Good afternoon. Good afternoon.
Yeah, so. We'll start the call now. And I'm about my colleagues, Chetan, who's our discretionary analyst.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon.
And my colleague in sales, Chintan, most hard working guy of our team.
Good afternoon.
Yeah, very nice to, you know, host this call today. So ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon once again. Sir, are we allowed to record this?
hear me? Which way? The conference recording in progress? Yeah.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure to welcome my old friend of more than 15 years, Mr. Manish Desai on today's call. Earlier he used to give us a lot of, you know, things, insights on Voltas and today we'll be asking a lot of questions on VIP Industries. So to welcome everyone and you know, to kickstart the call, I would like to request Manish ji to kindly give us a view on what's happening in the industry and current trends. And then we'll for five minutes and then we'll open the floor for questions. My colleagues also have a lot of questions to ask. They prepared an entire questionnaire. So Manish ji, over to you sir.
Okay, so good afternoon to all the participants. It's always a pleasure to interact with all of you. If I were to give you the H1 or H2 results, they are available on our website and were announced almost one and a half months back. So I'm sure each one of you would have gone through them in detail. I would like to just touch upon the current quarter, how it is looking like in terms of the sales, in terms of the overall industry scenario as such. So if I look into it, we all know it was a festival period for the entire month of October and November. Luckily this quarter we have a larger number of marriage days as well compared to what we have seen in the previous year.
If I take the current year of 25-26 April, which is generally a marriage days, we could not witness those kind of days and now all got accumulated in this quarter. So considering that we are expecting some amount of growth to take place. However, we all know and at what we have given in our H1 result as well that we may see that volume growth will certainly be there. But value growth may still remain muted because unlike in other industry, the premiumization concept has not kicked in for the luggage industry. And people are still looking for value products for the entry price points to purchase.
Largely with the understanding that the luggage they would like to change it at a frequency of every after seven to eight travels they would like to undergo a change rather the earlier belief or thinking and with all old generation would like to continue the same luggage for whatever time it can permit to use it. So this is the some kind of consumer behavior change.
Also we are seeing nowadays and largely the luggage industry getting shifted to HL which anyway has a lower life compared to the soft luggage. The reason being is because it is made out of PP and it's supposed to be having a lower life considering the way in which the luggage being handled by the users as well as at the various hands interchange during your travel journey and all but any which way as part of the warranty is concerned.
As a brand manufacturer, we took utmost care of it, and that's why every product of us carries a five years warranty with the assurance that within five years anything manufacturing defect appears, we are committed to give the complete replacement of the unit. So, in terms of the, as I said, in terms of the volume, definitely we are expecting to have continue with the double digit kind of growth in the quarter three. However, the value growth may slightly remain tepid or muted given that the consumer ask on the price point of the luggage industry. In terms of the overall industry scenario to consider, we have seen many brands are now expanding on a retail footprint largely realizing that they reach to a saturation level with the online channel.
We are going to see the challenges what they are going to face because what we are seeing today with our General Trade and the Modern Trade. I am sure that each of the brand who are expanding their footprint will going to face more severe challenges when they want to expand the doors for the channel expansion.
Having said that, the one more point which would like to have it in terms of the overall growth which we are expecting for this industry, all the favorable factors are in favor of the luggage industry via travel. In fact, the new concept which we all know spiritual travel also started in a big way and that's why it gives a good amount of support to a duffel bag in the backpack which people use it for a travel time of three to four days.
These are the categories which are emerging now and we find more kind of support because of the shorter travel which people prone to prefer largely on account of family travels or weekend or maybe a spiritual trip in addition to what they plan in terms of the one long journey maybe within India of those as well.
The trend with the hotel occupancy also gives that kind of flavor that people want to live. How people would like to travel and use the, I would say after Covid what we have seen the perception about what you live it, let's live it kind of concept which is prevailing aggressively and we find good amount of support coming to our industry as well. In terms of the market share we have, if I look from the June we clocked around 40% market share.
In the month of September, we came down to 38% largely because our quarter two remained more muted and Samsonite also shown a degrowth. However, Safari has been able to bank on the E-com support. They could see some kind of value growth higher than what we and Samsonite register. For that matter, increasing their market share. However, the good thing is that if I look into year on year, we are able to increase the market share by at least 300 basis points over the corresponding period of the last year and expecting to sustain our market share in the range of 38%-40% for the rest of the period on this particular year going forward. Our aspiration to continue around 40% or in excess of 40% market share.
