Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the analyst call of Whirlpool of India Limited. We wish to inform you that 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 this conference call, please signal the moderator by pressing star zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Deepak Agarwal from Axis Capital Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thanks. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Axis Capital Limited, we welcome you all to Whirlpool of India analyst call for the fourth quarter financially FY 20 26. From the management side, we have the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Arvind Uppal , Mr. Narasimhan Eswar , Managing Director, Mr. Aditya Jain, Chief Financial Officer of the company, and Ms. Sweta Srivastava , Company Secretary, joining the call. We thank Whirlpool of India to give us the opportunity to host this call. Now, I hand over the floor to Sweta ma'am. Thanks, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Deepak. Good evening, everyone. I would like to welcome you to the Q4 financial year 2025/2026 analyst call of Whirlpool of India Limited. Please note that the call is being recorded and the audio call and transcript will be available on the website of the company. Also, the presentation to be made by the managing director and chief financial officer is available on the website of the company, as well as the stock exchanges. Before we move forward, I would like to remind you of the cautionary statement that forms part of the presentation. During this call, certain forward-looking statements may be made. These forward-looking statements are based on certain expectations, assumptions, and other factors which may affect the business results. Please read the cautionary statements carefully, and the contents of this call should be interpreted accordingly.
With that, I would now like to hand it over to Mr. Eswar.
Thank you, Sweta. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Narasimhan Eswar, Managing Director of the company. I'd like to welcome you to this analyst call. Thank you very much to Axis Capital for making this happen. Thank you to everyone for taking out your time to join us. Without any further delay, I'll start with the update. The update as usual, we split it up into three areas, the business overview, the strategic imperatives and how we're doing against them, and lastly, the financial performance. I shall cover the first two, and Mr. Aditya Jain, the CFO, will cover the last one. If you move to slide six of the presentation, please, and you can see the slide numbers at the bottom right-hand side of the page. We'd just like to start off with some key highlights of 2025/2026 Q4. This is for the India standalone results.
We are happy to see that we delivered a revenue growth of about 7.4% versus last year. Happy because the first two quarters of this year, because of a lot of competitive pressure that happened in the market, which was extraordinary, we had a revenue drop versus a year ago, in Q1 and Q2 of this fiscal. Q3, we made our way back, and Q4, we've grown by 7.4% versus last year. We're also quite happy that even if temporarily only for a month, but in March 2026, in refrigerators and washing machines combined, in the multi-brand outlets volume market share, we secured the number two position.
The reason why we're happy about this is not just because of the number two position, but because it shows us in our organization and people who believe in us that it's possible to get here, and also gives you the confidence that once you get here, you can aspire for even more. How we got to that position was basically because we had some shared leadership in a couple of different areas where we made some progress. In direct cool refrigerators, in multi-brand outlets volume market share, we got market leadership straight for three months in a row. Four months from December 2025. Number one position there. We secured, after a very long time, the number two position in top load in quarter four, market share for multi-brand outlets volume market share. We also secured for the quarter, the second position in semi-automatic washers.
Now, these were the three top categories in which we secured good market share positions. In front load washers, where our market shares are much lower as we launched only in 2022, coming in late into this category, we are happy to note that our volumes have actually doubled in this quarter, and we showed a triple-digit increase in market share consistent with the past several quarters. Again, on multi-brand outlets volume market share. In our relatively smaller business of air con, I know that many companies have declared very strong results of 1 million units and so on and so forth.
For us, we exceeded 100,000 unit in the March month, which considering where we were three years ago, is a fairly good achievement, and it also shows the power of what we can go on and achieve in the coming months and years because our quarter volume growth was more than 50%. Elica had a wonderful quarter. Revenue was up 30%, profit for Elica was up 48% PBT. What was very nice to cap it all off was March 2026 marked the highest ever shipment month in the history of Whirlpool of India Limited, handsomely beating the last great record, which was in April 2019. All in all, from a revenue and a volume growth point of view, a much better picture than the previous months.
Margins were impacted in this quarter, as you would have seen already from the reports, due to energy change regulations in refrigerator and air con, which we moved into quicker than most others because of our lower inventory, and also the incremental e-waste impact that we continue to accrue for in line with government mandates. We continue to closely monitor the supply situation. As everybody knows, the supply situation arising from the Middle East war is of concern to not only us, but all industries across the country. Both with respect to cost and supply of components, products, et cetera, it is quite challenging, and we continue to work on that very, very seriously and diligently. Coming to the last part, before we move into the details, we're happy to report that even in this quarter, we got a negative net working capital in our ref and washer business.
Any increase in our net working capital was only because of planned investments in air conditioners, which was obviously on the positive side because aircon works on different number of days of receivables and inventory compared to our ref and washer business. Could we go to slide number seven, please? This is the chart that I always share. I'm not going to walk you through the entire chart because there's a lot of detail in there. The industry continued to basically grow with very low single digits in January 2026 to March 2026, so subdued industry growth. Decline in refrigerators so far for the whole year, driven by decline in direct cool refrigerators. I'm now talking about the industry. In terms of big highlights for us in this quarter, which is the extreme right column, Q4 2025/2026, January 2026 to March 2026.
I think the biggest highlight was our bringing in the new ranges of refrigerators, both in direct cool and frost-free, into the market. For those who are unaware, there's a big energy change that happened in January on both refrigerators and air conditioners. What that really means is every refrigerator and every air conditioner had to be replaced with new technical models, every single SKU that we have. This is what we call as a phase in, phase out. When you do this phase in, phase out, those who enter it at a slightly earlier stage end up having to lose some amount of display share and stock share in the market as they transition their products to the new products. This is quite a monumental thing for the entire industry.
We were into it a little bit earlier than the others because we had lesser inventory on refrigerators as we closed out the year, and air conditioners. We also introduced some very exciting new products that I'll talk to you about later. We introduced the new 3-door Protton, which is doing very well in the market. We introduced a new 9-kilogram with steam option in the front-load washing machines, and we introduced new model in the direct cool auto defrost premium refrigerators. We also added some amount of retail executives to further drive our business and our ROI, and we had a very good quarter in terms of air conditioner and front-load washer scale-up.
Our volume market shares for this quarter declined by double-digit basis points versus last year, predominantly driven by refrigerators, where we had this phase in and phase out, as well as significant competitive pricing activity still happening, which we have chosen not to follow completely, which is a deliberate strategy. As we recover our phase in, phase out, as we move faster than others on the phase in, phase out in the month of April, May, June, I hope to be able to recover that market share back again as we ramp up our display shares and our stock. Next slide, please. This is the breakup that I always share of the market share by segment. As you can see there, three dashes basically means triple-digit basis points. Two dashes means double-digit basis points.
Overall, if you take a look, in front-load washers, we continued to grow triple-digit basis points for the sixth or seventh quarter in a row, and we continue to do very well there. In top-load washers, we were able to grow strong double-digit basis points in quarter four 2025/2026 behind some incremental initiatives that we've put in with respect to new products. In semi-automatic, we were able to report triple-digit basis points growth. Overall in washers, we had strong growth, and in air conditioners as well in terms of shares. We declined triple-digit basis points in direct cool refrigerator and frost-free refrigerator in volume market share in January 2026 to March 2026. Like I said, the primary driver was a regulatory changeover that we moved faster than others, which we will make up for pretty soon.
