come in at 34.6%. Having seen some of the results published by consumer companies recently, our standalone Q4 growth is comparable, if not better, to almost any numbers I have seen up to now.
Our adjusted EPS growth has come in at 29.6% for the quarter. Our EBITDA growth has come in at a more muted 5.3%. This is because of the increase in raw material costs. We will dive deep into this as we go forward. If we were to look at our absolute EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA growth is 5.3%, but our adjusted EBITDA has come in at INR 1.4 billion. It's about 0.4% higher than last year, so nearly flat. What has been the reason for our EBITDA growth to be where it is? I think there are three key things I want to highlight to you as the reasons on this. One is the increase in raw material, which we spoke about, and I will dwell a bit on this as we go forward.
The second is the time lag in recovery because we have a three-month contractual pass-through with majority of our customers, and this time lag in a very sharp price increase scenario puts pressure on the margin in the interim period. Lastly, the COVID-19 related expenses continue to be there in this period. I think it's a combination of these three things, steep rise in raw material prices, time lag in our recoveries based on all our contracts, and the COVID-19 related expenses. With that, if some of you have our investor presentation, I want to draw your attention to page 10 and talk to you about unprecedented price increase in key raw materials.
As you would see this chart, the thing which stands out and which I want to share with you is that the price increase which we are seeing in this period is something we've not seen in many years. We are seeing a 25% quarter-on-quarter increase, whereas the historical movement has been in the broad band of ±5%. This very sharp increase of 25%, as I was telling you, puts a lot of pressure in the interim on us. This indeed is our challenge. As there is challenge, there are opportunities. I treat this challenge both as a challenge, but more as an opportunity. As I move forward, if I could draw your attention to page 11 if some of you have our investor presentation, I want to share with you what we are doing.
That's why I wanted to call this an opportunity. Because it's such a strong challenge, we've drawn up a very holistic EBITDA margin improvement plan, and this plan is already in place, and this will help us navigate FY 2022 successfully. The three-pronged approach is, the first one is judicious price increases. I talked to you about contractual pass-through, which has a three-month lag. We have actually been talking to some of our big global customers, and we are asking for a spot correction if possible. A three-month lag as part of our contract is a given. We are also looking at price corrections being negotiated across geographies, and I can share with you that we have managed to do this with a very large set of customers as I speak to you.
I think very good progress on judicious price increases, and I think that is going to be one very important key lever. The second important lever, which we've talked about in the past, but I needed to dwell a little deeper on cost productivity initiatives or Project Phoenix. Phase II is we are stepping up on Project Phoenix. When I say we are stepping up, and that's what I keep saying, every challenge is an opportunity, and we've actually made the most of this one as well, is we are looking at, first and foremost, accelerating Modern Times project, which is basically improving our manufacturing efficiency through automation. The pilot, which will be done in the U.S., will be accelerated, and as we learn there, we will keep on implementing it everywhere in different places, and we will do it almost parallelly.
Therefore, improving manufacturing efficiency through automation is going to be very important. This will help us in improving our productivity. It will also help us navigate costs. In an environment like the current environment, it will also help us stabilize our operations and manage any absenteeism and those things better. The second thing which we are looking at, and I wanted to share with all of you, is we are dialing up and increasing our in-house manufacturing of caps and closures. As many of you know, for the number of tubes that we make, our caps and closures is at a different level, and therefore we do make caps and closures in different geographies, but there is scope for us to increase the in-house manufacturing. This will be margin accretive.
It will also make us more nimble and agile, and this will be important as we pivot towards beauty and cosmetics as a category where caps and closures dispensing becomes one of the items which is a differentiator. It allows us to innovate and to be able to deliver faster. I think that's the second piece. The third and fourth pieces are more regular, but that is where we are working harder than what we've ever done in the past. The second third is around scrap and wastage reduction, fourth is around rationalization of energy consumption and looking at alternate sources wherever possible. I think this is the second big strategy in terms of improving our margins. The third and equally important one is our focus on high-profit segments and value-added offerings as we continue to improve our mix.
We will continue to improve our category mix, which you will hear from me, that itself will offer us some tailwinds, we will do more of this as we go forward in some of the other specific segments, specific diameters, and specific value-added offerings. With this, we are very confident of converting this challenge into an opportunity. Lastly, a piece of some good news, if I could leave you with or a small silver lining in these clouds, is that we are beginning to see first signs of flattening or stabilization of the raw material price increase in the first data which is coming in for June. I think the first set of discussions and the data which is coming in for June gives us confidence that even this steep price increase which we were seeing is now beginning to stabilize and hold on.
