Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Welspun Living Limited Q2 FY 25 earnings conference call, hosted by JM Financial. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ashutosh from JM Financial. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yes, thanks, operator, and welcome everyone to the call. I will first thank Welspun Living Limited for giving JM Financial Institutional Securities the opportunity to host today's call. Without much ado, I'll hand over the call to Mr. Salil Bawa, Head Investor Relations, Welspun Group, to introduce the management. Over to you, Salil.
Thank you, Ashutosh, and good afternoon to all of you. Happy Diwali before we start, and on behalf of Welspun Living Limited, I welcome all of you to the company's Q2 and H1 FY 25 earnings call. Along with me, I have today Ms. Dipali Goenka, Managing Director and CEO, and Mr. Sanjay Gupta, Chief Financial Officer for Welspun Living Limited. We hope you have had a chance to review the investor presentation and the deck that we filed with the exchanges today. It is also available on our website. During the discussion today, we may be making references to this presentation. We request you to take a moment to review the safe harbor statement in the presentation. As usual, we will start the forum with opening remarks by our leadership team, and post that, we'll open the floor for any questions.
Once the call gets over, should you have any further queries that remain unanswered, please feel free to reach out to us. With that, I would now like to hand over the floor to Ms. Dipali Goenka. Over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Salil. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us today for our Q2 FY 2025 analyst call. I would like to share some highlights of our operating performance, as well as some achievements during the quarter under review, after which Sanjay would share highlights from our financial metrics. We are pleased to share that we have seen our revenues jump to an all-time quarterly highest of INR 2,936 crores, growing by 16% Yo Y and 13% quarter on quarter. The upcoming holiday season in U.S. has seen increased buying from all major retailers. Consequently, we witnessed higher capacity utilization on the back of season's rollout at over 90%-95% of our terry towels, bedsheets, and rugs units.
We continue to have sustained EBITDA, achieving INR 421 crores, growing by 7.5% Yo Y and 7% quarter on quarter. Q2 revenues, and more specifically, the profitability could have been better if not for the challenges we witnessed in terms of Red Sea issues. As mentioned in Q1 discussions, we kept a vigil on this front to ensure that we do not get affected adversely. However, we were faced with multifaceted challenges in terms of not only rising container rates, but also non-availability of containers and ships. This resulted in some buildup of inventory and higher costs of warehousing and transportation. In addition, we had to incur higher unavoidable ocean rates at about 2x of last year as a force majeure due to increased voyage time and decreased container supplies, despite our long-term relationships with these liners.
With a major distribution presence in U.S., we were able to ensure minimum disruption in revenues, but delays in FOB shipments due to non-availability of containers, ships, have affected revenues of our different businesses to some extent. We would continue to keep a close watch on this dynamic situation to ensure minimum disruption to the business. Despite persistent concerns surrounding the durability of growth and interest rate policy, the U.S. economy continued to show resilience in the current year, with a Q3 growth at 3.4% and 2024 GDP growth expected at 2.8%, helped by a recent 50 basis point cut in Fed rates and further expected rate cuts. In the short term, a faster pace of interest rate cuts by the Fed should allow households to take on more debts and support continued growth in consumer spending.
Consumers have retained the ability to spend and are driving these solid economics in USA. Driven by continuing strong orders from retailers and distributors across our product segments, our overall exports grew by 18% in Q2 and 19% in H1 YoY. India continues to be the leading supplier of terry towels, bedsheets to USA, and as per the OTEXA data, India continues to enjoy dominant market share in exports to USA for TTM August 2024 period, both in terry towels at 43% and in bedsheets at 60% in value terms.
India has strengthened its share in bedsheets by 10% and stayed flat in terry towels as compared to last year in the same period. Though the overall export to USA in value terms during this period remained at the same level in Terry Towels and grew by 5% in bedsheets due to geopolitical issues during Q2 FY 2025, Welspun Living Limited, however, witnessed a growth of 7% and 39% respectively, solidifying our relationship in USA exports further. Innovation is a key USP in all our endeavors. Our innovation products continue to be the major contributor to our revenues at 23%, growing by 13% year-on-year. Domestic retail. India continues to outshine with an expected GDP growth rate of 6.8% in Q2, vis-à-vis 6.7% in Q1, and inflation hovering at 5% during the quarter.
