Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Hero MotoCorp Q1 and FY 2027 earnings conference call hosted by Equirus Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in 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. Mihir Vora from Equirus Securities. Thank you, and over to you, Mihir.
Thank you, Danish, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Q1 FY 2027 post-results conference call of Hero MotoCorp. I would like to thank the management team of Hero MotoCorp for giving us the opportunity to host this call. I'll now hand over the call to Sarthak from Investor Relation team of Hero to take this forward. Over to you, Sarthak.
Hi. Thank you, Mihir. Good morning, everyone, welcome to our earnings call. With us on the call today, we have Mr. Harsh Chitale, who's our CEO; Mr. Vivek Anand, our CFO; Mr. Ashutosh Varma, who is the Chief Business Officer of the India Business Unit; Ms. Kausalya Nandakumar, Chief Business Officer of the Emerging Mobility Business Unit; Mr. Anuj Dua is the Chief Business Officer of Premium Business Unit. We'll begin the call with opening remarks from Harsh and Vivek, followed by a Q&A session. With that, let me hand over to Harsh.
Thank you, Sarthak, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this call today. I'm sure that all of you must have seen our results for Q1 fiscal year FY 2027. Before we dive in to analyze our performance, I want to highlight that we have already uploaded a quarterly investor presentation on our website besides the results. Those of you who want to refer to it, please feel free to do so. I and Vivek will also touch upon some of the key points that are highlighted there through this call. Let's begin with macro and industry trends. Starting first with the underlying demand trends in quarter one FY 2027. As you all noticed, we had a good tailwind, and we had a good demand momentum throughout the quarter.
Two-wheeler industry volumes grew 14% year-on-year in terms of VAHAN or retail sales, of which 11% was growth in ICE and 67% was in EV. Both ICE and EV had strong demand momentum in quarter one. This growth was broad-based, supported by improved affordability post GST rate cuts, as well as healthy urban and rural demand and continued acceleration in EV adoption. It's heartening to see that this strong demand momentum has continued in quarter two, and quarter two also saw a strong year-on-year retail growth in July of 28%. Both ICE and EV again registered similar kind of strong momentum as we saw in quarter one. Moving to operational performance of Hero MotoCorp in quarter one. When we look at our dispatches, our volume grew at 23% year-on-year, and our revenue grew 36%.
This extra 13% uplift between 36% and 23% came from improved price realization as well as mix. For last few quarters, we've been talking about our emphasis on growing in EV, growing in premium, growing in our global business, and growing in scooters. All of these four actually performed very well for us this quarter, and that contributed to positive mix of 8%. A lot of our growth now as well as going forward, you will see in revenue is on top of volume growth, which is contributed by increasing shift to these higher value products of scooter, premium, EV, and global businesses. Overall, we saw our dispatch or wholesale market share increase by 30 basis points in quarter one. As I highlighted in the last quarter, our strategy of focusing on fast-growing segments continued to yield results. Besides, we consolidated our gains in the commuter segment.
ICE overall grew 21% year-on-year, with 18% growth in domestic volumes and 63% growth in global business. Within ICE scooters, we gained market share by 2.3%. 230 basis point market share gain was in scooters alone. Now we have across close to 7% market share in ICE scooters. In EV, we have a wholesale growth of 151%, and this has helped us gain 400 basis points of market share within one year. Now we are consistently retailing at more than 20,000 units every month. You will see that going forward increasing as we have just now introduced two very exciting new products, and later on, Kausalya can speak more about that. We've also done the first leg of our capacity expansion, which has already come on stream on 1st of August.
Both these new launches as well as additional capacity will see a further boost to our EV sales going forward. On global business, we expanded our market share by 110 basis points within the quarter. In parts and accessories business, which is a very profitable contributor to our financials, we saw strong growth of 30% year-on-year. Moving to some key new launches that we did in the quarter. We had number of launches in ICE. We saw Super Splendor XTEC 2.0, which comes with a best-in-class mileage as well as a silent start. We also launched a Passion Pro Disc variant, Passion Pro Disc variant expands our 150 portfolio. In July, you heard from us about new launches in VIDA, where we now launch a premium variant of VIDA VX2.
It gives 187 km of IDC range and also a superior fast charging capability. If you want to learn more about it, Kausalya is on the call to talk more about it later. In terms of our technology advancements, we continue to do investments in new powertrains with our focus on future of mobility, clean mobility. Hence you heard from us in June about our flex fuel range that we introduced. We are the first ones to have introduced, in the core commuter segment, flex fuel variants of our highest selling models, Splendor and HF. With that variant, you can now have a motorcycle that is designed to operate all the way from 10% of ethanol content in the fuel all the way up to 85%. It comes with a smart engine technology as well as components specifically designed to work at high blends of ethanol.