With that, let me focus back on our capital efficiency agenda, which we've talked of in the past. Let me again reiterate the four key pillars. Prudent CapEx spend. This year we came in at about 1,760 million INR for FY 2021. We will continue to look at prudent CapEx spend, at the same time, the fact that we have our operations in different geographies, we will also look at continue to evaluate operating expenditure versus capital expenditure, particularly in low interest cost of capital and low cost of capital and capital abundant geographies, some of them which we work in. I think that's the piece. You also heard me talk about Modern Times as a project. I think the second thing is our journey on reduction in net debt will continue, and we spoke about that.
Net of our one-time expense for the acquisition, which we just did in quarter four of FY 2021 of Creative StyloPack, our net debt continues to come down. As a matter of fact, that number is almost half of previous year's number and has steadily come down, as you can see on slide 12, if you are looking at our presentation. All of this continues to lead to improvement in ROCE, we spoke about that, at 21.3%. Lastly, as we generate more of EBITDA, as we generate more of profit, we are confident of sharing it with our shareholders, our dividends are continuing to grow. I'm also happy to share with you that the board has approved and announced, subject to shareholder approval, the final dividend of INR 2.05. For the year FY 2021, we had announced an interim dividend of INR 2.05.
We've now announced the final dividend of INR 2.05. This puts our dividend payout at roughly 50% of our profits. Therefore this, in some ways, is what will be the rhythm you will continue to see, a steady dividend payout guided by a policy which basically bakes on the percentage of what our profits are. The other thing which I also wanted to tell you is our unlevered cash flow now comes in almost at 53% of EBITDA, and this is best in class in our industry for sure. With that, let me talk you through the four identified levers and the strong progress that we've made in FY 2021 across this. The first one is accelerated growth in personal care. We've actually been delivering a 15% CAGR in this year again, despite a lot of headwinds on beauty and cosmetics, particularly in geographies like India.
We've delivered a 15% growth on our personal care category. It basically constitutes 46% of our overall business. Our business is now 46% personal care, 54% oral care. If you remember, this number used to be like 40/60 about three, four years back in FY 2018. From 41% to 43 to 45, and now to 46. With the investments we made in Creative StyloPack and all the work which we've done in beauty and cosmetics and pharma, particularly in the AMESA region, in the region we are in now, I think we will continue to accelerate this, and this will be a number you will watch out for in FY 2022 as well. I think our growth is across geographies. The only place where you see very muted is AMESA, which got very badly impacted by beauty and cosmetics in FY 2021.
You will now see a growth momentum coming in AMESA. It has actually started from quarter four itself. You will see this momentum picking up as we go forward. Our growth in other areas of personal care in EAP, in Americas and Europe remains very, very strong. I now want to move on to the second pillar of our second lever, which is continued leadership in oral care. I'm happy to share with you that we delivered 9.9% growth in FY 2021. We've actually, over a 10-year period, delivered about a 10% CAGR. If you were to look at last five years, we were actually delivering more like mid-single digits. This is a step jump in FY 2021 in a COVID year, and a reflection of our wallet share growth with existing customers and our addition of certain new customers in geographies.
I also want to absolutely single out. We've added another global major in Europe. That's a journey which has started actually from March of FY 2021, and you will continue to see Europe, therefore, getting advantage of one more global major added in oral care. Moving on to the third pillar, which is improved performance in Europe. If you look at our performance in Europe, basically, one, first and foremost, we've continued to deliver robust growth in a region which does not grow from a CPG point of view. We've delivered a 13.5% growth, coming largely about from competitive growth. This 13.5% total growth in Europe is composed of 9.2% growth in oral care, very strong for Europe, and 14.7% growth in personal care.
One, we continue to accelerate our growth across categories, and we are confident with recent customer acquisitions and wins that we will continue this journey of growth in Europe. That's important, and the growth is equally important in margin delivery. I think the second important piece is all the work which we've been doing from the point of view of costs. In FY 2021, we've delivered an EBITDA growth of 31.3% in Europe. More importantly, we've delivered a margin of 14.8% in FY 2021. Now reaching about mid-teens. This number was 10% in FY 2019. In 24 months, a rapid scale up from about 10%-15%, and we are confident of dialing this up to high teens in the years ahead as we grow in Europe. We've also taken measures which I would say are tough measures.