The secondary driver was competitive pricing, which continued to be very aggressive, and we didn't follow to the same extent to balance between market share and profitability. Next slide, please. Slide number nine. Let's now talk about the top line. In terms of sales growth, in the first half of the year, we had a -4%, as you can see on the left side of the chart. We started off with -3% and -5%, it is pretty much tough between April and October, April and end September because of very heavy competitive pricing on the one hand, and on the second hand, the industry impact was quite significant because of a delayed onset of summer and early monsoons last year.
It was a very tough first six months of the year for the entire industry, which any part of the industry which relies on cooling products like refrigerators or air conditioners. We started making a recovery in Q3, as you know, with a 4% growth in revenue, and in Q4, we've now made a 7% growth. Our second half momentum is actually driven by three things. One is a significant scale-up in our air conditioner business, which is fledgling compared to some of the big players. Significant scale-up in our front load. We call it HA, horizontal axis, but it's the front-load washing machine business. Overall share gain in washers. We've also had significant accelerated growth in premium products across refrigerators and washers. This is what drove our top line.
In H2 2025/2026, refrigerators remained challenging, like I said, because of the regulatory product changeover in Q4 that we're right now going through, which should end very soon for us, and the competitive pricing impact. Next slide, please. If we move to slide 10, we look at margins versus last year. These are the gross margins. Just to remind you, 2022/2023, we had 27.6% margin. 2023/2024, we went to 29%. 2024/2025, we improved to 30.6%. This year, we've arrived at a 29.9% margin driven by basically the air conditioner mix in our margin. Just to explain, if air conditioners for us grows disproportionately, then our overall gross margin goes down because the gross margin percentage of air conditioners is lesser than that of refrigerators and washers, which we are fully aware of.
However, air conditioner is able to provide scale to us, which helps alleviate fixed costs, and air conditioners is able to provide significant revenue to us, both of which matter a lot. It's a very conscious choice that we took to drive the air conditioner business at the right time. You can see that without the air conditioner mix impact, our gross margin would have continued to grow. The reason that is the case on refrigerators and washers is because of our P4G, the Productivity for Growth cost-saving program that we do and continue to do and believe in extremely fiercely. Next slide, please. Slide number 11 now talks about the profit before tax margin. If you look at Q4, last year Q4, we had a 7.6% PBT margin in 2024/2025.
This year, we would have been slightly higher than that, except for two significant costs that I had already highlighted at the beginning of the year, in January, at beginning of the calendar year. One is the energy cost of charges because of the refrigerator and air conditioning, which has not yet been compensated by pricing as of March 31. The second is a very significant incremental e-waste provision that we do to make sure that we are conservatively accruing for potential e-waste cost. If e-waste costs are sorted out going forward, between the recyclers, the producers, and the government, obviously, then that would be a help in the future for us. If I go to the right on the full-year PBT margin, last year PBT margin was 5.6%. If you just take out the incremental e-waste provision we've made versus last year, we would have held our margin.
This is purely the incremental e-waste provision that we've made, not the base e-waste, the incremental e-waste provision that we've made this year, that is basically reducing the margin on a full-year basis. Next slide, please. We continue to remain efficient in working capital. This is a slightly complex slide, so kindly stay with me. As you can see on the first three columns, the blue columns, in March 2022, March 2023, March 2024, as a company, we were operating on a positive networking capital, which obviously is not the ideal way to operate. A negative networking capital is a wonderful way to operate. By September 2024, with a concerted effort across the company, we had brought it down to a negative networking capital, kept it there in December 2024. In March 2025, it was slightly positive, but much lower than the previous years. June, again, it was negative.
If you see today, if you look at March 2026, the first column is our actual networking capital, which has gone up versus the previous year. If you just take a look at the little piece next to that in green on the right, that is our refrigerator and washer and our regular T2 business. That is now operating on a negative networking capital. If you compare March 2026, excluding AC, with March 2025, we are actually better off on networking capital on refrigerators and washing machines. The planned investment of air conditioners' networking capital is what took our networking capital up in this quarter, and obviously, it would be recovered in the coming quarter. Next slide, please. I now move on to our strategic imperatives. We are now on slide number 14. Our strategic imperatives continue to be the same.
One, inspire generations with our brands. Second, win with product leadership. Third, build a competitive and resilient supply chain. Lastly, excellence and execution. Moving to slide number 15. This is just a bit of our history. We introduced pedestals to the country. We introduced auto defrost in direct cool refrigerators. We were one of the early pioneers in providing colors and finishes in refrigerators from the drab and dreary kind of only steel, only gray or white refrigerators in the past. We were the first to introduce three-door refrigerators in the country. We were the first to introduce dark interiors with a platinum range, which are extremely premium. We were the first to introduce heaters in top-load washing machines. Net, a pioneer in the India durables industry.
We've continuously done innovations that are made for India by Indian engineers, by our Indian workforce, inspired by Indian consumers with Indian consumer knowledge. I hope to show some of that again as we go through the next few slides. Our focus has been to premiumize our business. Going on to the next slide, please. Let's start with direct cool refrigerators. In direct cool refrigerators, the premium end of direct cool refrigerators, we have the auto defrost range. Auto defrost range, we've rebranded it to call it No Tension Refrigerators, because the single biggest pain point for direct cool consumers is the ice that forms in the freezer section for any direct cool refrigerator, and it causes a lot of trouble. You can see some of the creatives that we put out there.
In essence, we introduced a new launch of black steel that's been doing really well for us in Vitamagic Pro, which is the brand name for the auto defrost range, and that's doing really well for us. Next slide, please. Moving on to the top-load washing machine business. In the top-load washing machine business, you will recall that in previous meetings, I have basically said that within refrigerators and washing machines, we'll make sure that within some amount of time, we will cover all the gap areas that we have in our portfolio where we can add value to consumers, grow our market share, and do it profitably. In the top end, the Bloomwash series, we had up to 10 kilograms. We've now introduced a high-capacity top-load washing machine in line with consumer demand.
This is 11 kg Bloomwash, and there are some amazing new features in this. The first one is that this new 11 kg Bloomwash has got a QuickSense technology. Now, there are many top-end top-load washing machines that have quick wash cycles, but usually they are one wash cycle, whatever be the load. This one has got 30-minute cycle for a small load, 35 minutes for a medium load, and 40 minutes for a large load. The machine automatically senses what type of load it is and takes care of it. This is the QuickSense feature. We also have in the same machine SoftSense, which automatically releases the right amount of softener at just the right time.
Lastly, we've brought this into a brand-new and beautiful juniper green CFF, which actually brings out the premium look in an even better way, and offers an amazing new color to the premium top-load washing machine consumer. Next slide, please. Moving to slide number 18. We now talk about premiumization. Two categories, this is the third one, semi-automatic. Our Dynamix technology in our mid and premium range is doing really well and driving the semi-automatic category. This is the technology that promises and delivers on zero detergent patches for those who are using powder in semi-automatic washing machines, which is the number one pain point of Indian consumers, the patches that stay on in the clothes after you use the detergent in the wash. This business is doing really well for us.