The retail sector demand, however, continued to remain sluggish in Q2 as well, and growth of 5% in September and 2% in July and August 2024 , as per the RAI report. With the festive demand coming up, we have seen some green shoots of growth in September 2024 , and despite subdued retail market conditions, we have seen a growth of 10% in our domestic retail business, clocking a revenue of INR 159 crores. We have been expanding our reach continuously into newer territories and channels and are hopeful to witness increased off-takes in this festive season. Welspun brand witnessed a healthy growth of 20% year-on-year, and continues to be the most widely distributed home textile brand in the country.
Brand Spaces has outgrown the category in modern trade channels, emerging as a leading brand within the category of gaining market share, though the modern trade segment decreased year-on-year. We have continued our investment in domestic markets with marketing spend to the tune of 10% for improving brand visibility and salience, as well as a focus to build profitable business growth. Emerging businesses. Our emerging businesses of domestic consumer business, global brands, advanced textiles and flooring businesses, grew 22% year-on-year in Q2 , FY25, and contributed to close to 33% of the total revenue of the company. Our global brands, owned as well as licensed, have continued to give us an edge in all our markets and grew by a staggering 58% during the quarter.
With all our licensed brands, be it Martha or COCOCOZY or Disney in Europe, opening up additional shelf space with a key retailer and create, creating newer avenues for us. Flooring. The challenges we witnessed due to Red Sea issues impacted our flooring deliveries to some extent, and the business grew by a modest 3% year-on-year and 10% QoQ, recording revenues of INR 250 crores. We continue to focus on the home improvement business and have added new big-ticket customers across all geographies. We have also diversified by tapping opportunities with OEMs in US and making strategic tie-ups to strengthen our positions in Australia and New Zealand. Similarly, we are gaining good traction from large retailers and big-ticket distributors in US and Middle East for soft flooring, and in the UK and UAE for hard flooring.
On domestic market front, we continue to see strong growth in hospitality and commercial segments in all our key markets in India. Domestic flooring grew by 28% year-on-year. The advanced textile business witnessed an 18% growth year-on-year in Q2 , FY25, with a revenue of INR 148 crores. Capacity utilization of our new Telangana Spunlace facility has reached 55%. Our Spunlace sales continue to be strong in all our key global markets, forging new partnerships in U.S., Europe and India, with our innovative and sustainable nonwovens. Spunlace and needlepunched segments experienced strong Q2 sales growth, driven by new orders and strategic partnerships, while wet wipes expanded globally with existing brands and new customers. ESG is embedded in every aspect of operations at Welspun, keeping us ahead of our peers globally in sustainable practices.
We are well on a journey towards achieving 100% RE by 2030, and in this regard, the board has, in Q2 , approved JV for setting up of additional 4.6 megawatts solar plant at Telangana for flooring and advanced textile plants. This, along with the 2-megawatt JV already operational since last quarter together, would meet about 20% of the power requirements at Telangana facility. We are also happy to announce that Welspun has scored 66, up from 44 last year in EcoVadis ESG rating with a Silver Award, placing us in the top 15% in the industry globally and reiterating our focus and commitment towards sustainability. We are committed towards our strategic objective of future growth in all our businesses, and also continue to achieve larger share in the global home textile market.
Keeping in view China Plus One strategy of global retailers and more specifically, achieving our future plan of growing about 5x in the domestic market over the next five years. Hence, the board has reviewed the need for further investment to set up additional capacity for over the next two years to meet this demand growth, with a total CapEx investment of INR 1,050 crores, including INR 341 crores informed earlier. We continue to be cautiously optimistic of the operating performance for the FY 25. While the positive signs of cooling inflation and Fed rate cuts in the U.S. are encouraging. The concern around potential instability due to current geopolitical issues might result in volumes picking up only gradually at a relatively muted pace in H2 FY 25. Plus, if the Red Sea situation persists, it would add further to these challenges.