In terms of the balancing view between market share and the margin, we would like to play a equitable kind of role which means that market share will not come at the cost of the margin and we'll put our all efforts to ensure that we go back to the old trajectory of earning margin.
However, as far as the industry view is concerned, in our own view the industry will settle with a low or a mid-single; it's a point between mid- and high-single-digit margin and double-digit margin may not be possible because of the intense competition and everyone would like to see the market share but would like to run after the market share and this is phenomenon we have seen across many industries who are seeing the intense competition and I'm sure that you guys are aware about it rather than I would speak here or I would give any examples for that matter. So with this limited discussion I would like to now open this for the question-answer session and welcome all of you to ask any question.
Thank you very much sir. Since it's a buy side call, there are no formalities. You may unmute yourself and ask your question or you could just raise your hands and we'll ask invite you to ask but better is just unmute yourself and ask your question directly from Manish. So we just wait for a minute?
Sure.
Otherwise my colleague has got tons of questions with us.
Yeah.
So, are we seeing any hands raised right now?
I'm not seeing from current, so.
So we are giving just 10 seconds more to any participant who wants to ask first. Otherwise, then Chetan is ready with his questions.
Yeah, I saw Sagar has put on the video.
Yeah.
Any question from your side to start with?
No, he's fine. Since right now they're not ready with questions, so let's move on to Chetan. Chetan, my colleague. Yeah, he's visible over here.
Yeah, yeah. Yes.
Yeah. We have been seeing some pressure in the offline channel since past few quarters. And what do you think? Will this channel continue to see pressure in the second half as well? And what kind of growth do we anticipate for the offline channel?
So, Chetan, if I look into it, generally now the entire year getting divided into two channels of online and offline. The first quarter generally for the offline channel, second quarter goes to the online. Quarter three and quarter four gives you the balance between the online and offline channel. The offline generally the interest comes from the events like your travel days and the marriage days. We all saw that the marriage days was not so accelerated. Also in number of counts in the first quarter resulting into some stress on the offline channel. Quarter two, seasonality or traditionally it is for the online. So you won't find any traction coming from the offline channel altogether.
However, if I look into the quarter three, we find some kind of interest coming back from the offline channel, and hopefully, as I said, we would like to love that all channel participates in the growth trajectory because you cannot depend upon one channel to drive the growth because it may reach to a saturation level and we need to partner with all, so from brand perspective we are putting all our efforts to ensure that all channel gets equally important and get equally mixed into the growth journey of the company.
Yeah, thank you sir, that was helpful. One more question on this channel mix only like I would like to know on the E-commerce part of the business. So year to date if we see the E-commerce contribution for us has been somewhere around 30% plus which is in line with the industry. And is it right that majority of this is Aristocrat and the pricing guardrail which we are looking out to put on the VIP brands and post that also the E-commerce contribution will stay in the range of 30-35% or it will see a decline.
So Chetan, let me verify one thing. Is the industry participation on the E-com channel higher than 40%? We are having currently at 30% which we have seen a tremendous growth over the last year because we started having more focus or equal amount of focus on the online channel which is growing at a larger growth rate compared to the offline channel. Having said that, we would not like to. We would like to maintain the E-com participation to the extent of 30-35% slightly lower than what the industry is looking for in terms of the pricing. Yes, we all know online channel is known for the price-sensitive market.
We have introduced the guardrail for VIP largely because it was heavily discounted in the online portal and it was getting some kind of disruption in the offline where we want to push some kind of premium product. Because we all know on a pricing point VIP is more pricey than the Aristocrat set of three or luggage for that matter. Having agreed with the portals on a price guardrail, we are not seeing a major disruption because overall sales of VIP on any of the E-com portals was in a mid single digit. So it will not impact much in terms of the guardrail being introduced. And that was an objective to kickstart this.