It was just introduced two years ago in 2024 in June, if I recall right. It is now a significant proportion of our business. Nearly half of our business is in this technology. It's driving triple-digit basis point share gain in its segments. Next slide, please. Continuing with the premiumization story. Triple doors are the premium end of frost-free refrigerators in the middle to premium area. Here we've relaunched our Protton 3-door model with the Protton Next series. We've not only done a technological and design upgrade. We've also done a capacity upgrade, providing even more value to the consumers. This is doing really well for us.
The magic of the three doors is that with this technology, we now have 43% lesser cold air loss versus the top loads that you normally get because of the three doors and the need to open each door much lesser. Second, your fruits and your vegetables stay as they're supposed to because the fruits and vegetables have a separate drawer, as you can see, and there is no odor mixing with other things that might be there in the refrigerator compartment. Of course, there's 360-degree enhanced cooling with Freshflow. Next slide, please. We go to slide number 20, a front-load washer. Now, this is premium by itself, whether it's 7 kg, 8 kg or 9 kg or 10 kg. The front-load washer has accelerated for us in 2025/2026. Our total business has grown about 60% more than last year.
We've had triple-digit basis points market share growth pretty much through the year. This uses 6th Sense technology, like all of our premium products do, and this business is doing quite well for us, and we hope to grow it more and more in the coming months, quarters, and years. Next slide, please. Of course, our AC business. Like I said, maybe a small number for others, but a giant number for us from where we're starting out. We've been able to bring in some really good technology and drive some really good go-to-market. For the first time, we've been able to cross 100,000 units in monthly sales in March 2026. Our air conditioner business, even in a relatively tough year, has gone up by more than 40% versus last year, following quite a strong 80-odd% growth in the previous year. Next slide, please.
Of course, our fantastic Elica products. The new product ranges continue to drive premiumization, whether we're talking about the filterless kitchen hood or we're talking about the ductless kitchen hood that has been launched recently. Indeed, this beautiful product, the built-in hob with four burners, which has got heavy-duty full brass burners, multi-flame direct with cast iron pan support. This cast iron pan support is also backed with a heat guard to make sure that you don't feel any heat while operating the knobs. All of these wonderful products continue to drive our premiumization strategy very strongly. This is probably the most exciting news of the lot. This might look like the cloak of Darth Vader, but what it is actually a black cloak that we've deliberately used to cover our new product that we're launching.
Many of you have asked us, when are we launching into the frost-free large capacity space? The answer is in Q2 of 2026/2027, thereby filling a significant gap in our frost-free portfolio. Please stay tuned for this. In the next quarter, I hope to show you all of the different models that we're bringing in and the features of this. This is something that we're extremely proud of. We waited for more than two years to deliver this, and we are very happy to announce that we are going to be in play in the large capacity frost-free, which is one of the big chunks missing from our portfolio. Next slide, please.
We continue to focus very strongly on driving excellence and execution with visibility of our premium lines, with a very strong sales and service incentivization program that focuses on driving premiumization and value, focusing on very strong customer relationships that we've built over the last 40 years, and a very good management of our supply chain in a very complex environment. On the service front, we are continuously improving in our service KPIs. The chart that you see there is the Net Promoter Score. As you know, the Net Promoter Score is the score difference between when consumers, after installation or after service, give you a score on a scale of 10. Nine plus 10, what percentage of people give you nine and 10 scores out of 10, minus the people who give you ratings between one and seven.
This is continuing to grow for us very strongly, and this is despite the fact that we're starting to sell a lot more air conditioners where the requirement for service, and getting Net Promoter Scores is even tougher, because people want instantaneous installation, instantaneous service. Very difficult, especially in this Delhi heat that we are facing right now, to live without an air conditioner for most people. Despite that, our service organization is doing a tremendous job in keeping the scores up. We move on to our supply. Two big things in this, quality and cost. Quality, as you know, we follow the world-class manufacturing practices. We continue to follow that. We've achieved a silver in Pune and bronze in the other two manufacturing sites with our Puducherry and Faridabad , and we hope to take them to a silver across the course of the coming quarters and years.
On cost leadership, basically we have, if you see from 2022-2023 to today, over three years, we've done a standalone gross margin improvement of 220 basis points across these three years, and that is all because of the P4G program that we do, Productivity for Growth, which is a very systematic program that covers all lines of the P&L, involves almost everybody in all of procurement, engineering, innovation, and manufacturing, as well as supply chain. This program continues to do strongly for us, covering off many of the other cost impacts that we get in other areas. Next slide, please. With that, I would like to hand over to Mr. Aditya Jain. Aditya.
Thank you, Mr. Eswar. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Aditya Jain. I am the CFO of the company. I'll take you through the financial performance of Whirlpool of India Limited. I'm on slide 27. This slide covers the financial performance on consolidated basis for Q4, i.e., January to March 2026. In this quarter, we delivered a revenue of INR 2,181 crores, which is a high single-digit growth versus last year. As we heard from Mr. Eswar, industry was not a big help in this quarter. Industry grew in low single-digits. On top of that, the entire refrigerators portfolio was impacted by the new energy regulations which came into force from 1st January 2026, as a result of which a massive amount of phase-in, phase-out was supposed to be done.
Despite those headwinds, we were able to grow revenue in high single digits. The factors which drove our revenue growth are as follows. A. Our washer business did pretty well. We grew share in the washer business. We attained number two position in semi-automatic as well as top-load washers. On HA, which is a small business for us right now, we grew market share, which is the MBO volume market share in triple digits in this quarter. This was driven by the commercial and the consumer-focused product innovations and our mantra of executional excellence. Our AC business did pretty well. In AC, we grew by 50% in this quarter. AC being a high ASV product, which is the average selling price of AC is roughly 2x of the core business, that also helps in driving your top line. Third big element was the segment premiumization.
What it means is our focused interventions and our ROI-based ideas are focused on driving incremental growth in mid and premium segments of each of our categories, which again helps us driving premiumization within the category and hence driving the revenue growth. Last but not the least, it was a fabulous quarter for our Elica cooking business, which grew revenue by 30% in this quarter. On the profitability side, we delivered an EBITDA of INR 121 crores at 5.6%. The EBITDA was lower by 33.7% versus last year. Our profit before exceptional items was at INR 110 crores at 5%. Our profit declined by 29% versus last year. The big reason for decline in our profits versus last year was on account of regulatory cost upcharges. There were two big items which impacted our profitability in this quarter.
One was the incremental e-waste expense, which we accrue as per the e-waste notification which came in September last year. B, the air con and the ref energy upgrade cost. Let me give you a little bit more color why we were a little bit more impacted by this energy change cost impact. As you would have noticed on the working capital slide, in December, we had a negative working capital, which meant that we were managing our inventories very efficiently, and there was very limited quantity of inventories which we carried forward from 2025 into 2026. As a result of which, most of our Q1 business came in from the production of the current quarter, which was BEE upgraded refrigerators production, on which we had to account for the new energy cost.