We, however, are focused, as always, on steering through these challenging times and are committed towards the guided revenue and profitability targets for the year. With this, I would now like to hand over to Sanjay, who will take you through the financial highlights. Thank you, Sanjay. Over to you.
Thank you, Dipali, and season's greetings, everyone. I'll give a brief overview of the financial numbers for Q2 before we open for Q&A. During Q2 , we reported highest ever quarterly revenue of INR 2,936 crore, up 15.5% year-on-year and 13% QoQ. For H1 FY 25, revenues are at INR 5,524 crore, up 16.2% year-on-year. EBITDA margin for Q2 stood at INR 421 crore, that is 14.3%, growing by 7.5% year-on-year and 7% QOQ. H1 '25 EBITDA stood at INR 814 crore, that is 14.7%, 11% higher than last year.
As already informed by Dipali, we witnessed a challenging quarter due to the Red Sea issues and the resultant impact it had on the availability of containers and ships, leading to some volume impact in our businesses, as well as in the cost of carrying the inventory. In addition, ocean freight doubling had further financial impact during the quarter. Despite these challenges, company has been able to achieve highest ever quarterly revenue. We had impacts in our profitability of about 1% due to the various related costs we incurred owing to the Red Sea issue and some higher investment in terms of marketing costs for our India and global brands, which have grown in excess of 50% during the quarter. However, we still have been able to see a year-on-year increase in EBITDA value by 7.5%.
Profit after tax, after minority interest for the quarter is at 201 crore, vis-à-vis 197 crore year-on-year, growing by 2.2% versus last year and by 8.3% versus last quarter. H1 tax stood at 387 crore, vis-à-vis 358 crore year-on-year, an increase of 8%. Consequently, our consolidated EPS for Q2 stood at 2.1 per share as compared to 2.04 per share last year, same quarter, up 3% and 1.93 rupees per share last quarter, which is up 9%. For H1, EPS stood at 4.03 per share as compared to 3.7 last year, which is up 9%.
On the Forex front, our average exchange realization for the US dollar during Q2 was 84.29, compared to 83.35 in the corresponding quarter last year. For H1, it stood at 84.18 compared to 82.85 in the corresponding period last year. Net debt stood at INR 1,832 crore versus INR 1,562 crore in June 2024, higher by about 270 crore. This increase is a timing difference due to the payment for buyback of shares of 343 crore we have done during this quarter. The interest cost due to the borrowing for increased working capital requirement, owing also to the Red Sea challenges and the RBI repo rate being remaining unchanged, have gone up to 55 crore from 34 crore last year.
With reduction in working capital planned in ensuing quarters, we will save on this cost. Segmental results for Q2 , core business home textiles revenues stood at 2,713 crore versus 2,352 crore in Q2 last year, up by 15.3% year-on-year. For H1 2025, core revenue stood at 5,100 crore versus 4,390 crore in H1 of 2024, up by 16.2%. Q2 , EBITDA home textile stood at 374 crore, at 13.8%, as compared to 359 crore year-on-year, an increase of 4%. H1 HC EBITDA was at 723 crore at 14.2%, as compared to 672 crore year-on-year, up 7.6%.
During Q2 2025, revenues from flooring business was INR 250 crore, up by 3% year-on-year. EBITDA is at INR 22 crore, that is 8.8%, as compared to 8.3% last year. H1 revenues for flooring was INR 478 crore, up 2% year-on-year, and EBITDA at INR 43 crore, that is 9%, as compared to 8.2% last year. In terms of CapEx for Q2 , FY 25, we spent INR 286 crore towards CapEx, majorly towards the new towel project at Anjar and the pillow project in US. For H1, the total CapEx stood at INR 492 crores.