Having said that, we are going to agree on the price point for the guardrail for our Skybags also as we move forward, but in a very tactfully and very balanced view between online and offline. And both those, those broad understanding also added with the portal so that when we migrate or when we discuss about it, it's at the consensus level and not disrupting or not disturbing the contribution of any channel into the brand for that matter. This is very, I would say, a balanced view. Yes, the guardrail has been introduced in the VIP to protect the interest of the offline channel. Aristocrat being a larger contributor in the E-com portal being a price sensitive unit for that matter.
Yeah, that was helpful. I would request the participants, if they have any questions, they can go forward with it.
Hey, can I go?
Yes, sir.
Thank you for this call. So you mentioned that, you know, the premiumization is yet to kick in, right? And the value growth will. I mean the volume will pick up at the value. But I have a bit of a. You know, more of a direct peer kind of a question. Like there's a company called Brand Concepts, right? They are able to sustain their margins at 11 odd %, right. While your margins are fluctuating. So what is the strategy that they are able to play better and you being a bigger player, are not able to, you know, tap that strategy, if you can comment on that.
Nishant, if I look from the. I didn't see the P and L of the brand concept, which I can see it separately. So I'm not going to comment about how they are managing the P and L vis-à-vis which is how we are doing it. I see more insight into it what where we are facing some kind of trouble.
The trouble which is coming around to us in terms of some of the fixed overheads which we are carrying with us on which we started doing a lot of strategic initiatives and as we said earlier that although our margin is getting varied on a quarter and a quarter basis but we're hopeful to break even on EBITDA point in a quarter three and when we go on a quarter four we'll be able to have anything between mid- to high-single-digit EBITDA margin. That's what our aspiration to move around, and this has resulted, and we are reasonably confident to get into this because the initiatives which we kick started will start showing the result by then. We have been hard pressed.
You know, we all know about the inventory accumulation which we had, and one thing which I said about it: the life of the luggage is going to get shorter now as we move forward, but we are seeing a good amount of interest coming on the soft luggage side as well in some of the parts of our country, which suggests that even though hard luggage is going to rule, but still 20-25% contribution may still come from the soft luggage, and our belief is getting more stronger as we move forward because we are seeing some of the brands are actually introducing the luggage in a soft luggage form.
Having said that, the current margin volatility what you are saying, what you are seeing, Nishant, is largely on account of our liquidation of the soft luggage which we have accumulated for almost like a one year forward sale and now it is coming liquidated, it's getting liquidated as we move forward so that is impacting our margin, our gross margin for that matter and therefore the EBITDA margin and as I said some of the fixed overhead on which we're working around to rationalize which will also help us out in terms of stabilizing it in our margin as we move forward.
I saw some message appearing on from Naveen side today. If I look into it, we have already liquidated almost INR 180 crores of inventory what we are carrying as an overall inventory on 31st March vis-à-vis 30th September. We are hopeful that our soft luggage inventory should flush out from our system by early or by mid of the quarter four, and in fact you have to start producing the soft luggage to take care of the new demand requirement coming from the customer side.
Sir, can I ask a follow-up?
Yeah, sure
sir, would it be fair? To say like, you know, the brands like Mokobara which are coming in, right. Which are, you know, targeting that particular kind of category which is very premium, right. And which is aspirational also to some. Extent do you feel that, you know? Since yours is a traditional kind of a brand, it has kind of started. To you know lose some bit of. An appeal to the youth which is, you know, which has to, you know Make the buying purchase. This is more like a, you know, question that.
Okay, so Nishant, if I look into it, it's a perception that Mokobara is putting into a premium category. Actually, when you put a pricing pyramid Aristocrat for us, I can define those price points and then I can define for the industry as well. Aristocrat comes under the below of pyramid of the price point. Skybags and VIP comes in the mid price point and Carlton will be above that. Mokobara, Nasher Miles and all which we are talking about, they are playing in the mid price point. So there's an intense competition which you see today in the mid price point where the brands are. There are many brands who are eyeing for a market share.
This is what to answer about how Mokobara is comparing with our brand as such, on the price point perspective, on the appealing perspective. We have two brands in the primary price point, which is VIP and Skybags. Skybags is also more attached to the youth. That's what we, when we carry out the brand track study, it clearly reflects that VIP goes with the generation or the age bucket of people 40 to 50, 40 and above.