We've taken measures to operationalize, to streamline our operations, and we have optimized our presence in Russia by closing down our Russia manufacturing facility. We will continue to operate in Russia. We will continue to trade in Russia, but we have closed down our Russia manufacturing facility effective 31st of March 2021. The last but one of the most important pillars of our EPL 2.0 mission is industry leadership in eco-friendly solutions. Let me spend a couple of minutes on this. First and foremost, Platina tubes have now been qualified by APR and RecyClass. We now have a range of Platina which is available in different thicknesses from 220 microns to 350 microns. We have a greater than 50% green sustainably sourced PE as well. We have also designed for certain customers in Europe, PCR tubes with greater than 30% PCR resin.
These have already been commercialized. If I was to talk to you about some of the things which we've achieved in this year is I think, one, we've started building a portfolio around Platina. Not only do we have Platina, we've got Platina Pro, which is, as the name suggests, an upgrade on Platina. We've also done fully recyclable tubes in this. It has better haptics, enhanced haptics, chemical resistance, flavor barriers. For our PCR tube, which we've done in Europe, we've actually also won accolades. Basically, we won the etma Tube of the Year 2020 award. The portfolio, as I was telling you today, now consists of Platina, Platina Pro, Platina Metallic, called Platina ME, Platina Vision, which is the work which we are doing on Platina Double White, r-Platina, Platina Bio Max. A whole range of sustainability solutions.
Lastly, what gives me a lot of confidence and pride as I share with you is. While we've got accreditation, while we've won accolades, we've also been acknowledged. Acknowledgment from global customers is. Nothing gives us more joy than being acknowledged as partners of choice with global customers. Unilever, one I have shared on Slide 26, if you guys are looking at it. We've also been working closely and have been acknowledged by the other global majors, GSK, Procter & Gamble. I also wanted to share with you that we are the first tube supplier in the world to get the APR approval for full tube, which is not only the laminates, which we talk about through Platina, but also the shoulder, the barrier, and cap. I think with this, I think we've made a very promising start on sustainability.
We've actually commercialized close to 100 million units of tubes in FY 2021 itself, and this number will continue to grow as we move forward. We are also very conscious of our social responsibility, and I think we've used FY 2021 as the year in defining and taking our first steps around the strategy for social and corporate social responsibility. We've defined our strategy in two words, Greening Lives. Greening Lives actually is about green communities, it's about waste management, but it's also about Greening Lives as in making lives better for people, and therefore, there will be programs around that, especially around scale. The two key platforms we will work under Greening Lives on, these are multi-year platforms, will be on waste management and on skilling.
In a year like COVID, we've actually been very proactive in helping healthcare workers, and now more recently, helping people out through Akshaya Patra to navigate this crisis for the people who need all that help. We've gone out of the way. We've actually had the right partnerships in place. We are in conversations with startups to be able to do meaningful stuff in the area of waste management, and we are also building a very strong governance when we do these things. I spoke with you earlier about Creative, which is now a subsidiary of EPL, effective February 1, 2021. The transaction was consummated at an enterprise value of INR 2.53 billion. The deal structure, this is an outright purchase in cash of 72.46%, and the balance around 27.5% will be through a share swap, which will be pursuant to the merger, which has actually been applied for.
Creative founders are now part of EPL's senior management. The thing I wanted to share with you on EPL, early days, but the two months which we have seen and the quarter which is going on, basically the hypothesis with which we acquired Creative, I think all levers are playing out well, and we are confident of this acquisition delivering to our strategy as we go forward. Lastly, I would like to conclude by sharing with you how do we look ahead, more specifically into FY 2022. First and foremost, we are very confident of sustaining double-digit revenue growth. The reason I say that is I've talked to you in the past about business development pipeline, and I just wanted to give you an indication that the pipeline we've entered FY 2022 with is 29% higher than the pipeline we had entered FY 2021.
Just to give you an indication how robust our pipeline is, all the work which we've done in this year and up until now in order to get basically higher share of wallet or new customers or new categories actually is giving us very strong pipeline. We spoke about this, but I just want to reiterate that we have plan in place for quarter-on-quarter improvement in EBITDA margin. I think moving on from here, we will deliver quarter-on-quarter improvement through judicious price increases, cost productivity initiatives, and mix improvement, which I talked about in quite some detail. We've converted the challenge of the raw material crisis into an opportunity, which in the longer period, you will see EPL reaping very rich dividends.