The board had earlier approved for an additional towel capacity of six thousand four hundred metric ton for being set up at an outlay of INR 341 crore, which is nearing its completion in Q3 . The board has now approved phase II for one, setting up of facilities for additional one lakh meters per day bed linen processing capacity. Second, setting up a coarse count spinning of forty metric ton per day for more backward integration of towel facility. And third, increasing towel looms to produce three thousand six hundred metric ton per annum. This will be at a total outlay of INR 709 crore to be incurred over next two years through its wholly owned subsidiary, Welspun Home Solutions Limited, with total investment now, including the INR 341 crore of INR 1,050 crore in Anjar.
The additional CapEx would be equally spread over two years in FY 26 and 2027. This would increase our bed linen processing capacity to four lakh meters per day, that is 144 million meters per annum, and towel capacity to one lakh metric ton per annum. This will make Anjar facility having the largest home textile capacity globally. The internal capacity expansion would decrease the variabilities in the cost of outsourcing, ensuring better customer service and profitability. The new project in full capacity will result in an additional revenue of INR 750 crore, in addition to about INR 400 crore in the CT project, as we had informed earlier. With this, I will now leave the floor open for Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have the first question on the line of Vaibhav Jain, an investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, am I audible?
Yeah, Vaibhav.
Yeah, I have just one question from my side. Just wanted to know, after all our CapEx, what will be the debt after, you know, we're sort of done with all the CapEx?
We had guided towards a debt of about 1,400-1,500 crore by the end of this year, which is FY 25, which will continue. With this investment and other maintenance CapEx, we should be in the range of, you know, 0-200 crore net debt by FY 28.
Oh, okay. Sure. Okay, net debt. So this is including the repayments that we're going to do on the... Okay.
Yes. So net debt, I'm talking. Net debt should be zero to 200.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. We have the next question on the line of Biplab from Antique Stock Broking. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and advance Diwali wishes to you all.
Mr. Biplab, if you will go off the speakerphone, your voice is not clearly audible.
I'm using handset. Am I audible now or?
Yes. Much, much better. Yes. Thank you.
Yeah, okay. Good afternoon, everyone, and advance Diwali wishes to you all.
Thank you.
I have a couple of questions. First is on the breakdown of CapEx. I just missed it, and what is the total CapEx, and what is the breakdown of that CapEx, and how much CapEx you have done till date?
Mm-hmm. So CapEx for this year, we have done about 492 crore till H1. And this CapEx is mainly in the towel project at Anjar and the pillow project at Ohio.
Including the recent additional capacity announced today, how much more we have to incur?
This year we will continue to be at our 800-850 crore that we had guided towards. The additional CapEx that we have announced today of 709 crore for the bedsheet and towel additional capacities, that will be incurred over two financial year of FY 26 and 2027.
What would be the capacity of these two towel and bedsheet, sir?
Towel capacity will increase to one lakh metric ton per annum, and bedsheet capacity will increase to 144 million meters per annum with this addition.
Okay. And this CapEx, the existing CapEx and the additional CapEx that is INR 709 crore, and the existing CapEx of INR 800 crores, that will lead to how much of top line, sir?
We are guiding towards a top line of INR 15,000 crore by FY27 , and we are adhering to that.
Okay, so this would be the CapEx, that's all. After that, there is no CapEx needed to reach to that?
There will be some additional CapEx for maintenance CapEx of INR 150-INR 200 crore. But yeah, I have guided towards zero net debt by financial 2028 with all these investments.
Okay, sir, second question, what is the contribution of emerging business to your revenue and EBITDA in the first half of this FY 25? And by FY twenty-seven, where do you see this emerging business growing to in terms of revenue and EBITDA?
Thank you, Bisla.
Yeah, I'll take this up, Biplab. Our emerging actually businesses, like, that include the domestic consumer business, global brands, advanced textile, and flooring businesses. They grew 22% year-on-year, and they contributed around 32-33% of the total revenue of the company, and we are looking at it growing to the extent of around 45% as we go forward by 2027, 2028.
What would be the EBITDA contribution of this business by FY 2027?
It will be the same, actually, because this is also owing to our brands in India and our licensed brands and, you know, flooring. So it will remain the same contribution base.
Overall, EBITDA margin will be same in both the businesses.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Diwali wishes to you all.