Whereas when you look into the Skybags standard, it falls between. For the backpack, it goes as early as 11-year, 12-year kid. And when you go to the hard luggage, the upright luggage, it finds attractiveness to the youth. And that's why the vibrancy of color can also be seen more. And the more aesthetics, more innovative, more bright colors can be in Skybags.
Can they compare to the VIP? So, Nishant, we have a product. What I intend to say is we have a product for each of the segments of our population. Keeping in mind the price point also what they're looking for. So when we introduce any product, we keep three things in mind. One thing is about what consumer wants it. And that's why we started, you know, doing the consumer study at the interval of every three to six months time frame to find out. One, they need what they need from us in terms of what they need more in the luggage compared to what we already introduced so far. Second, it helps us to carry out the price point at which they would like to pay for a particular luggage or particular features out of it.
Third thing, in terms of premiumization, if I have to push what more I need to do on the ground to ensure that I'll be standing differently and I'll be able to push more of the Carlton brand which will give a more premium kind of share compared to anything else. I hope I will be able to answer properly. Nishant.
Yes, sir. So, thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. Any other person?
Yeah. So I have this question on the BCG project. So we were expecting to see partial benefits of this project from the month of October. So any benefits which you would like to highlight or quantify?
Chintan, I would not like to quantify anything right now. Let my results talk about it when we come out with the quarter three and quarter four results.
Yeah, sure, sir.
But we are working aggressively. In fact, the BCG is the enabler for us and the initiatives which we plan. It's like accelerated efforts to implement. And that's why we are taking the. You know, the BCG is working on a joint kind of project with all of us with the company management. I saw one question appearing on the debt reduction plan. So we already reduced around 35 odd crores by September. And we are targeting to reduce equal amount or slightly more in the H2.
Okay. Sir, we have a question from Mr. Sanjay Chawla. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. I have a question, Manish. You mentioned that there will be divergence between volume growth and value growth for some time. So my question is by when do you expect these two things to converge, these two growth rates to converge, and at what sort of level would they converge?
Sanjay, it is extremely difficult to find out at what level they converge. But what brands like us started doing is. We started. There is a strategy called differentiated markets and different products, right. So what we are now looking into is which are the markets who are generally willing to pay a tad higher than the other one. And we find two markets. I don't like to quote the names being the confidential nature, are willing to pay a price, slightly higher price than the other two markets.
Whereas the price points drive up. So we are moving our strategy and it has come up from the consumer study as I said few minutes back. So we are moving one strategy on that front. Second thing is I will like to go moderate in terms of pushing Aristocrat with our general trade. We already successfully removed this Aristocrat brand in our own store. When you see any of our company run store you won't find any of the Aristocrat product and you find only Skybags and Carlton which is giving good amount of response. It comes with the pain. It has come with a pain in the past but now it getting stabilized and we are seeing that more kind of traction coming from this brand like this. We find out some of the stores as well.
Like if I talk about the modern trade, there are modern trade stores or the location stores who willing to pay or willing to keep a more product of Skybags brand compared to Aristocrat on the shelf. So we are working on the strategy. So every stage to come out. It takes some more time. In our own reading with this kind of gradual step what we started doing it probably the next six to eight months time frame we should be able to at least reduce the gap what we have today between the volume and the value.
Okay, thank you
I saw one pop-up message came on the inventory liquidations. I could not make it up. Can you just. Whoever asks the question can you flash it again or can speak about it.
Yeah. So we have a question from Rakshit Madan. He is asking like what value of inventory will be liquidated for soft luggage or the overall inventory will be liquidated till Q4.
the situation over there is. We are currently having 980-odd crores of inventory. By end March 2024 we came down to almost a 740-odd kind of level. We are hopeful that when we go to the March we'll come back to a normalcy of 500 to 550-odd crores of inventory, 30-40 here and there. I'm not putting too much weightage on it by the March. We need this inventory because April and May will be the season period for the offline channel. The overall inventory will come to a normalized level by March 2025 and secondly within the overall inventory. The SL will further be reducing sizably.
Because I said few minutes back that by month of January, end of February beginning we have to start producing for the new requirement of the soft luggage which you are seeing the interest from the consumer side.
Yeah. Thank you, sir. So any more questions from the participants?
Hi. I'm audible.
Yes,
hi sir. So I just had a small question on the debt side. So sir, can you please confirm the figure we have reduced in H1 for this year?