This was not supported by commensurate pricing in the market till March because of multiplicity of factors and the varying level of inventories which everyone would be carrying. Just for perspective, outside of these two items, which is the energy cost upcharge and incremental e-waste provisions, our profit would have been higher than last year. Our Elica, as said, had a fabulous quarter, they delivered a revenue growth of 32% and a profit growth of 48% in this quarter. Next slide. I'm on slide 28. In this slide, I'll cover the financial performance on a full year basis. We crossed the INR 8,000 crore from a top-line perspective and delivered a top line of INR 8,034 crore, which is a growth of 1.4% versus last year.
Just to give you a little bit of color, this came on a backdrop of a flattish or a muted industry, because the industry for the whole year was roughly flattish. In fact, the ref industry declined largely due to the direct cool as there was delayed onset of summer and the monsoons got advanced. The industry had a pretty bad season. On top of that, there was a big energy change in the back half of the year, which again impacted the refrigerator business. Despite those headwinds, we were able to offset those headwinds and still grow our revenue by 1.4%. The various factors which led to this growth was, A, our washers portfolio, which we spoke about, did well even on an annual basis. Air con continued to be a good story on an annual basis.
We grew air con business by 40%, despite that the summer was pretty soft and not conducive to the air con growth. We managed the business very well. Elica, again, did well on an annual basis with a double-digit revenue growth of 12%. Other factors were segment premiumization, which is a high focus area for us, and our ROI-based investments continued to deliver good returns. Coming on to margins. We spoke about our P4G program that's running through the length and breadth of the organization. That is lifeline of the organization, in which we look at cost takeouts across all lines of the P&L. That continued to generate cost efficiencies, and as a result of which, we were able to offset the commodity cost headwinds as well as the impact of the currency depreciation, which we have seen during the year.
Because of this P4G program, our core P2 business margins, which is refs and washers business, improved versus last year. Our overall reported gross margins/material margins were lower versus last year by 50 basis points, largely on account of air con mix, because at a material margins level, the profile of air con, the margins of air con are relatively lower than the T2 business. You get a lot of leverage both on revenue growth as well as fixed cost leverage. On profit side, we delivered an EBITDA of INR 481 crores at 6%. It was lower by 12.6% versus last year, roughly 100 basis points. Our profit before exceptional items came in at INR 426 crores at 5.3%, lower by about 12% versus last year and lower by 80 basis points versus last year.
The single biggest factor which led to the decline in profits versus last year was the incremental e-waste provisions. Let me just remind you that the new notification for e-waste came in middle of September last year.
Middle of September 2024.
Correct. Last year had pre-September rates, which were based on market-driven rates, and the post-September 24 e-waste provisions based on the new circular which came into effect. In the current year, we are accounting for the e-waste as the new circular, and hence, we have an incremental material year-over-year impact. Outside of that e-waste impact, our profit margins were flat to last year. Our reported PBT declined by 19% as we accounted for the one-time impact of wage code provisions of INR 38.8 crores on a consolidated basis. Elica continues to do well, grew revenue in double digits at 12%, and its profit on an annual basis grew ahead of revenue at 15%. That's it on the results. With this, I will pass it back to Sweta for the next session, for the Q and A session.
Thank you, Mr. Eswar and Mr. Jain. I would now request the moderator to open the Q and A session.
Thank you, Sweta. We will now start the question- and- answer session. Participants present on the audio bridge who wish to ask a question may press star one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. For clarity of questions and better audio experience, the participants are requested to ensure that while asking their questions, they are using headphones to avoid background noise. In the interest of time, we will sincerely request participants to limit their questions to two. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Priyank Chheda with Vallum Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you, Eswar and team. Firstly, keeping your promise to do the call and handholding the minorities along with you, and what a wonderful performance. First, clarifying for the incremental e-waste provisioning and whatever the electricity energy upcharge. What was this, if you can quantify for the cost for Q4 and FY 2026, and also the rationale behind doing? Would it be incremental means that would it be it for the whole of the following year based on the volume assumptions we have accounted for the following year, or would it be repeated also, the cost would get further repeated for FY 2027? Have you seen this channel inventory now matching up with the regulatory on the ground so that you can recover that cost because everyone would also have a like to like impact on the cost?
Sure. Thank you. I'll take that one. We are not giving any further breakups within the regulatory piece on what is the incremental e-waste and what's the energy upcharge with it. That would be a very high level of getting into the detail, which we're not keen on doing. To answer your questions, Mr. Priyank, on the e-waste, let me take each of those separately. On e-waste, we are providing at the highest possible rate that we can provide for. The way I would look at this is, at this point in time, there's a lot of discussion between the ministry, producers like ourselves and the recyclers, in terms of what would probably make the most sense. There's quite a bit of discussion on this topic. If there was any rationalization of these costs, then obviously we would stand to benefit.
If there was no rationalization of these costs going forward, we wouldn't lose anything. That's the best way that I can put it, the magnitude obviously depends on what the rationalization is. Those kind of requests and discussions are ongoing as we speak because the entire industry, not only this industry, but all industries, but specifically this industry, is feeling the heat a lot from this incremental e-waste provision. That's on the first part. On the second part, if you look at the energy upcharge, the energy upcharge is a permanent upcharge to the BOM. Right? This is because the bill of materials cost goes up. Basically what happens is last year's three star becomes this year's two star.
In a sense, what you have to do is if you want to have a one to five star range in your portfolio, you have to basically upgrade each of the levels one star. When you do that, you have to use more expensive compressors, more expensive insulation, more expensive vacuum panels, et cetera. Therefore, basically with regulatory changes like this, energy upgrades, cost goes up unit by unit. The logical thing would be that when the cost has actually gone up, that, logically, if it was one company that was just doing this and there was only one company in India, then that company would take up the price because it is a cost incremental to your business. Right? You would recover the price. It's a very competitive market.
While I'm saying that, let me also add on that, I had kind of said that the cost situation would be challenging this year for the entire industry and also for us because of the regulatory upcharges, because the energy changes even in the last quarter. Of course, on top of this, we now have the impact of the war effect basically on costs as well as supply. Yes, I believe the industry has taken whatever actions it has to take. Each individual company obviously does whatever they deem best. We have done what we deem best. You can figure it out from the market.
I don't want to talk about what we've done in April and May, because that would not be appropriate, but it's out there in the market, and we will have to see what happens with the market and what the market does. We always have to keep in mind that we have to cover our costs and keep ourselves profitable, at least to a reasonable extent. At the same time, we're in a very competitive market, and we need to make sure that we're not outpriced. If it comes to a place where we're outpriced and we start having an impact on volumes in a material way, then we will have to do what we need to do to protect our business. It's always that delicate balance that we need to do between managing our volume and our market shares and our value, and managing our profits.
I hope I answered your question. The energy upcharge is here to stay. I think the next energy upcharge is supposed to be three years from now. Every time there is an energy upcharge, there will be a cost upcharge. Theoretically, the best way to do that is to recover it by pricing. Practically, that is decided by what individual players do in the market and what other individual players do in response to what their competition does.