As we deliver this quarter-on-quarter improvement, we are confident of our journey of double-digit growth and with basically incremental improvement in EBITDA, which is what we set out for ourselves in the medium term. I spoke about sustainability. That will be a key driver. EPL is already leading the way for the industry. We will continue to dial up our efforts in this space, partner with our customers to basically come through or deliver ahead of their plans on their SDG goals. Lastly, once again, let me sign off by saying we are committed to delivering market-leading revenue growth and capital efficient, consistent earnings growth this year and in the medium term. One thing we will need to continue to watch out for, like many other businesses, is whether COVID wave three remains a concern. We need to continue to watch out for that.
Here again, the good news I wanted to share with you is the protocols we've developed, what all we've learned in this period of about 14-15 months will come in good stead as we both manage operations and manage costs. We are confident of doing that better than what we've done up to now. Thank you. With this, thank you for your time. Thank you for your patience. As a management team, we are open to questions. Please go ahead and ask your questions. Thank you once again.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on your touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants are requested to use handouts for asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the questions will be coming. First question is from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Thank you for the detailed presentation. My first question was, Colgate's management also spoke about their sustainable tube for Active Salt. Are we the suppliers for that tube? A follow-up on that was, with the transition to sustainable packaging, how much growth do you expect coming from this new lever for next one or two years? Is this margin accretive for us? Do our competitors also provide these sustainable products, or it is just purely innovative and hence would lead to our market share gain?
Yeah. Lots of questions there. Thank you for asking them. Yes, we are a leading supplier for sustainable solutions, and in the specific case of the customer you talked about, I'm assuming you're talking about Colgate in India. We are working very closely with them in the sustainable journey. That is one part of the question. I think sustainability is a very important strategic lever as we go forward. It plays three roles. I think one, basically it is your license to operate in the future. I think that we should remember. I think that in many ways, sustainability future-proofs you as an organization and future-proofs, therefore, EPL and therefore our packaging solutions. Depending on the brand and depending on the solution we provide, it could be margin accretive. There will also be instances as sustainability becomes mainstream, that there will be places where it is neutral.
In terms of our preparedness and where we are on sustainability, we continue to believe with all our knowledge that we remain ahead of the curve while there are other global players who are working on it as well. From a planet point of view, you need more hands on deck. That is good news. I think that with our innovation, our R&D, and all the work which we've done, we remain very positive and, in our assessment, remain ahead of the curve.
Thank you for that detailed answer. My second question was around America's business. We've seen a lower growth this quarter, lower revenue growth. What would be the reason for this?
I will ask my colleague Ram to comment, and then I'll add on to it. Ram, over to you for this question, please.
You are able to hear me?
We can hear you now. I could hear you before. We can hear you.
Okay.
Yeah. Over to you. Thank you.
Most U.S. companies are facing labor shortages. This is one of the reasons. It's not just for us, for most companies. The demand is really good. Even going forward, I think once we are able to overcome that's why we talk about Project Modern Times. There are lots of side activities which will reduce number of people. Demand is also being done. At the same time, we are also recruiting more number of people. Combined with all that, going forward will be good. The demand is strong.
Yeah.
You mentioned the demand is what?
Demand is strong.
Yeah. Thank you, Ram. Let me quickly add. I think if you look at quarter four, which has gone by, I think one, America saw a very strong COVID wave into beginning of the quarter. Therefore, there were, as Ram said, many of the people were experiencing shortages of labor because people were either down with COVID or in quarantine or sort of because of contact tracing being sort of quarantining for precaution. I think that was not true only for us. It was also true for our customers. I have also in the past narrated this, that we are actually facing for the very first time in America, a few cancellations at the last minute. Even for this quarter, I think towards the end, one or two of our leading customers had to close down their plants and stop it abruptly.
I think these are things which were there. As you now know, as Ram was telling you, the situation of COVID in America is much, much better. The macro for U.S. particularly is looking very strong from the point of view of GDP growth. The demand is looking very strong, which we know from the orders which are coming in. Therefore, in the period ahead, we are very confident of improvement in America as well.
Okay, got the answer, but just a quick follow-up. Does that mean that the labor shortage problem has also been resolved?
Yes. Partly yes, because it was dependent on the pandemic as well. To that extent, yes.