To you, Bisla.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. We have the next question from the line of Bhavin Chheda from ENAM Holdings. Please go ahead.
Yeah, congratulations to the entire team for the record turnover and decent profits. Two, three questions. First, on the margin side, as you mentioned that the container freight continues to hit margins. So can you give us more granular data on what kind of sales are happening on FOB and what kind of sales are happening where we have to take into account freight, and what has been the trend for last 12 months, and when does this normalizes?
Our FOB is actually now 80%, that contributes to our, you know, turnover. But I must tell you that, you know, owing to the Q3 of ours, vis-a-vis the quarter four of the, you know, our retailers, this is the time there's a holiday season. So while having said that, we had to tide over the Red Sea issues because we had to look at the challenges of containers and ships, which actually led to the volume impact, because we had to take on warehouses to store the increased inventories, planning the entire, you know, the allocation with containers. Because you know that by fifth till fifteenth of August, China had sucked in the entire, freight inventory, you know, from here. So we were very time-bound for the holiday season.
Red Sea and along with the whole, you know, availability of the inventory of the containers led to the impact on what you see.
Sure.
Sure.
So overall, we have given about 1%, out of which 0.7% was because of, you know, higher freight and other inventory-related costs, and 0.3%, we incurred on more.
Inventory.
More on marketing, because we are growing our brands massively across the world, so that's the breakup of 1% that we had to incur higher. However, going forward, we hope that, you know, this is arrested as we have seen some betterment happening from October, so we would be keeping our fingers crossed for this quarter as well to ensure that we don't get hit more by this quarter.
Sure. Second question is on, advanced textile and, domestic retail. How are this, shaping up in terms, both in terms of growth and in terms of margin profile, vis-a-vis our other businesses?
Advanced textiles actually has grown by 18% year on year, and with a revenue of around 148 crores. Let me tell you that Spunlace and Needlepunch, actually, we have been able to experience strong Q2 sales growth. In the future, also for the global markets, we see an upside in this because of our strategic partnerships for innovative and sustainable nonwovens, actually. For India, as the Indian market, as you've seen right now, while we are looking at India, we, we are looking at a growth, you know, that we... you know, the holiday season, we, as Diwali is just right around the corner. We have seen some green shoots in September.
and our Welspun brand has witnessed a healthy growth of around 20% year on year, and it's the most widely distributed home textile brand. So, we feel very, very optimistic about the Indian market, while, you know, there has been that little, sluggishness in the Q2 , but as the Q3 comes in, where there's marriage season, there's, Diwali there, we definitely will see that upside coming up.
In terms of margins, domestic retail, are they above breakeven and are they still burning cash? Any idea?
So domestic retail, you know, it is still at near the breakeven. Low single digit EBITDA. And as the business will pick up this year, we will, we would start seeing more EBITDA percentage coming from here. And advanced textile, we are at the similar margin of the entire home textile. Yeah.
And let me just tell you, for the retail growth, we continue to invest around 10% into our marketing as well, for the brand reach across the country.
Okay, so the single digit EBITDA is after accounting for marketing in that division of-
Yes.
Correct.
Okay.
Excellent. Thank you, and best of luck to you. Yeah.
Thanks.
Thank you. Thank you. We have the next question on the line of Kaustubh Pawaskar from Sharekhan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, sir. Thanks for giving me the opportunity. So, freight rate has been a risk to our profitability for a while, and we have been, you know, it has been impacting our profitability, though we are, you know, achieving good numbers at the revenue level. So are we looking at any alternatives or alternative route option, or is it something which is feasible for us so that we can, you know, have better numbers at the profitability level or something on that front? Have we given a thought on it or some other alternative which will help us to keep, you know, margins, you know, inching up for us?
Yeah, of course. So we are definitely continuing to try in this regard, try hard in this regard. So we didn't actually got hit in the last quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year when the Red Sea issues continued to persist. However, Q2 , it actually reached to a three-year high of 3X of container rates, and the availability also got impacted, as Dipali stated, due to China sucking out the entire capacity in August. Hence, it became unavoidable for us, despite our good relationship with the liners and, you know, keeping on top of this, but still you got impacted. But we would try to, you know, are maintaining it.