We started dispatching those from the third quarter of July, and it's very heartening to see that within two weeks of the third week of July, and within two weeks, we have already sold close to 5,000 of these in few outlets where we've made these vehicles available. It's seeing a great traction, and we are the only ones, and we are differentiated in that category right now. We are also further advancing on our electric motorcycle range, and you should also hear more about that soon from us. Kausalya can also talk about it later. We continue to work on these future of mobility and clean mobility powertrains, and that remains our focus. Last quarter, we had also spoken about capacity expansion investments, and we made significant progress on that.
When it comes to EVs, you would recollect that we had ended last year with a monthly capacity of 15,000 per month. As we stand today, in the first week of August, it has already increased to close to 30,000 per month, and you should see us go to close to 45,000 per month before end of this financial year. As we had committed, we are tripling our capacity of EVs within this financial year. We've also increased our capacity in Splendor. Looking at encouraged by the growth that we are seeing even in our Splendor, which grew 15% year-on-year within the quarter. We've added 2,000 per day of capacity in Splendor. We've doubled the capacity of Destini, and both of this has got completed within the quarter itself.
We are further increasing our capacity also in XOOM, which is a 50% further jump in the capacity of XOOM scooters. This increase in Destini and increase in XOOM, our scooter range, is coming from the confidence of growth that we see in scooters, where we almost doubled our dispatches in scooters year-on-year. We are seeing excellent traction in scooters and 230 basis points of share gain in scooters, hence the significant capacity enhancements in scooters. In May, we had talked about a new CTO who joined us, Sachin Agrawal. He joined us as a new CTO in May, and he comes with a background of multiple decades working on different powertrains, and that further bolsters our capability that we are building about our powertrain development. Just earlier this week, we announced Mr. Anuj Dua as the Chief Business Officer for premium segment.
Anuj brings over two decades of experience with deep leadership experience across different two-wheeler OEMs. He has a proven track record across global product strategy, brand building, market expansion across different geographies. He is on the call with us today. Before I hand over the floor to Vivek, I would request Anuj to introduce himself and maybe talk about some of his immediate priorities. Anuj, all the best, and over to you.
Thank you, Harsh. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone, once again. I would like to begin by expressing my huge thanks to Harsh and [Non-English content] for trusting me to lead this premium business unit. That is our next big growth engine. All of us are fully aware of this. Firstly, very excited about leading this business unit. Motorcycling for me is a hobby and passion, not just a job. Thank you once again, Harsh. Since I am interacting with all of you for the first time, I would like to just quickly share my background. I joined one year back leading the products, and now I have been given this new assignment. Prior to this, nine years I was working with Royal Enfield. Prior to that, 10 years I was working with Hero.
All these two journeys across Hero and Royal Enfield was across sales, marketing, product planning. It has given me immense learning from interacting with all my colleagues in plant, sourcing, manufacturing, R&D, across sales and marketing. One thing which has remained very common and permanent was focus on consumers and what they would love to see in the motorcycles. I have enjoyed creating the product experiences, engagements in motorcycling in few parts of the world, in Asia Pacific and specifically in India. My mandate from Harsh is very clear: focus on consumer and community. Do exactly what they need in product, in engagement, in experiences. I think that is amongst the few priorities that Harsh wanted me to speak about. The first priority remains to elevate the consumer retail experience across all touch points.
From a search journey to in-use journey, everywhere, wherever they interact with us, they should feel elated and get a premium feel. The next important priority will be portfolio expansion. There are interesting, very exciting products coming over in next 12 months. That is where we will focus a lot. I would also love to focus on merchandise and accessories. Across the globe now, mass customization, mass personalization is a trend across category, but more so in two-wheeler. That is where merchandise and accessory plays a very important role in uplifting the lifestyle association and margin for business. We have an amazing partnership with the OG brand, Harley-Davidson. We will take it to the next level. Community and lifestyle engagement, that is where the two-wheeler riders all about the globe are feeling more and more involved into. That is where we will focus a lot.
Our huge investments in terms of the right bandwidth in motorsports is already paying us huge dividends across the globe, specifically in India and Latin America. We'll make sure we make the motorsports fully accessible to the motorcycle enthusiasts, this adventure segment is the fastest growing segment across the world. Hero, through Dakar and motorsports efforts, has been seen as a clear winner in that mind space. We will make sure we do that more and more now. In the end, I would also like to say that, not now, maybe in future, whenever Vivek, Harsh, and feel, we should ride with some of you and let's catch up on riding motorcycles, not just on the calls like this. Looking forward to that, and maybe Harsh can help us with that. Thank you very much once again, and over to Vivek.
Yep. Thank you, Anuj, and good morning, everyone. A very warm welcome to all joining us in the call today. I hope you have all had the opportunity to review our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. Turning straight to our financial performance for quarter one, financial year 2027, we delivered a strong quarter on the top- line, recording revenue from operations of INR 12,999 crore and EBITDA of INR 1,727 crore, and a profit after tax of INR 1,454 crore. Total volume grew by a robust 23% year-on-year. This was backed by steady 21% growth in our core ICE portfolio and a strong 151% growth in our EV business, reflecting both healthy underlying market demand and growing customer preference for our new launches. What is particularly encouraging is that our revenue growth outpaced volume growth significantly, coming in at 36% year-on-year.