Perfectly. Hence my follow-up question, and I thought so, I'll take your perspective. What can be the scenario that can play out with the Middle East raw material and freight charges going up as well as regulatory costs further loading up? The two scenarios which we can think of it can happen is, maybe a competition rationalizes and the pressure eases, and then this is followed with the pricing growth, and then this scenario would lead to maybe a market share consolidations within gains to the incumbents. Do you think that there can be a downtrading itself by a consumer where the cost loading happens so high and it would overtake all the efforts that we would be doing? I mean, just your thoughts on what can be the possible scenario, that you think can be playing out in our industry.
Yeah, it's a great question. I wish I knew the answer to this question. Anything can happen. It's very difficult to predict the macroeconomic environment. What we are focused on is not so much on what's happening at a too macro level, because obviously we have zero influence on anything. We as a company, I'll tell you what we are focused on. We are focused on figuring out what's happening on the supply situation from two points of view. One is what's happening with respect to availability of products. Quite a few of the products are dependent on coming through the Strait of Hormuz . Oil is dependent on that, which is required for a lot of things that we do in our industry. Many of the materials, plastics are based off oil. EPS that we use for packing is based off oil.
Methyl isocyanate that we may use is based on oil. There's a lot of things that's based on that. The second thing that obviously is a very big impact other than the price of oil is obviously the Forex rate. That is also important because typically in this industry, we make almost all of our products in India, which is incredible. But obviously there is some amount of imported components for all industry players because all the components are not made in India, right? Typically, depending on the company, between 20%-35% of products components may be imported. Depending on the company. That part of it is subject to Forex.
Both of these is what we are monitoring on a daily basis, making our plans against that, making sure that we're talking and working very closely with our suppliers on an hourly basis. What you actually have to do is make sure, first of all, that you have supply of components to be able to make your products. If you don't make your products, then there's nothing to sell. This is the first point. The second point is how do you manage your costs? Both are significant challenges for all players, not only in our industry, but pretty much in every industry and pretty much around the world, because this is something that affects everyone. It's up to individual people, individual companies, how this is being managed.
We are working a huge amount on this to make sure that we can keep our factories going, produce great quality products at the best possible cost that we can make. The second part is obviously, there is a certain amount of pricing that maybe the market will bear. It's a very competitive market. Beyond that, also the question is what the consumer will do. There are so many variables on this that to actually guess what is going to happen, I think it's like a roll of the dice. What we are doing is focusing on what we can control and what we should be delivering, which is our everyday work, and staying close to the ground in terms of managing our supply, looking and taking the right decisions that we feel on costs and on pricing, and then monitoring the market very closely.
We will keep on modifying dynamically our actions as we go through because it's an incredibly dynamic time.
No, wonderful.
Sorry to interrupt, Priyank. We request you to please rejoin the queue if you have any further questions. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Naushad Chaudhary with Aditya Birla Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity and congrats for a decent set of number in a very challenging time. First, wanted to understand on the AC piece of business, what would have been the full year revenue contribution from AC? What is our aspiration for next two, three years in this category? How much capital it would require to reach to our aspirational number?
Thank you very much, Mr. Chaudhary. I would not be able to share the exact AC contribution because we don't lay out that number, but AC is still a small proportion of our total business. As you know, refrigerators still covers more than 50% of our total business. Washing machines covers about 25%, 30% of our total business. AC would be the next big play, basically, along with Elica. That would be the kind of thing. Our aspiration on AC, I can certainly answer that. I think we would like to grow in AC across the years strongly but responsibly. What I mean by that is that we would obviously like to increase our market share in this very dynamic and fast-growing, and I'm talking about the last five years, fast-growing industry of air conditioners.
It's something in which we have low shares. Therefore for us, the sky's the limit. Having said that, we are very conscious that there's also a category in which working capital is very heavily utilized, at least in certain quarters. It's also not at the margin profile. Even for the most established players, it's not at the margin profile of our refrigerators or washing machine business. Therefore, I would say that we would like to grow this business very responsibly. We would like to grow this business very strongly, but focused on offtake, focused on making sure our products are selling out, and we are putting in as much products as are selling out. The focus is not so much on loading huge amounts of inventory into the market and hoping for it to sell.
We are trying to sell much more to offtake, a closer relationship to offtake. That way we can make sure that we will grow, we will grow responsibly, and we will make sure that we are not stuck in a situation where we are sitting on a lot of inventory, which we then have to liquidate with taking whatever actions which may not be helpful for the P&L, if that makes sense. That's what I would say would be our strategy, responsibly, strongly growing the AC business.
Any specific market where you'll be more aggressive on the AC business?
No, we love all of India. We are actually, just to be very straightforward on that, Whirlpool is a completely pan-India brand, so we don't have any particular places. There are some places where, of course, we are stronger than in other places. The split of the AC business is also slightly different, and therefore we are focusing where we need to focus. Obviously, we focus where the markets are strong. The second type of area that we focus, for example, are the markets where our market shares are very strong in other categories. A, where the category itself is strong, and B, those markets where our market share is very strong in refrigerators and washers, which means we have very strong brand profile. Those are the two kind of areas that we focus on, but that is a significant proportion of the country.
It is not three or four states.
The second question on the cash balance which we have on the balance sheet. Any thought on that in terms of utilizing that cash either for building or acquiring some additional category? If at all, any buyback plans to use that cash?
Yes. I'll pass this on to Aditya Jain. Aditya.
Yeah. Thanks for your question. From a cash perspective, the first thing I'll say, it's a good problem to have. It's good to have a good cash on the balance sheet. The second piece is our approach to investments is a little different since the time we've become an Indian origin company, wherein now we don't have any budgetary constraints, et cetera, and our decisions are purely guided by the right projects, the right ROIs, and the right paybacks. There's no constraint given that we don't have a constraint on cash and there are no budgetary constraints. That's the only factor which drives the decision-making. A couple of areas wherein we're looking forward to investing a little bit more aggressively that we've done in the past. A, it is on the ongoing business, especially driving the product innovation.
We invested a lot of money in setting up a front-load factory a few years back. Mr. Eswar spoke about the premium frost-free refrigeration. A large CapEx has been spent in setting up that facility as well. As we get into the future, having the cash on balance sheet gives us that flexibility to bridge all the portfolio gaps which exist today and accelerate our innovation pipeline. The second area which we're looking at right now is the entire automation in our factories. It not only helps the process and the quality, but gives a lot of cost savings as well. Hence, that is the other area, is what we're evaluating to see that how can we utilize our cash.
Third important area is the entire cost management, and the projects wherein we can trade off a little bit of CapEx with the cost, with the right level of paybacks. As we've seen that the cost environment is going to get more and more challenging while we have P4G programs, but then there's regulatory costs and other pieces, headwinds keeps coming in. Hence, finding out lot more projects wherein we can invest in CapEx and get our costs down, be it factories, be it product, be it network optimization, et cetera. Fourth area for us which we're evaluating is all about, as you said, about getting into adjacent categories, looking at backward integration.
Why are we looking at those kind of options is given, I think the geopolitical situation and supply chain uncertainty is going to stay in some or the other manner, and then doing that piece, A, not only helps us get us a little bit more certain from a supply chain stability point of view, but again, can get us a lot of cost efficiencies as well. Now, outside of this, there are always options to go into the market and look at inorganic opportunities like we did Elica about six, seven years back. Probably just from a sheer cash point of view, it is sufficient enough to look at a company of a similar size. These are some of the options. Now, do we have an exact timeline in terms of what we're doing?