And with our major distribution presence in U.S., we are, we ensure minimal disruption in our revenues. So we should. We are keeping a tab on this, and we should tide over it. However, you know, we are cautiously optimistic in this regard.
So I just wanted to just add on here, it also got augmented with the splitting of the USMX and the U.S. port strike, actually. That also gave that great up, you know, kind of impact. But, you know, we have our warehouses in America. We planned quite effectively, but however, this time it was really unavoidable, with a lot of disruptions, actually.
Right. Right. Okay. So, ma'am, my second question, in your initial comments you mentioned and, you gave some optimism about the improving demand environment in the US market. So can you just give us a broader perspective on the same, whether this will continue or it is something which is just at this level and, you know, still you are, it is kind of a wait and watch scenario. You don't have, you know, exact indication whether this will have a better, you know, prospect for us in the near term and the long term.
So there are a couple of things I want to just put actually in perspective. One thing, when I look at the, you know, the, big box retailers and, you know, what they are talking about, so they are exhibiting a neutral to positive outlook in general merchandise category today. And they've started stocking up for the new festive season. The holiday season, they are looking at around 3.5% of growth right now. The other important thing, let me just put forward very, very, you know, straightforwardly to you, that India is in a sweet spot. India is now continuing to become an integral part of the supply chain for all the global retailers.
Because being the most stable democracy, even with the neighbors that we see, and along with the China Plus One strategy, I think India stands to gain as well. So it is the displacement plus the mildly kind of a cautious optimism that we see in the American market, both.
Right. And any thought process on whether exploring any new opportunities into new geographies? As you said, that supply chain, we have a bigger opportunity going ahead. So any thought process on expanding, reaching to other geographies, where we already have a presence?
We already are actually growing very strongly in U.K., Europe, where we this quarter actually have seen a double-digit growth. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, all of those, you know, areas. And it's not just in retail, but also in the hospitality segment, in the flooring segment, and in the advanced textile segment, and also with the licenses like Disney in the U.K. and the Europe as well. So let me tell you that while we talk about U.S.A. right now, but we have also seen double-digit growth in U.K. and Europe.
Right. And do you expect this mix of U.S. and other geographies to come down over the period of time, or do you expect U.S. to be a key market for us, while other will be growing along with the U.S. presence?
So I'll tell you one thing, well, when I talk about the mix, U.S. actually contributes around 30% of the consumption of the home textiles market globally. While that basket will continue to grow as we take the share of shelf there, but you can year-on-year also considerably grow. Let us also be very, very clear. That the last quarter, you know, the inflation was hitting these countries very, very hard. We saw that cooling out as the Fed rate cut there as well as we saw that Fed rate cut happening there as well. We are going to see some kind of a cool down there and some kind of a hike in sales there, so definitely, it will be the mix.
It will also have the domestic retail, which actually will today contribute around 6% of the top line. We are looking at that contributing around 10% of the top line, and the other businesses will continue to grow as we move towards a journey of 15,000 crores.
Right. Thanks, ma'am. Thanks, thanks for the understanding. All the best for your quarters ahead, and Diwali greetings to you and your team. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. We have the next question from the line of Tejal Langmoti from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Good afternoon.
Hi.
I just wanted to understand, as regarding the CapEx announcement, that when are you planning as per the internal estimates for the facility to be fully utilized and achieve the 1,150 crores of target on full utilization?
So, Tejal, as I informed, so we'll be spending this CapEx over next two years.
Right.
So we will be ready by somewhere, you know, Q3 , Q4 of FY27.
Mm-hmm.
in phases. So the entire capacity utilization will come only by FY28 .
So we can build the capacity utilization by FY 2028?
Yes. Full will be by FY28 .
Okay.
Will come in phases in FY 26, 2027, and then 2028 will be full.
Okay. And my second question was regarding the flooring business. Just wanted to understand that the growth still remains muted. When is it expected to rebound for the flooring business?