This top-line expansion was driven by premiumization across our portfolio, driven by a shift in mix towards EV, scooters, and premium variants, contributing a mix benefit of 8%, with the rest coming from calibrated price increase. Notably, this includes strong growth in our parts business of over 30% through a healthy mix of volume expansion and price. As we flagged during our last earnings call, quarter one did experience transitionary commodity cost pressures. The conflict in West Asia triggered inflationary spikes across oil and gas, freight, foreign exchange, and core raw materials, including steel, aluminum, and precious metals. Because of this, our gross margin for the quarter came down under pressure, contracting 300 basis points quarter-on-quarter, primarily due to an approximate 4.5% net commodity inflation impact. Recognizing these headwinds risk early, we moved quickly and decisively.
There are a couple of initiatives, what I would like to briefly talk about, we've taken during the quarter. Firstly, we improved mix driven by higher contribution from premium variants and PAM business. Second, we rationalize our cost structures by adjusting non-critical operating expenses and accelerating cost savings under our internal LEAP program. We leveraged our operating scale to drive cost efficiencies across manufacturing and supply chain operations. Finally, we took judicious price actions across select models, balancing margin protection with market momentum. As a direct result of these initiatives, even with a gross margin contraction of 300 basis points quarter-on-quarter, our overall EBITDA margin decline was lower at 120 basis points sequentially, landing at 13.3%. Thanks to the disciplined cost management, as reflected in a 14% sequential reduction in other expenses.
Looking specifically at our ICE portfolio, EBITDA margins held up even better, contracting by 90 basis points sequentially to 15.9%, cushioned by strong operating leverage, cost savings, and higher profitability in our parts business. Amid these short-term cost pressures, we chose not to compromise on our long-term growth priorities. We continue to invest aggressively behind brand building and strategic product launches. During the quarter, we launched two new EV products and rolled out high impact global marketing campaigns across major events like the FIFA World Cup and the India-England Cricket Series, creating strong visibility across key brands, including Xtreme, Destini, XOOM, and XPulse. In our EV business, VIDA achieved strong growth with quarterly volume reaching 57,000 units, up 26% quarter- on- quarter. Importantly, our total P&L investment in the VIDA business remained flat sequentially at around INR 230 crore.
This disciplined cost profile was made possible by continuous improvement in per unit economics, targeting pricing actions, and PLI benefit amounting to INR 48 crore during the quarter. On the PLI front, I am pleased to share that around 60% of our EV portfolio is now PLI certified, and we expect 100% of our portfolio to be PLI compliant by December 2026. Financial year 2027 will be our first full year of PLI accruals, providing a strong structural tailwind to support EV portfolio. Moreover, some of our models have turned gross margin positive, which will further enhance our overall EV profitability going forward. Moving on to the consolidated results. Company tax of INR 1,418 crore versus normalized profit of around INR 1,100 crore last year.
It is important to note that last year we had a one-time gain of approximately INR 700 crore before tax on account of dilution of company's shares of investment in associates, consequent to public issue and private placement. Looking ahead to quarter two, financial year 2027, while we expect a marginal uptick in input cost inflation, we plan to neutralize by continued improvement of product mix, optimizing our discretionary spends, and accelerating cost-saving programs. Our primary focus will remain on driving EBITDA growth while progressing towards our medium-term EBITDA margin target range of 14%-16%. Going forward, our journey of investment behind growth will continue, both in terms of capacity expansion and brand building to support our premium scooters, EV, and global business portfolio. Thank you once again for your time and continued support. On that note, let me open the floor for Q&A. Over to you, Sarthak. Thank you.
Thank you, Manish. We can open the line for questions.
Sure. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants, I request you to answer while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Amyn Pirani with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a very strong performance in a very tough quarter for the auto industry. My first question was actually on the scooter and EV capacity expansion, as well as the model launches that you have done in the last few weeks. Any initial sense of demand on the ground? Are there any order books? Is there low inventory level for these models? You are going to expand capacity quite rapidly, and historically, you were mentioning that you were supply-constrained. Any extra color there would be quite helpful.
No, thank you, Amyn. Thank you for your question. Let's begin with VIDA on EV. We have pretty much Nil Channel Inventory. It's two to three days, depending on region to region. Whatever we are supplying and shipping is actually retailed immediately. That gives you an indication of the pent-up demand. As we now bring on our 10,000 more capacity right away this month, we expect there is the demand there, which will immediately pick that up. Coming to ICE scooters, as you saw, we had an 87% growth year-over-year in our ICE scooters as well. There, when I look at the channel stock of XOOM, for example, or some variants of Destini, those are running into typically half of what on an average we normally see in all our models.