INR 35 crores we reduced in the H1 and H2 I said equal amount or slightly higher when we reach to March 2025.
Okay. So as you have guided previously that we will reduce our debt by around INR 100 crores. So we are falling short by around INR 25-30 crores. Right sir.
So as I said 30 equal amount or higher. Our objective to go above 100 what we have given. But my nature is more of a conservative. And that much will definitely reduce it. So by INR 80 crores overall debt should come down. INR 35 crores will be reduced and balance should be able to reduce the H2. Thank you so much. Yes Prachi, you are right. When the inventory liquidations taking place, our warehouse cost also goes down. For benefit of everyone from the April 2024 we have reduced around 4.5 lakh sq ft till September until October 2024.
Yeah. We have one more question on chat from Risha Mehta. She asks of the INR 740 crores how much is this soft luggage inventory?
So if I take together of raw material and soft luggage upright, it will be somewhere around INR 140-odd crores of inventory we will be carrying with us. But the raw material will be a larger one. We have raw material. Sorry, not 140. INR 160 crores. Out of that we have around 80 crores of. Sorry. INR 80-100 crores of raw material. And balance is the finished goods and raw material can be used as per the new design which we are trying to introduce over there. The risk is minimal.
Yes.
I can give the exact number later on in a WhatsApp chat or something. This is whatever. My memory says maybe 10:20 here, and there will not be too much difference on that. But we are committed, as I said, that we'll be moving out of this SL upright inventory liquidation issue by mid of quarter four, and probably be hopeful to start the new production with the availability of raw material for us to catch it up with the consumer requirement.
Yeah. Thank you, sir. So, participants, anyone would like to ask questions?
Hi, Akash here. Can I ask?
Yes, please go forward.
Sure Akash, why not?
Yeah. Hi. Hi sir. Thank you for your time. And thank you team for organizing this. Sir, I mean can you please give some qualitative color on how the marriage season or let's say how the. Second. Half would look like. I mean, that will give us some perspective.
See, Akash, this will be a forward-looking statement. But I said that the number of marriage days in quarter three are higher compared to the corresponding period of last year. However, we have seen the entire season steps in the month of October and November first week. It has taken up a complete charm of it, but in terms of the other levers what we have available in terms of travel, in terms of the aspirational value we attach to the consumers, we hopeful that the volume-wise will be still taking the double-digit growth in the H2. However, the value growth may still remain at a muted level. That's what I said few minutes back or at the start of my session on a bright note, right?
Sure, sure sir, and sir also just wanted to ask. Any. I mean these new players like let's say Mokobara, Nasher Miles, or let's say Uppercase etc. On the ground are you seeing they expanding their retail footprint and are they impacting our growth a bit?
Akash, when I said I would say that yes they are expanding to their retail network. But I have seen they are finding some kind of resistance from the general trade channel and they are now looking more of their own company or a franchisee run store in order to retail participation. Akash, let me tell you this is a challenging one and we need to see how it plays out on their financial results and the growth as we move forward because retail will not give you a growth consistently and you have to play around between the fixed cost which you carry on your own store versus the revenue throughput you are looking for in order to break even and further forget if break even because you would grow higher.
You have to start generating positives on the per-store basis. In fact, we are seeing that the same-store sales growth is also facing many challenges at many locations, and this is largely because the modern trade and the e-coms are becoming more aggressive compared to the other offline channels.
Sure, sir. Sir, just a follow-up, sir. You said they are finding. I mean, general trade, they are finding challenges with.
Hello, this is my own reading because general trade today the distributors who have been associated with us for a long time would not like to shift to the new brand unless until it becomes the attractive for them to step in. Few minutes back I've explained that the Mokobara, Uppercase, Nasher Miles are playing in the mid price point where then you look into the distribution perspective. Largely a distributor among the general trade channel they are more towards the price low product. So that's why the resistance is coming on two sides the offline channel have other brands to play on it like they may play upon it Samsonite Safari which are well known, well branded and well established in this industry.
Second thing is a price point to play around on this newcomers where they are aggressively competing with other brands in a mid price point rather a value, rather in value price point.
Okay. Okay. Sure, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Pleasure.