So actually, let me just give you a perspective here. Our flooring business actually saw a revenue of around INR 250 crores, and it grew by a muted 3%. Yes. It actually got impacted the biggest also by the Red Sea, because most of them are CIF and DDP shipments. That's the reason. While, you know, we are continuing to focus on the home improvement business, we have added a few new big-ticket customers across the geographies. Like, we have also diversified by tapping opportunities with OEMs in U.S. and making strategic tie-ups to strengthen our positions in Australia and New Zealand, and we are gaining good traction from large retailers and big-ticket distributors in the U.S. and the Middle East for soft flooring. Now, let me come to the domestic market.
We must say that, you know, we continue to see strong growth here in hospitality and commercial segment, where the domestic flooring actually grew by 28% year-on-year. So I think I'll tell you that, you know, while, you know, we are seeing this kind of a little upheaval, but we are on the path of growth that we're talking about in flooring.
Okay. And any guidance for the full year?
For the entire business, we continue to stand on the guidance that we had given earlier, with 10-12% growth of the total business, with 15-16.5% EBITDA.
Okay, good. That's it for my side. Thank you, everyone, and wish you a very happy Diwali.
Same to you.
Thank you. We have the next question on the line of Harshit Nagpal from Yes Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes. Yes, sir.
Yeah. So, just a question to what you just explained to the flooring business, the 10%-12% growth is for the whole year, right?
Floor, 10%-12% is for the entire business.
So-
Yeah.
My question was related to flooring. Maybe the revenue growth between 2% to 3% that we've seen for the past few quarters, or would it be greater going forward?
So, flooring, we are within the entire business. Flooring will grow in the double digits in this year.
Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. We have the next question on the line of Biplab from Antique Stock Broking. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Sir, do you see margin improving in the second half, or we see the margin deteriorating further because there is no certainty on the Red Sea?
While we see the uncertainties of Red Sea, which is now settling down to some extent, but we are guiding towards an overall EBITDA of 15 to 15.5 for the year, and we are standing by it.
Okay, so that means that it is expected to improve. Right, sir? Because the first half EBITDA-
We are standing by that we will, we will be achieving that for the year.
Okay, sir. The second question is on the new CapEx. There you said that full capacity utilization would be visible in FY 2028 only. Would we see any challenges in achieving our 15,000 crore of top line by FY 2027? Because the benefit of the new capacity would accrue only in FY 2028.
From internal production, this sales would start coming in fully from FY28 . However, you know, we will start building the sales, so the sales will not stop. We'll have to get it manufactured through our ancillaries or through outsourcing, whatever. But we will continue doing so. We are not missing our target.
Okay. So, this additional CapEx, once they are on board, fully operational, they would be replacing those ancillaries. Is that my understanding correct?
Right. Right.
Okay, sir. Okay, sir. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. That was the last question. I would now hand it over to the management for closing comments.
Q2 has been a challenging quarter, with the difficult operating conditions owing to Red Sea issues and the resultant financial impact we had to endure. Despite the challenges, we have once again been able to show an outstanding revenue performance in all our businesses, leading to our highest ever turnover. It is heartening to see our global brands continuing on a stellar growth path, strengthening our focus towards B2C and being truly an FMCG of textiles. India continues to shine with around 6.8% GDP growth, with conducive policies for India for the world, leading to greater share of Indian businesses in the global market, as well as providing opportunities internally with growing consumption rates. Domestic business, both home textiles and flooring, continue to grow with higher reach and visibility, cementing our leadership and thereby reinstating our..., Welspun.
We are committed towards the guidance we have provided for FY 25 and our long-term objectives of sustainable and profitable growth. ESG remains the way of life at Welspun, and our commitment towards being environmentally responsible and sustainable in our operations continues unabated. With our focus on achieving our ESG target for twenty thirty, be it green energy, zero water usage, zero landfills, or using 100% sustainable cotton and renewables . Thank you for your continued interest in Welspun Living. For any further queries, please feel free to connect with Salil and Sanjay. Thanks.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. On behalf of JM Financial, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.