There is also a bit of a depletion of channel stock there. Hence, between VIDA and between all the scooters put together, we've added close to 2,500 per day of extra capacity.
That's really great to know and looking forward to the ramp-up of the wholesales and retails here. My second question is on motorcycles. If you look at motorcycles, it looks like especially the bottom half, which is up to 125cc, as a category, it's still not doing as well as the other categories within two- wheelers despite GST. You have gained share within the 100cc clearly, but the category doesn't seem to be doing that well. Any color there, any insights as to what is going on and what we can expect over the next few quarters?
I think a great observation. Within the motorcycle, by the way, the category 100cc is also growing, other ranges, 125cc and above, are growing faster. The 100cc, we have outgrown the industry and hence gained 230 basis points of market share. We are now at close to 86% market share. Already from a high, we have further gained market share there. That category in itself is also growing. That's happening because the tailwind out of GST creating more affordability, that still continues. This is still the bike, the first commuter purchase that many of our customers do as they get into the market.
The higher categories, of course, as India urbanizes, India becomes richer, those categories are growing faster than you saw us gain share in those as well.
Okay. Understood. Thanks for this. I'll come back in the queue.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gunjan Prithyani with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is just a clarification on the 2,500 capacity per day that you mentioned. Is the understanding right that we're roughly doing about 60,000- 65,000 right now, put together ICE and EVs? This will pretty much double by the second half of the year. Is there any timeline? Is the understanding on the number correct on monthly basis?
No, you are right. I think we are right now clocking 65,000 a month. Very accurate, in fact. The capacity addition will little more than double.
Okay. Any timeline on when do we get to this capacity? Is it by the exit quarter of fiscal 2027? Any timelines around the expansion?
Two-third of this is already done, the balance one-third, the second phase of expansion of VIDA, which will come up in the last quarter of this financial year.
We do have that reasonable visibility on demand to be able to ramp it up pretty immediately in terms of production.
That is right. That is by the earlier question, which was on the channel stock and underlying demand.
Yeah.
In each of these models, we actually have much lower channel stock than what one would normally like to have.
Got it. That's good to hear. My question essentially is just shifting gears to the motorcycle business. I think we did take pretty back-to-back price increases in quarter four and quarter one. Just trying to maybe hear from Ashutosh on what has been the acceptance of these price hikes. Given this also came along with the fuel price inflation that we saw. How has customer been able to take this sort of inflation, and is there something that we are sort of thinking through in terms of getting the growth? We did see that immediate tailwind in the entry segment when the GST rate cut happened. That seems to be, again, stabilizing now for some reason. If you can share your thoughts. Is it because of the price increases we're seeing some impact on the demand?
Your thoughts on the whole total cost of ownership acceptance at the entry end.
Sure, Gunjan. Thank you for your question. I'll start off from where Harsh left. In fact, first of all, thanking the customers that in the overall 100cc, our market share now is 86%. Effectively, nine out of every 10 customers are preferring Hero, for the values that we stand for, which is mileage, reliability, and trust. This is a category that we own. If you look at specifically 100cc, the likes of Splendor and Passion, there we've seen category expansion, and there we have seen market share expansion. This segment growing from 32% to almost 33%, a little more. Market share went up by almost 3%. We have seen a lot of excitement. That's also because of the fact that we have continued to make interventions beyond the product itself.
There have been interventions in terms of retail finance, there have been interventions in terms of some of the other affordability measures that we have tried to do. We are confident that this segment is resilient. As the way things look like from a monsoon perspective, it's looking the quarter and possibly the fact leading into festive, looking much stronger. We expect this segment to do even better. Yes, we've taken some price increases, but that's also largely because of the confidence that we have in the brands, that we feel that it will be able to continue to demand that kind of traction from consumers and the growth in terms of market share is a testimony of that, Gunjan. Confident at that end. I hope I answered your question.
Okay. That's helpful. Maybe if I can just get the channel stock that's there on the bikes portfolio. Scooter numbers are very clear. The financing penetration, if there is any significant change there.
Six weeks is what we do, and all this inventory is forward-looking. Of course, we are really not there in terms of where we want to be in terms of stocks. Over the next couple of months, you will see some increase that we will have to do to be ready for the festive. Progressing in the right direction. From a retail finance perspective, we saw the quarter becoming stronger. We have seen our retail finance penetration last month jumping to close to 65%. That's strong. There has been easing out in terms of credit, and that has started helping the markets. We believe that as we move into festive, this will become even more helpful.
Got it. All right. Thank you. I'll join back the queue.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dinesh Singh with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, [inaudible]. Thanks for the opportunity. The first question is on the margin front, looking at Q1, we are guide of about 14%-16% range. Do you think considering cost pressures, you will be able to maintain that range for the year?