So we have a question on chat from Stuti Beria. She asks when can we expect to receive the major portion of the insurance claim related to Bangladesh factory fire incident and if the manpower cost at Bangladesh going to increase.
One thing is that there are two different questions, so on the insurance side we received and let me tell you one clear thing is the insurance will have positive impact in the profit and loss account because whatever loss we anticipated has been already provided in books of account, so whatever we receive now on the insurance side will be adding positive to the Bangladesh financials. Having said that, we have seen we have received around BDT 5 crores in the first quarter. We have seen the disruption right now. We all know there's a political unrest which is in Bangladesh. However, our insurance survey report being submitted, acknowledged, accepted by the insurance company and we hopeful that in the next three-to-four months time some amount against those admitted claims should start flowing to us.
However, to complete the entire collection against those claims probably we have to wait for more period at least eight to nine months or maybe year as well because the current government in Bangladesh is not able to decide anything formidably and what they are looking into, and we all know they are going into various financial crises as well both on a local front as well as on the overseas front. The best thing to expect that we are putting all our efforts on the ground and hopefully by in the next nine to 12 months time we should collect the entire process. Some amount of advance will keep flowing up. Some amount of claim will still keep flowing up on a quarter on quarter basis on the manpower front.
Unless until I'm seeing the more demand coming from the SL side and the absence of not getting developed competitively in Indian market or the Indian local market, then only we need to source from Bangladesh and then only we think about increase in the manpower. Today we have not deployed or increased any manpower in the last six months time frame and furthermore not expecting to go aggressively as well. In fact we were applying to relieve some of the manpower. Had not been this unrest it would have been taken care of. But since the unrest has come we have withheld ourselves keeping the larger interest of our presence in Bangladesh.
Yeah. Thank you, sir. So one more question on chat from Sanjay Chawla. He wants to know about urban consumption which is slowing down in recent months. And any impact that you have? And do you believe the wedding season has been softer than your expectations so far?
Let me tell you one thing different. When I say the consumption pattern, the consumer is not buying luggage on a day-to-day basis and it's not a discretionary or an impulsive item to buy. People are buying luggage when actually they need to have it in their wardrobe or when they intend to travel. So from that perspective I am not seeing any consumption slowing down, having any connect directly or indirectly with the luggage industry because for the reasons which I have stated about in terms of marriage days, I would not say there's a softer kind of trend.
However, the consumers will have many brands to choose upon and as I said in quarter three also we may expect a volume growth to be double-digit. It clearly shows that the season or the quarter three is on a normal trajectory mode. What we have seen so far in the H1 as well.
Yeah sir, that was helpful. Any questions from the participants?
Can I squeeze in one more?
Yes sir.
Yeah, but it's the echo sound coming from back.
Oh, so is it? Okay,
still some kind of noise coming back.
So I just had a follow up question on EBITDA side. So as you guided just now that we expecting single digit EBITDA growth high mid to high and in previous phone call it was guided around 12% for Q4. So sir, what went wrong? Like where are we falling short? Manish? I'm not finding any short in terms of our initiatives. What I try to do is for the industry as such, the double digit EBITDA probably will be history and we find that many of the brands will settle between low to a high single digit EBITDA margin.
Having said that, our initiatives which you are working around is driving us to go on a double digit only for the quarter four as I said. However for the 25, 26 every initiative will start giving the results. So it will have a larger period in which we get the benefit of the strategies what we've implemented. However, looking into the competition we may require to pass on some of the initiatives benefit to the end consumers or maybe required to invest more on my branding and my retail outlets and the GT outlets to have a larger presence on the BTL activities because ATL will not have a larger traction or attraction in this industry. But BTL does work.
So in this current period where I withheld ourselves to go aggressively on the BTL, probably whatever we earn extra, we like to put it in terms of strengthening the brand on the retail channel and on the distribution side to ensure that the growth comes from all channel and will have a brand visibility to the end consumer as well. And that's why we said we may have to play around between this two.
Okay. Thank you sir. That's a good
. I saw one chat message also I missed out. Sorry. Can you.