Ongoing business, we do it in day in, day out, and we're looking at all those opportunities on an ongoing basis. When it comes to a little bit more inorganic, we're looking into all those options. We started work. Along with guidance from our board members, we're taking appropriate steps in that direction. We assure you as a management and with the inputs from the board, we're looking at investing cash in a manner which generates the long-term value for the shareholders.
One thing on the cash is very clear to our head that we are going to use this in the business in either of these forms, either organically or inorganically. This is not going to the shareholders in either form, or dividend or buyback.
Buyback is something that we have not looked at this point in time because we think there is a lot of opportunity that we can actually take. I was saying, especially on innovation, there is so much more that we plan to do across the next 12 to 18 months in terms of bringing innovative products to the market. I would say 12 to 24 months actually, as we invest. Like Aditya was saying, we are very interested in looking at other opportunity areas in the market which can add overall value to the company. If those opportunity areas come through, then it would be a really good use of cash. If those opportunities are not to be found across the next year or so, then obviously that is not incrementally available.
We do believe that we are at that time of our existence where aggressive investment across the next 12, 24 months can really take us into a different level of growth on both revenue and profitability.
Sure. Wish you all the best on that. Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Atul Mehra with the Motilal Oswal Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good evening, thanks for the opportunity. Sir, firstly, wanted to get a sense of now that we are an independent company away from the parent, what is the vision that we have aligned out for the next three years, five years? Like, I think Aditya was mentioning, we are not constrained now like how we were in the past. Right? I'm sure when you are looking at the drawing board, you guys would have had a three year, five year strategy roadmap. If you can outline that is my first question, sir.
Absolutely. I have not outlined that, except to the Board. I'll try to give you a very top order thing without going into the numbers and stuff like that, because I think that's less critical. As you might have seen at the beginning of the presentation, sir, we are quite excited about the fact that even if it's for a month, we are number two in the refrigerated and washing machine space. If you were to ask me what is my dream, which I think is a better way of putting it, I would say that, obviously, holding that position for a long span of time, and it may not be the next month, it may not be the next three months or four months, because this is a hard-fought battle with very tough, very well-established competitors. For me, it's wonderful to be number three.
It's even more wonderful to be number two, whether it's for a month or for a quarter or for more, let us see. We will continue to keep fighting to be in that position and hopefully improve on it. All of this is only a stop towards the eventual position. We would like to be the best in refrigerators and washing machines, and we know that it's going to take us years to do that. We are humble enough to recognize that. We are very clear, in our vision, to be the best in refrigerators and washing machines, which is something that we've done globally for many years across the world in many markets. It's not like it's the first time, but we need to do that in India.
That is why all the men and women of Whirlpool get up every day in the morning and come to office. It's not for this quarter's results, it's not for today's results or tomorrow's results. It's for what we eventually want to become. Would it take five years? Would it take eight years? Would it take 10 years? That's a good question. I would hope to say definitely less than 10 years, but that's why we come to office, to be honest with you. We've never publicly said that before, but I say it today. That's our dream, to basically become the number one player in refrigerators and washing machines, which is why we need to be there across all the segments. While doing that, we will hope to have a healthy business in other aspects as well.
For example, in the air conditioner space, and I'm now not getting into the detail, but I don't think right now we have an aspiration to be number one in air conditioners, because it's too much to chew on. For me, refrigerators and washing machines, which we have played for 40 years, know the space very well, have the ability, have the knowledge, have the experience, now have the resources, the energy for sure, and have the organization. We need to march steadily towards that goal across the next few years. Having said that, we also need to do that in a profitable manner. It's not about just getting to market share, spending money left, right and center, and we don't have anybody to support us on the financials or anything of that sort. It's all got to be self-generated. We will do that in a responsible way.
It may take us a little bit longer to get there. It will not be five years. It'll probably be more than five years to get to the leadership position in refrigerators and washers. We know that. One day we hope to get there. We hope to get there while improving our profitability across time. I've already mentioned that this is not the short term. This is more the long term thing I'm talking about. I have already said to you that 2026, 2027 will be difficult financially for the entire industry and also for Whirlpool because of all the energy changes, because of all the war impacts that are happening, which are very significant and kind of continuing to be not so clear as we go along. All these things will end one day.
What will not end is our passion to be the best at what we do. We would therefore like to grow our business, grow our air conditioner business, maybe have some associated other business which are synergistic in a go-to-market perspective, but add value to us from both a revenue growth and a profitability standpoint, which is, I think what Mr. Chaudhary's question was, which we answered. We would absolutely love to have businesses like we acquired Elica. There could be other businesses that could be very interesting, but it's got to also be similar on go-to-market, ideally, though we are not closed to other options. We want to do that profitably over time.
Got it. Sir, secondly, my question is, in this thought process of utilizing cash towards potential synergistic acquisitions, et cetera. My only apprehension on this is, you have a stock which is, according to you, trading at attractive valuations because you have bought stock in the open market. Right? As a CEO, you believe the stock is undervalued and you have bought it in the open market. For some reason, it appears that you don't want to deploy that cash for a buyback. It is very strange from the perspective that you have a stock which is trading at 1/3 its valuation that it was trading at in the past. The management believes it's undervalued. You guys have bought the stock in your own personal portfolios. Right? Despite that, you are not considering a buyback.
It is very strange and bizarre why despite having no use of cash, and despite a very attractive in terms of valuation on the stock, the board and the management is not considering a buyback. It is really not understandable. If you can elaborate a little bit on that.
No, thank you, sir, for that. I'll just give my little perspective and then I will ask Aditya, who understands this topic a lot more than I do, I can assure you. I certainly believe that Whirlpool of India has a bright future. There's absolutely no doubt, which is why, as you might have noticed, thank you for noticing, some of us did pick up with our own money, basically, the Whirlpool of India stocks. Having said that, I think there are quite a few opportunities in front of us that we are considering, and these opportunities can add a lot of value. It's early days.
I'm not saying we are anywhere close to anything significant, but it's early days and there are opportunities that we think, and I think as a businessman, that could add significant value to Whirlpool of India, without going into the detail of what those opportunities are, and we continue to evaluate those opportunities. It would be remiss of me not to really play that out. Please keep in mind that it's November when the transaction happened where Whirlpool Corporation went below 50%. Following which we've had one energy change, which has probably taken a lot of energy out of all of us, and we've also had an impact of war. In the middle of all of this, you can imagine the amount of work required to keep this going. We need to do our day jobs and then look at other things as well.
It's going to take us a little bit of time to consider that. Obviously, we want to do what's best for our shareholders, but we really do think what's best for our shareholders in the long run, and we are not looking at today's share price and feeling depressed or demoralized at all. We are looking at what we are doing and saying, if everything was to come back to status quo in other aspects, when times get right with the kind of momentum that we are trying to build, with the kind of discipline that we're trying to work with, we should be able to achieve quite a few of our goals. There could be significant opportunities that we want to pursue, and we will not be able to pursue that if we do some things in a rush or in a hurry, under pressure.