As we indicated, 14%-16% is our guidance for the midterm. In last quarter, we indicated that with this transitory commodity inflation, there would be some impact in the margin percent. However, our focus would be to mitigate that through volume and focus on absolute EBITDA growth and not just EBITDA percent. In the midterm, we are confident of going back to it, but not in the short- term.
Yes. Hi, Dinesh. Vivek here. Just to add, I think, clearly when we look ahead to the current quarter, which is quarter two of financial year 2027, we expect a marginal uptick in input cost inflation. As I said earlier, we plan to neutralize this by continued improvement of product mix, optimizing our discretionary spends, and accelerating cost-saving programs. Our primary focus, as Harsh said, will remain on driving EBITDA growth while progressing towards our medium-term EBITDA margin target range of 14%-16%.
Thanks. Secondly, I'd like to share, just to better understand from the ICE capacity, like the EV capacity we talked about 15,000 Q1, 50,000 now going to 45,000. What exactly is the ICE capacity now versus what you see into the festive season? What is the delta change in ICE capacity in the scooter side?
Yeah. ICE capacity increases both on motorcycle and scooter. I also talked of increasing Splendor capacity by 2,000 per day. Little over 50,000 a month of increase in Splendor capacity. That's a capacity increase that has already happened to prepare us well for festival season. Also, on the ICE scooter front, we've added 1,500 per day. Which is also done. That is also done. First phase of VIDA is done, and the last phase will happen in quarter four.
Thanks. Lastly, just on the EV launches that you talked about, the two variants that came out. Could you share as to how would they contribute to the portfolio?
Yeah, [Non-English content]
Yeah. Hi, Dinesh. Good morning. We launched two variants in the first quarter, and one recently of the two. The first variant is our long-range variant. It's called the VIDA VX2 Plus 4.4 kWh with an IDC range of 187 km. We launched it with a campaign called [Non-English content] because the unmatched range that we give allows consumers the flexibility to take charge just once a week if they so desire. This also comes with a twin removable battery, giving the flexibility to consumers to charge everywhere. We've just started to dispatch in the quarter, and we have crossed about 1,000 vehicle dispatch and are now looking at an uptick on the contribution of this product. The second product that we launched in August, actually, the variant, it's called the VIDA VX2 Go 3.1 kWh , and this offers an IDC range of about 120 km.
This particular product is catering to a set of consumers who are looking at a product which they have access to charging at their home and office in a more easy manner. It comes with a strong backing of the styling that the VX2 already enjoys, the very favorable styling. Both of these products will contribute a significant volume going forward. As they stabilize in the forthcoming quarters, we'll share a little bit more in how they are actually blending in. We are very optimistic with our Ghar Ghar e-Scooters. Now with VIDA, we have a range from the 2.2 kWh all the way up to the 4.4 kWh, allowing consumers complete flexibility of options.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pramod Kumar with UBS. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot for the opportunity. Before the question, Harsh, I think congratulations for doing the right thing by the customer in terms of revising the HF Deluxe portfolio pricing. My first question is related to that segment again. Given that how dominant your market is, near monopoly, how do you see this pricing action? If you can help us put this in context as to with the price revision what you have done, where has the pricing gone to, and what is the expected impact on demand or what it could do to revive the category? This category is the only one which is kind of holding you back on market share, that is pushing you back.
If you can just share your broad thoughts behind the price cut, what it is, where it puts the pricing in terms of affordability for the consumer, and how do you foresee this segment playing out going into the festive season?
Thank you, Pramod. Great question. Across the board in general, we've taken price increases for different variants, and they vary by different variants and different geography. As we look at tactical opportunities, there are some variants and some geographies where we did take a tactical price cut. While overall weighted average is a price increase, as Gunjan in earlier question asked There are some pockets where we did do price correction, where we saw an opportunity to boost demand as well as gain share. And as you rightly pointed out, that was in one variant of HF Deluxe. The early signs after we've done, it has given an immediate boost to demand, as more customers are now coming into the market because that was targeted.
That absolute entry level variant is basically for the first-time buyers, and we wanted to make it more and more accessible to first-time buyers. We've seen a huge boost in the demand in the first few weeks after that has gone live. Now, how it plays out over the next three, four months leading up to festival, we'll see shortly. First indications are very positive.
Ashutosh, go ahead.
Yeah.
Ashutosh, go ahead.
Yeah. As Harsh said, the initial traction has been exciting. What we have seen is that we are drawing customers into our showrooms. We've also seen our Splendor portfolio growing stronger since we've introduced this. We are confident that there is this an invisible market that we probably need to address, people who are falling off the mobility. In certain geographies, we feel this kind of intervention can just grow the category substantially.
Yeah. Is my understanding right that this category may not be right for electrification because the use case is very different, very tough, both in terms of the distances driven in a single day by many customers and also the kind of abuse these products take in terms of the load they carry. In that sense, this category is kind of well protected from the electrification risk. Yeah, affordability is what you need to make work. Is my understanding right, Ashutosh?