INR 160 crore including INR 1,800 crore of RM. Yes. On the soft luggage side
It may include something of the backpack and duffel as well. Guys. So SL upright. As I said, the FG will be around INR 80-odd crores and the raw material will be around INR 60 crore to INR 80 crore to put together INR 160-odd crores of inventory. Because for the industry soft luggage comprises of SL, backpacks and duffel all together. Whatever comes from the fabric it becomes a soft luggage for easy understanding. And whatever comes from the PP, polypropylene and polycarbonate comes under the HL. Sorry, I saw one more chat message disappearing just now.
Yeah. So the question is from Prashant Gupta. He asks by when would this stock be liquidated, and is it being done on a discounted price?
So as we said, we are targeting to as an upright liquidation to take place by mid quarter four. And when I say discounted, yes, it's a more aggressive price compared to what we used to have earlier. But not. We are not selling at less than a cost value because that's what we maintain our strength. Because if you were to do this, probably entire inventory would have been liquidated by now. But it will be a lower margin than compared to what we used to have it earlier when I do a normal sale.
Yeah. Thank you. Participants can go forward with their questions.
Hi, Akash here once again I have a couple of more questions. Can I go ahead?
Sure. Sure.
Yeah. Hi sir. Just wanting to know your thoughts on the backpack category. I mean how the category is doing and how the organized players you and our peers. I mean how we are gaining share from unorganized or let's say how the overall backpack category is doing.
Akash, I would say that the backpack category has a good amount of potential to grow. However, keep in mind the larger presence of the unorganized sector. Its presence is having a say in the backpack, both the categories where you find a larger share of the unorganized. When I say larger share, in, say, many many unknown brands or many people are making it. And to give you an idea about it, the backpack when you talk about it, the price point today is prevailing. Anything between INR 99-INR 14,000 for a backpack. And the organized players will start from around INR 399 a piece as a consumer price. Whereas the unorganized will play between INR 99 to even INR 400. Odd bucket.
What I am trying to tell you is since the unorganized market is very much aggressive in the backpack and duffel bag there is some challenge in terms of the volume growth. Because as a brand you would not like to start serving or going below a price point on any of the particular product to an absolutely low level. Having said that, how we are seeing the future? When I look from the future perspective, I have traveled many markets. The brand consciousness. Brand consciousness is increasing among the consumers. So sooner or later those who are buying the unorganized or unbranded product would like to shift towards a branded product. Obviously it will come at a lower price point and then they start gradually going up as the value or the wealth arises.
In our own reading in the next three years you find the share of the unorganized player in the duffel bag in the backpack should come down drastically not because of branded players are going to put or lowering down the price points but because there'll be a shift among the consumers preference to go more on a branded product maybe at a lower value point. So today if somebody is buying a backpack of INR 199 from the unorganized brand he won't mind to spend INR 100 more and get a one single pocket backpack of INR 299 from the brand like Safari, Aristocrat, Skybags and all.
And gradually once he have it he may move to upgrade channel upgrade on the price point as we find the usage and be more comfortable to step in. So that is our reading currently, Akash, and we're hopeful that it turns out to be, you know, the reality on the ground. And we are seeing something in the entire Metro, Tier two, tier three cities. Sure, sure.
Thank you sir. Also just one more thing. I mean how are China imports now? I mean are we seeing the whole industry seeing higher imports from China and selling that in India or how is this situation?
Akash, if I look from the branded players or the players who are long in this industry, their share of imports from China will come down substantially. It will come down substantially. Be it Safari, be it Samsonite, be it VIP, those of the brands which are just entering into this field. Definitely, we'll have a larger share of importing and selling in the market for us. What I want to give to you on a VIP side, our share of sales from China has been reduced to a low single digit compared to what we used to have a double digit in the last year similar period, and our objective will always be there that let's have more because in hard luggage nothing comes so everything is possible within the localized market.
Unlike my soft luggage whereby my textile or the fabric quality is still superior in China compared to India and as we are moving 80:20 kind of ratio 80 into HL and 20 into SL, the dependency on China will certainly go down both in terms of the FG as well as on the raw material side. Except soft luggage where I have more of a dependency probably going more into China sourcing. However in that case also we are hoping that once our Technical Textile PLI will start delivering the result within India, the gradual shift will take place from China to India.
Sure sir, thank you. Thank you so much.
Yes sir, Siddharth is back. So sir, we have a question. What are the premiumization initiatives or innovations that you have recently come up with and if any more are in the pipeline for Carlton and VIP?