Okay, got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bharat Shah from ASK Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, Sudhanshu. I just had one structural issue to talk about. Given the fact that our oral care is a category, is a mature business globally, and personal care, relatively greater opportunity to grow. That may have a greater growth potential. When I add up the two on a sustainable basis, what is the kind of a long-term actual business volume growth would you ascribe? Profit may be function also of the operating leverage and some amount of financial leverage. Profit growth for some time may grow at a rate faster than our volumes and the top line. I want to understand on a long-term structural basis, what kind of growth would you assume, A, for your oral care and B, for your personal care activity?
Thank you, Bharat. We've spoken about this a bit in the past as well. I think the fact that we are strengthening both the pillars and both, in a way, if I could look at it, this is like our double engine. I think we are confident of balancing and moving forward as we go. One, when we say oral is mature, the point is that there is still considerable room for growth. We've been demonstrating it year-on-year. Even in last year, we delivered a 9.9% growth in oral. We continue to believe that there is room for growth in oral, and on another day, I can get into various levers which give us the growth potential.
You are right, that beauty and cosmetics has a much higher growth potential, both the market growth and our own share perspective, pharma, beauty and cosmetics, and we continue to work a lot on that. I think, in across the region, we've done and we are growing that segment faster, and therefore that share is continuously growing. We are working on that piece and we are getting ourselves geared up to increase the velocity of growth further on the personal care end, specifically beauty and cosmetics and pharma. I think, we see growth potential in both areas. We continue to see high single-digit kind of numbers for oral as well in the medium term, and we would like to see mid to high double-digit numbers for what you call personal care, specifically beauty and cosmetics and pharma.
Okay. Thank you, Sudhanshu Vats.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi sir. My question is regarding America. In the Q3, we have discussed about the travel tube lower sales. With the opening of the market, can we expect that segment will be a driver for America? Can you talk about what was the total % of the business of the travel tube?
Travel tubes contribute a large part. I would not like to share, but yes, in case of America, they contribute a large portion of our business, and therefore, America had a bigger headwind with travel and tourism taking a beating. You are right that with the opening up of U.S. now, already we can see demand coming in. We've got to navigate this as we go forward because this pandemic has waves, as you know. I think as I speak to you today, yes, the situation is opening up and the demand is improving and demand is better, and so that part should be good. What gives us confidence for America is the work which we've done across in strengthening our pipeline. Ram was speaking to it in response to the earlier question, we've opened up on West Coast.
We've actually now have more customers who have come in. We have got more beauty and cosmetics orders. The work which is there, we have some high-end oral tubes. The work which we have done overall continues to give us confidence for growth in America, and I think if the situation on COVID improves and becomes near normal or the new normal in future and travel comes in, that will be an added benefit on top of it.
The question is regarding America. We have mentioned in the PPT the new customer wins across category and conversion from bottle to tubes, conversion and cross-selling of personal products also. Assuming these factor and the recovery in tube segment, we can see in coming quarter is going to be a robust for America business.
Yes, you will continue to see very good growth as we go forward.
Talking about the overall margin profile of Europe business, we have seen a significant improvement. Can you talk about the margin trajectory for Europe business in next two to three years?
I have already spoken about it in the past. As I told you, we have rapidly increased it to about mid-teens now. I think our journey in the medium term now, as you described, the three odd years, we will continue to incrementally grow it from mid-teens to high teens, and I think that is something which we have always said and we continue to believe in that.
I'm so sorry to interrupt. Your audio was breaking. We couldn't hear you.
Can you hear me now?
Yes, sir. You can go ahead.
On the Europe question, what I was saying is that I've shared this in the past as well. As a team, we have shared this. We have made very rapid progress in the first phase from 10% to now mid-teens, 14.8%. In the medium term now, as you described, three to five years, we will continue to incrementally grow our margin and improve them, and we want to be in high teens as we go forward.
Sir, the audio is breaking again.
We would like to deliver in the medium term, high teens in Europe.
Thank you. That was the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. I just want to once again sign off by letting you know that as we look into the future, we remain confident, we remain positive and optimistic with continuing to strengthen our position as a company and driving our leadership on sustainability. Double-digit revenue growth, plan in place for quarter-on-quarter improvement in EBITDA and sustainability being the driver as we go forward. The one area we would need to continue to watch out for is if there are further waves, and especially a severe COVID wave in the future. We remain committed to delivering market-leading revenue growth and capital efficiency, consistent earnings growth. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you. On behalf of Systematix Institutional Equities, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.