I'm going to ask you to trust us a little bit more on this. We have a very well-informed board that is also looking at these things. We've not had a huge amount of time post this transaction, as you can imagine. I think Whirlpool of India can do a lot more in the coming 12-24 months in terms of utilizing quite a few of the assets that we have, that you mentioned. I would like to help grow this business as my primary source of excitement and happiness. That's what we would like to do. Happy to listen to Aditya's point of view on this, if you have anything more to add.
I think, Mr. Eswar, you've said it all. I think the limited point here is that we have a vision. We have a vision to grow, and we have the vision to be the number one. In that vision, there are opportunities on the way to deploy this cash in a manner which can take our company to the next level. It is a question of a little bit of short term versus long term, and we believe that with our vision to grow, we would need that on the way to make our company successful, and which would ultimately lead to a long-term value creation for the shareholders. That's where our thought process is as of now, and we will evaluate that in a little bit more detail in the next 12-24 months and take the right decisions.
Right. Thank you very much. My only feedback is the focus should be on shareholder growth and not just business growth. At the end of the day, shareholders want return on the company's investments, right? Do consider a buyback as part of the many avenues that you are considering, while you're considering many other potential M&A, et cetera. Do also keep in mind that a potential acquisition is just acquiring your own shares, which could be undervalued. Just keep that in mind as a suggestion, and thank you very much.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Umang Mehta with Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question was on your capital work in progress. I heard that premium ref, frost free is something which is on card, but anything else which is ongoing in terms of capacity expansion? Any plans of any CapEx for room ACs? What we understand is globally, because Whirlpool didn't have any manufacturing, we always were kind of on the back foot. Is it possible to commit any CapEx and start production in India in the near future? That is the first question.
Sorry, Mr. Mehta, your voice broke a little bit. Could you just repeat in brief the question? I'm so sorry. Your voice broke a little bit.
No worries. Sorry. I hope I'm audible now. What are capacity expansion plans are currently CWIP of INR 200 crore. Can you share some thoughts or insights, and any plans to expand AC capacity or put up AC manufacturing in India in the near future?
I'll take the first question, which your question was on basically the CWIP. The CWIP right now pertains to the premium refrigerators we spoke about. It's going to come in the next quarter, so the CapEx is still lying in CWIP and it's not got capitalized. I just want to clarify that piece.
Yeah.
Yeah, sorry. Basically, Mr. Mehta, we hope to bring in a few things across the next 12 to 24 months. I say 12 to 24 months because some buttons have been pushed. As you know, this is a high engineering business and it's not very easy to bring everything into market in 12 months. There's quite a few buttons that have been pushed by the board, with the board's advice by us in terms of what we will do. Like I said, our accent will be firstly to make sure that we cover all portfolio gaps that we have in refrigerators, washing machines. We are also open to looking at other areas of investment where there are significant opportunities in the near future in terms of expansion into those categories, associated categories.
In terms of the air conditioning investment into CapEx, this will be a commercial and strategic decision. The reason I'm saying that is because there is quite a bit of capacity in the country available with 3PL players who can supply air conditioners to you with your design, to your specifications, to your technical requirement. You've got to balance that off with investment into CapEx of your own plant. Now, that does make sense at a certain volume, possibly, and we are continuously evaluating that decision. When we need to make the decision, we absolutely will do that. For me, I just need to make sure that if I get into a new plant, then I should make sure that the depreciation does not hurt my P&L any more than it needs to.
The short answer to the AC question is, it totally depends on how we go across the next few years, and it depends on what happens with the 3PL manufacturers that we have, what kind of partnerships we can strike, what kind of deals we can strike, and what economics would make sense for us. Long as the economics is making a lot of sense for us, we are fine. If at some point in time, the economics of setting up your own plant is better than the economics of sourcing it from a 3PL, then we certainly would not hesitate to take the decision at that point in time.
Got it. The second question was on your margin. Two points to it. One was, what is the e-waste expense absolute number in 2026, and where is it likely to land in 2027? Any crystal ball gazing you can do in terms of what margins can we look at, either in terms of gross or EBITDA in FY 2027? I know there are many moving pieces, but as of now, what would be your best assessment?
Yeah. Sir, as far as e-waste is concerned, we're not giving out. You will see the e-waste data, I can't remember off the top of my head, you will actually see it when we are publishing our annual report. It will all be there because it's statutory to declare that. Margins, to be honest, we can't give any guidance right now. I said before, this is an incredibly unusual time. If it had been a normal year even, I probably would be loath to give any guidance on margins because it's such a competitive market, right? It's not like, I don't want to say which category, but there are some industries where you take a price increase for one year and then everybody's clear. This is the kind of business where the price list changes on a monthly basis.
This is not the kind of place where we can just give out any margin guidance, honestly. I wouldn't do that. In this current context, I would say it's almost impossible to predict. I said, we are focused on making sure that we are doing the right things for the short and the long term, taking all of cost and all of revenue into account. Any guidance, I would absolutely not be able to give on margins. I will say that, as I said before the war impact started, I said 2026, 2027 will be a challenging year. Because of energy regulations coming in, because of these incremental e-waste provisions that all people have to make, it would be a challenging year because of the competitive thing. The war is there on top.
We're just praying for good outcomes, and we're working incredibly hard to make sure that we make as best an outcome as possible out of what we have in front of us.
Sure, sir. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Natasha Jain with PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, first question is on refrigerator. The past couple of years, we've seen that the industry growth here has been pretty much flat, despite it being a cooling product and summers being good. Could you throw some light as to what's happening in this category? I understand even penetration is not that great here. Why is this category being a laggard in terms of appliances?
Yes, ma'am. It is a great question. I would say I cannot give you a definitive answer to this question, but what you have observed is true. At the entry level, the direct cool refrigerator business, the industry has not done well in the last five years. Now, I am not talking about market shares and movement between players. I am talking about the entire industry. I think post-COVID, in terms of the recovery that has happened from the economy, I think that is one of the factors. We had a situation where it is a little bit like a K curve. It is not been one-sided kind of growth for everybody. It has been a bit of a K curve. The downward part of the K curve has basically impacted DC, the Direct Cool business, and the semi-automatic business, because these are entry-level products at the entry of DC.
Then, of course, there's a middle and a premium as well. You also have a situation where if the bottom part of the K curve is not moving as fast, I'm really hoping and looking forward to that moving up fast because that trickle-down has to happen. Plus, with all of the recent activities that have been opened up, with income tax slabs opening up, GST being brought down on products, not so much for refrigerators and washing machines, but certainly for air conditioners and panels and cars and so on and so forth. There's a lot of housing programs being done by the government. I think it's around the corner. Is it three months, six months, 12 months, 18 months from now? I do not know, it's certainly not three years away, where penetration should start growing again.
As the trickle-down happens, the penetration start growing again, also because of all these other events that I mentioned. When that happens, I think DC will start picking up, SA will start picking up. These are not sunset categories. Absolutely not in this country. What actually, I think, ma'am, practically speaking, in my view is happening is a lot of the people who have refrigerators that are eight years old or 10 years old or 11 years old, and you would expect them to upgrade to a new model, potentially saying, "Hang on, let me just maybe carry on for another two years by doing some amount of repairing and some amount of managing somehow," because we do a lot of jugaad innovation in our country. I think that's probably happening here as well, where decision-making on buying the next refrigerator is getting postponed.