In the near- term, yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, the price points are hugely different from EV versus this category. The use cases are very different. The markets also, I mean, if you look where these two relatively play out, are very different markets, right? We don't feel that there is that risk there. This is reasonably protected that way. We just wanted to expand the market.
Last question on the export bit. Harsh, if you can just help understand how is the export outlook looking, because some of our peers at a much larger scale are talking about unprecedented growth. How do you see the export opportunity for yourself, given that it's generally a positive on margins and ASPs and gives you a diversification? Also on EVs, is there a possibility that you can fast-track your category expansion if you see demand on the ground remaining robust? Is it possible?
No, absolutely. As you saw, we grew more than 60% in the quarter on exports, and there's still a huge headroom considering still where we are. We are getting into more markets and introducing more products. We opened Germany. We did a launch in Germany of our ICE vehicles. We have started now selling in Nepal, our VIDA. VIDA had launched earlier in July in Nepal. You'll see more and more products, more and more geographies continue to get open, and high growth trajectory that you saw in our exports over the last two years of 40%+ year-on-year. We are aiming for that kind of growth going forward, and a volume expansion is planned, keeping in view growth in exports as well.
Right [audio distortion].
Also, you're right, with the price realization and the FX gain that it provides, we did see benefit of that also in last quarter. I think we did get a 25 basis points out of our higher FX realization. That was a contribution to EBITDA.
Thanks a lot, and wish you all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chandramouli Muthiah with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, thanks for taking my questions. My first question is just on the Delhi proposed EV policy starting effect early April. This is related to your comments on potentially unveiling an electric motorcycle. Just want to understand how the industry is taking the proposal, what the negotiations are. How important do electric motorcycles become for Hero if this policy were to go through?
Okay. Thanks, Chandramouli, for your question. We have seen great momentum to EVs in Delhi. Last month, we saw doubling of our inquiries in EV. We also saw near doubling of our retails of EV. From fourth, we now jump to second with 16.7% market share in EV in Delhi. We are seeing momentum building up. We have increased supplies to Delhi from our side. We have made sure all our dealerships are activated. We have made sure that all our dealers, service techs, et cetera, are being trained. We are preparing our infrastructure. We are also, as you know, building charging networks. We are also increasing charge points from our own side to create a stronger charging infrastructure for customers.
Coming to product portfolio, way before this policy goes into effect, we will have a range of motorcycles into the market. We are progressing well on that. Kausalya can talk a bit about that.
Yeah. Hi, Chandramouli. Thanks for the question. We had unveiled our motorcycle platforms last year in EICMA in 2025. We continue to be committed to developing customer-centric, customer-oriented motorcycles. Like Harsh said, we are obviously making sure that Delhi citizens and consumers have the power of choice as they walk into our showrooms from the full range of the EV scooters, as well as the forthcoming motorcycle platforms that will be launched. We will have a full stack of available products to cater to every need before the policy comes fully into action.
Got it. That's helpful. Second question, just around the PLI comment that you had shared earlier, that 60% of the electric two-wheeler portfolio is now eligible for PLI. Just to clarify, what is the current percentage of company revenue that's coming from EVs? Roughly where you see that going with this additional capacity that's coming through, going forward.
As I talked about PLI, this quarter, we got a PLI benefit of INR 48 crore, which is covering 60% of our business. We expect that this benefit will cover almost all our products by end of December, right? During the full- year, we should have the entire EV portfolio under PLI benefit, right? EV revenue last quarter is around INR 660 crore, right? That's almost translating to around INR 12,999 crore. It's almost like that, right? That's the percentage contribution coming from EV during quarter one, right? Our plan is to aggressively grow this business. You will see in the rest of the year, the contributions from EV business as a contribution to the total revenue is likely to really move up.
Got it. That's helpful. This last question leads to comments you had made on profitability. Just to understand, you already mentioned that a couple of your EV models are now gross margin positive. I just want to understand on an EBITDA margin basis for the EV portfolio, how far you might be from breakeven? Then just the PLI comes through on the full portfolio towards the end of the year. What it potentially implies for full- year EBITDA margin on the EV portfolio.
Chandra, we are working on our four pillar strategy to achieve self-sustainability in EV business, right? As I talked in the past, clearly PLI is one big contributor. I talked about we are 60%. Hopefully by December, this should become 100%. That's one thing. As we move forward, we'll continue to improve our profitability of EV business. Second is scale. We've launched some products and some of the products have already started to be profitable, right? We are scaling up. As we scale up our capacity and as we scale up, we will continue to get operating leverage that will help improve our profitability. We are working on BOM cost reduction. We are driving efficiencies. We are working on lead savings and better unit economics for new launches, and we are taking calibrated price increase in line with the industry.
Maybe Kausalya you can talk about non-product revenue, which has also started kicking in.
Yeah.