So Siddharth, I have explained few minutes back that what we did over there is in the RT company- owned retail channel you won't find any product placement of Aristocrat brand. You find only of VIP and Carlton, VIP, Skybags and Carlton similar kind of things. We are moving into a region based preference because when we carry out a consumer study there are regions or the cities and the places where they willing to pay for a brand like Skybags and VIP compared to go on a Aristocrat value price point. So we are going to strategize our placement on those channels and improve our share overall share of the VIP Skybags and Carlton in the overall product mix or overall brand mix.
Can you also put some light on our EBO expansion? I believe we had a target of adding somewhere around 35-40 EBOs in FY25.
I would say that we are and it's a continuous exercise, Chetan, because as I said some of the all stores will not be equally profitable. Some of the stores may face headwinds in terms of higher fixed costs compared to the revenue throughput which we require to break even. So when we say the numbers are the net numbers which means some of the stores may get closed, some of the stores new stores may get open as well. Our expansion strategy is very clear that we will be expanding around 30-35 owned stores and maybe equally double on the franchise side and more concentration of franchise will be in Tier two and Tier three and more company owned own stores will start in Tier one and metro cities.
There's a reason behind it because as I said if I'm not going to keep the Aristocrat product in my company-owned stores obviously I may not sustain in the Tier three entire Tier one to Tier two onward cities because it is still a price product and I may find the customers of Carlton and Skybags and VIP only in the metro and Tier one where the people are willing to pay. People are willing to pay something higher on the price point.
Yeah, thank you sir. That was helpful.
So, Prashant, I saw the questions. It is in public news that the promoters will need to dilute equity stake. There are many investors maybe eyeing for it but it's more of a speculative kind of things. We would not like to answer it but it's a well-known fact and the company publicly came into the knowledge, in my view, and the promoter is willing to sell the equity stake.
Thank you, sir. Any more questions from the participants? So, like now, can you brief us on the key strategic priorities for the company over a medium-term period for, like, three to five years?
I would say that in terms of the priority we are very clear that we would like to continue with our market share in excess of 40% like to have the healthy EBITDA margin targeted above the industry. When we are talking about market share leadership we are not talking about only volume or a value market share. We are talking about in all parameters via EBITDA be it logistics in any functional criticality which is known for this industry. We want to be a leader in each and every aspect and that's the strategies which we rolled out for the next three to five years. In this journey we'll be definitely adding few more products which are closer to the travel industry and having a good potential of growth as we move forward in this industry segment.
Yeah, thank you sir. So, any more questions from the participants? Right sir, one last question has come. This one? Yeah. So it's Vijay Jangir. What is the operating margin in modern trade? MT and E-commerce, sir.
We all know that the modern e-com channels are highly price sensitive and the intensity from the distribution channel side. I would not like to quote a percentage of margin what we are earning it but both this channel are earning us a least margin compared to the others.
Got it, sir. Least margin. Interesting. Fine. We give one last chance to our participants for the next two minutes in case anyone has any question. You can unmute yourself and ask. So, any participants have questions? So. I don't see any hands raised. Chetan, are you able to see? Chintan, are you able to see any hands raised?
No.
Okay, fine. Thanks a lot once again.
Yeah, thanks, Siddharth. It's always pleasure to interact with all of you. Anything remain unanswered? Okay, definitely.
Once again, Mr. Prashant Gupta has just written. Would you be able to name, apart from Samsonite and Safari, the biggest competitor new age company?
New age company. I would say that Mokobara I would put as a more and Nasher Miles. Both are aggressive in terms of the player in the industry. Uppercase is indigenous. But we need to see when they start doing the production and expanding to the channels because so far they have been concentrating more on the e-commerce and we need to see how they now see the industry and the challenge in growth expansion as they move forward in their strategy. Okay, fine.
Chetan, you want to ask something on this? Okay. Right. Prashant is happy. So with that I would like to conclude our call. And thank you very much, Manish for giving us the time to host you. We've had close to 80 people at the peak in our call. 80, 85 people. And we look forward to, you know, meeting you and hosting you once again.
Sure, my pleasure.
To Manish ji, Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to everyone.
Wish all of you the same.
Thank you very much. Thank you.