It cannot be postponed forever because at some point in time, machines that you bought 15 years ago, 14 years ago, 20 years ago, for sure, you can't repair it beyond a point in time. All machines have a life. I think it's a matter of time before that comes in. There are two big things that I think are going to happen. I think the bottom half of the K curve is going to start lifting because of all the impact that the government is putting in, but also because of the fact that the trickle-down effect has to happen. The second part of it is that as people have postponed their purchases, but now there is a point beyond which you cannot postpone.
When it comes back, you should get, I think mathematically, you should get a double whammy help, which would be very nice to see, especially for somebody like us who is very strong in DC and in semi-automatic. We would love to see that day come.
Got it. Do you think a BEE rating kind of a thing in refrigerator could pump up the demand?
Well, it's a very nice question. It's probably a tricky one to answer. I think what is really important in DC and semi-automatic is making sure that the price point makes a lot of sense for the consumer for the value that they're getting, right? On the one hand, having more energy-efficient products is very good because it helps save energy. It helps conserve energy for the country. It's a wonderful thing. On the other hand, if you keep on increasing star ratings, then the cost also goes up. Right? The refrigerator will not be the same cost for a two star and a three star and a four star. Basically, it's impossible to be at the same cost. Energy rating cannot increase without a commensurate increase in cost. If there's a commensurate increase in cost, then over time, there has to be a commensurate increase in pricing.
It may not be immediate, but over time it has to happen. As we know, when price goes up, demand could potentially go down. This is a very complex relationship. We are doing the right thing as a country, as an industry, by upgrading our energy-efficient machines and so on and so forth. It might have, beyond a point in time, if overused, then it could potentially have an impact of pulling down demand instead of pushing it up. Where I think that tight balance is, which is what industry is always speaking with to the ministries about.
Understood. Sir, one last question and one feedback. In terms of washers, the question is, Q4 and the first quarter continues to be a good quarter. Could you throw some light in terms of how Whirlpool is performing there, and especially your fully automatic front load category? The feedback, sir, saw very strong traction for your RAC on the ground and good feedback in terms of both product quality and cooling. I just wanted to leave you with that. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, ma'am. On washers, like I said, washers overall, we've had some pretty solid results. We've had share increases in the last quarter, as I said in the presentation. There's been volume market share increases and obviously value market share increases, in all three categories in the last quarter, in fully automatic and semi-automatic and in front load. Specifically on our front load washers, as you might have seen, we have strong double-digit shares in top load, nearly close to our DC shares, actually. We've got pretty strong double-digit growth in semi-automatic. Our front load washing machine share is still only single digit. We have tremendous opportunity in that because we are known as a washing machine company. We invented the washing machine, globally.
I would say it would almost be an unfulfilled potential if we don't take our front load washing machine to where it needs to be, which is the top echelon of front load washing machines. It's an incredibly competitive market. A lot of existing, very strong players have big stakes there, so it's not going to be easy. We are moving ahead one step at a time. Like I said, in the last six or seven, probably eight quarters, which is over the last two years, we've had either high double-digit or triple-digit basis point share growth in every quarter versus the previous year. Thank you for your comment on the room air conditioner. Much appreciated.
Thank you, sir. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Since we are nearing the closing time for the meeting today, we will take one last question from Mr. Achal Lohade with Nuvama Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question, sir. Just two questions. First, I know the industry and the company has gone through lots of ups and downs, but if you were to look at it from a steady state perspective, what is the margin range 1 should look at for Elica and for the rest of the business? That's my number one question. Secondly, in terms of the adjacency, is it fair to say that it will be in the large kitchen appliances or you could also evaluate something in the smaller appliances? Those are my two questions. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much, sir. Like I said, we are not really giving out any margin guidances now for the future. Just to be very top-line, I had said even two years ago that our intent over the long run would be to grow the business high single-digit year-on-year compound growth rate. I think maybe we can up that a little bit and go into early double-digits as we think about the future. At least that's our ambition, and let's see where life leads us. On the base business, the margins, I think, to be honest, in the long run, in this category, because of the modeling that, if you do your modeling on the regulatory impacts and if you do the modeling on the competitiveness of this industry, you can see today that there's hardly anybody who's in double-digit margins, right?
It was not the case six, seven years ago, in what we call quote-unquote, "The good old days." Those were the days where you would be sitting on 11, 12, 13% margins. Honestly, I think that's going to be very difficult for any player to do. Whether or not you are sitting on double-digit margin today, I think, is not that relevant. What is relevant is it's an incredibly competitive market in which there is a significant regulatory cost component, energy changes that are kind of slated to come across the years. Therefore, over a long span of time, I think to get to a high single-digit margin is probably what is likely in the refrigerator, washing machine, air conditioner space, right? I think that kind of is probably the best that I can tell you.
What Whirlpool will do or will not do, we will see as we go along. That's kind of in line with what I said, and that would be long-term. It's definitely not, I'm not saying medium-term at all. As far as Elica is concerned, as you know, it's already in a strong double-digit kind of range. I think with Elica, the key for us is Elica is such an incredible brand. I would say compared to Whirlpool, it's nowhere near that level of distribution because it's a more niche category. I think there's plenty of potential for Elica across the next decade to be in many more homes. As India premiumizes, as India aspires more, Elica is this incredibly designed product made in India, conceptualized in India, delivered in India, inspired by Italian design.
That is something that I think, as we look to that business, I would always hope to keep it in the double-digit margin range. Over the next maybe 5-7 years, I would love to take a little bit of that margin and put into driving revenue growth. I think there is a significant opportunity to drive that category, whose penetration is probably less than 5% today. Much less than 5%. I think to get to a washing machine level of close to 20% or to a refrigerator which is in the mid-30s to sub 40 level, Elica has got tremendous potential for growth as well. Like ACs have in this country, like washing machines have in this country, and like refrigerators have in this country. I hope I answered that question.
On the adjacency, I think, like I said, we started looking at it as early days. We have had to look at a lot of factors. I think the overall, obviously, any business that we get into, whether it is an adjacency or an acquisition or whatever it is, a merger, we have to become better owners of the business than the current business. That I think is what is going to be the key. The obvious things to look at is where are the synergies with respect to go-to-market, where are the synergies with respect to what kind of business you want to get. For example, I will not be really interested in very low margin businesses.
That's not of any interest to us because Elica is a classic example of the kind of business that we would definitely like to have, which is really good margin business, capable of growing very strongly. We have a lot of potential to grow that business. We have the margins with which we can invest into that business. That's a classic example of the type of business. By the way, similar go-to-market. Not the same, but a similar go-to-market. Therefore, that's the kind of profile of adjacency or acquisition or whatever you want to call it that we would like to look at. Not something which is completely off the wall. Is it large? Is it small? I think that's less important than is it beautiful? Is it profitable? Is it synergistic? I hope I answered your question.
Very well, sir. Thank you so much. Wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That was the last question. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Sweta Srivastava for closing comments.
Thank you everyone for joining the call. With that, we would like to draw this call to a close. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Whirlpool of India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your line.