Chandra, just as a follow-up, of course, the price increase is at calibrated, keeping in mind how consumers are looking at the products and making sure that it remain accessible. We have a slew of now new offerings. We continue to improve accessibility through our battery-as-a-service offering across the portfolio that allows access point to consumers who wish to own an EV. We also are now amping up our focus on the revenue from connected services. We call it the VIDA Edge program, and consumers can avail that benefit as a paywall benefit. Then once they subscribe to the services, we unlock a slew of connected features for them. In addition, we are bringing highly focused products, like extended warranty and other such value-added services for consumers to pick and choose from a bouquet of offerings.
All of this now will supplement how consumers can actually use their EVs more effectively with a lot more confidence, as well as bring additional revenue into the VIDA business.
Yeah. Just to sum up, we continuously improve our unit economics of our EV portfolio. Just to give some numbers, this quarter, the EBITDA loss has come down from almost INR 50,000 from previous quarter to INR 40,000. It's on an improvement trajectory as we really move forward.
Awesome. That's helpful. Thank you very much, and all the best.
Thanks. Have a good afternoon.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kapil Singh with Nomura. Please go ahead.
Good morning, sir. On the EVs, firstly, on the motorcycles, can you talk about what could be the timelines by which the platform would be ready? In terms of segments, which are the segments where you see the adoption happening first? How would the EV motorcycle platform be different from the scooter platform? Just anything you can share in terms of as a concept.
Hi, Kapil, good morning. Kausalya here. We had talked a little bit about these two product platforms in EICMA 2025, where we affirmed some of the pointers from there. The first concept that we talked about was Project Ubex. It's our code name for a product that is suited very much for urban mobility. This is a new naked motorcycle concept, which we had revealed. This will be a good performance motorcycle for a segment of consumers who are looking for both the thrill and acceleration of a motorcycle on an EV platform, but also extremely city and road friendly. That's the first platform, Ubex, and you will hear more about this product as we come closer to launch. The second was our collaboration platform with Zero Motorcycles of the USA, which is a high-performance motorcycle. It's code-named VXZ internally. This is coming into the much high performance category.
This is our aspirational motorcycle catering to those consumers who are looking for adventure, who are looking for a motorcycle that has a true off-performance need. These two motorcycle concepts are already in display, and we've shared a lot more details about these products as we come closer. We continue to innovate and bring products into the market that consumers need. These will be new platforms. While we do take a lot of learnings from our scooter platform, the motorcycle platform now caters to the needs of a motorcycle consumer. Therefore, these are new platforms that we are developing with learnings from the scooter platform, but with technology that is suited to what a motorcycle consumer is actually looking for in terms of performance, rideability, credibility, and range.
Any color you can throw on the timelines? Is anything coming this year, next year, or it will be later?
It's not this year. We will be looking at products coming in from the next year.
Okay, sure. The second question was on the EV profitability. Any broad range in terms of where the break-even volumes will land? If you have done any cost benchmarking with competition, what are the areas where there are gaps which you need to bridge? Is it mainly scale or is it mainly the cost of the platform? Just any thoughts on this would be helpful.
Yeah. Kapil, I think couple of elements. I'm just going back to what Vivek already shared. There are four major levers that we focus on profitability. The first, of course, is scale. We've just ramped- up from the 15,000 mark to this quarter, looking at close to 30,000. The scale gives us a lot of leverage, which will now start kicking in across the portfolio. On the BOM cost in specific, this is the continuous activity. Internally, we shared what we call the lead savings program. This is a relentless focus on how we actually look at cost and design for cost. We have some unique value proposition, like the removable battery that gives consumers a power of choice in terms of charging. Therefore, we believe our designs are unique and trained to customer needs.
Every quarter, we are seeing an improvement because we are putting all four levers at the same time. We should continue on our trajectory to look positive by the end of the year.
Sure. Just lastly, on the volume growth for the industry, how are you thinking about it, especially in the second half? Should we expect growth to continue because the base is high? Just any thoughts there. That's all. Thank you.
We see a strong momentum, not just quarter one, but also July, and the momentum continues strong. From 67% growth in quarter one for the industry, our industry grew at more than 80% in July. I think the growth is strong and there are no indications of the momentum slowing down yet.
No. The question was on the two-wheeler industry, not on.
I'm sorry. Our two-wheeler industry, quarter one, the total industry, ICE plus EV put together, grew about 14% in quarter one. We see similar trajectory for quarter two, looking at how July has started. H2, you are right, does have a base effect of a big jump that happened in sales in H2 last year because GST. Hence, from a base perspective, the year-on-year growth will be lower, but the way momentum is, we expect still a positive growth in H2. Our right now plans are towards full- year of approaching double- digit as an industry growth.
Great. Thank you, and best wishes.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Raghunandhan N L with Nuvama Research. Please go ahead.
Go ahead.
Congratulations, team, on strong numbers and also for the comprehensive investor presentation. Thanks to the team and [Karthik]. Firstly, can you talk about upcoming models with regards to premium motorcycles? There are expectations of models like XPulse 421, XMR 250. Your thoughts there will be helpful.
Hi, this is Anuj. There are a lot of models which are in the working. You rightly said two of the flagship ones. In the next 12 months, you'll see many more coming up. Market will be fully lined up with these models. You'll see a few starting through this festive itself and going up to next few quarters as well. We'll see a lot of action in the premium segment. We're fully aware that customers love the brand XPulse, not just in India, but globally as well. Thank you.
Noted, sir. Before the festivities, products should be available, sir?
A few of the refreshes will be, and then some of the larger full body change models we'll see in the upcoming quarters.
Not the two that you mentioned. They won't be before festive, but there are a few others that will in the premium range that will get launched before festive.
Thanks for clarifying. Sir, secondly, on the PAM revenue. The revenue had grown about 5% last year, and this year we have started the growth with 30%. Has the company been successful in expanding penetration, taking market share from the gray market? Can there be a 20% kind of a growth in FY 2027?
Raghu, you're right. I mean, strong growth, close to 25% and beyond. We see the trend similarly in July as well. A mix of actions that has led to it. One of course is the expanded reach. We have penetrated deeper with formats. There's a lot of operational excellence, efficiency initiatives that are being carried out. Larger SKU coverage, new parts routes, new line of businesses doing well. I mean, parts, while we are good, we believe there is a lot more to do and we're still about scratching the surface. Hence, lot of headroom. Especially, I mean, the growth that we see coming in is with the new lines of businesses that have started doing exceptionally well.
Raghu, as you rightly pointed out, there is a growth by eating into gray market, but there is also growth through accessories, which increasingly we see traction as our VIDA range increases and premium range increases. Also in the parts business, there is a lot of growth coming out of our exports business. That's the reason why the new investment of GPC 2.0, that we announced with a CapEx of INR 750 crore. That pretty much more than doubles our capacity to handle parts business.
Noted, sir. Thank you for the details. One last question on the commodity cost impact that is expected to be small in Q2 is 50 basis point increase Q-o-Q a fair estimate? Around 4% price hike has been taken so far. Would you need further price hikes or would you be focusing on cost savings?
Raghu, as I said, we are expecting a marginal uptick in input cost inflation, which we plan to neutralize by continued improvement of product mix and optimizing our discretionary spends and accelerating cost saving programs. Right? We are confident of mitigating the impact of any potential material price inflation during the quarter through these initiatives.
Got it, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much. Wishing all the best.
Thank you. Our next question come from the line of Sonal Gupta with HSBC Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning and thanks for taking my question. Just had a couple of questions around this. I mean, again, on the pricing. What has been the price increases that you've taken, right, like for this quarter? Then in July, what sort of percentage price increase have we taken?
We have taken so far about cumulatively, from over last three, four months, 4.5% of a blended average price increase. On different models in different months. That's why I gave you a blended 4.5%. This is on the ICE part. On EV, even a higher increase. In fact, it's closer to double-digit price increase. Part of that is actually price increase also with the differentiation, with more functionality getting offered there. There the price increase in terms of per unit price is in early double- digits.
Got it, sir. Just this 4.5% is since the beginning of the year or this is just April and July put together?
This is from February, end of February.
Yeah. Would this include any July price increase as well?
In July, we did a marginal price increase. As Vivek mentioned, we expect marginal cost increase on commodity, which is already getting fully mitigated through our mix and deep savings and optimizations of cost. In anticipation, we also took a marginal price increase in July in ICE as well as in ICE [inaudible].
Got it. No. Yeah, my question was really around, I mean, like with these price increases, I mean, some of it obviously given the unprecedented cost inflation is warranted. I mean, given that our category itself, our core category has been sort of struggling in terms of growth, and if I look at your overall market share on a year-on-year basis or on market share, Q1 has dropped like 150 basis point. At what point do you think that we'll calibrate this and focus more on driving growth rather than just, I mean, like, taking price increases? I'm just wondering that at what point do you think that you've taken that more, we cannot pass on more to the consumer in the shorter term?
No. I think we continue to remain focused on growth and that's what you saw in 23% growth in the volume growth in the quarter and so on. Hence, as Vivek said, it's calibrated price increase. We've not passed on all of the commodity costs. There are areas where we've passed on less, there are areas we've passed on more. On some absolute entry level variants where we wanted to expand the market and bring new customers into the market, we've even taken a calibrated price reduction for some geographies. That was a question earlier from Pramod, on HF in some states. That has immediately seen a jump in our volumes in that category. Our focus, to answer your question, continues to remain on driving volume growth and hence calibrating price increases appropriately.
Okay, great. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to the time constraint that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for the closing remarks. Thank you and over to you, team.
Thank you for joining us today. There are more details available on our website where we've uploaded for the first time our quarterly results presentation that gives little more color. Please do take a look at it and if there are any follow-up questions, do write to us and we will get back to you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Equirus Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your line.
Thank you.