and gentlemen. Good day and welcome to the Q4 FY 2023 Earnings Conference Call of TTK Prestige Limited, hosted by Ambit Capital. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in telephone-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please press star then zero on your telephone. Please note that this conference has been recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Dhruv Jain from Ambit Capital. Thank you. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Hello everyone. Welcome to TTK Prestige Q4 FY 2023 earnings call. From the management side, today we have with us Mr. T.T. Jagannathan, Chairman, and Mr. Chandru Kalro, Managing Director, Mr. K. Shankaran, Whole-time Director, and Mr. R. Sarangan, the CFO of the company. Thank you and over to you, sir, for your comments.
Thank you, Dhruv, and a warm welcome to everybody on the call, and thank you for your time. We've just completed our Q4 of what I would call a very volatile year, and it started very well, and then you know what has happened to the Indian economy and the inflation and everything else that came with it. I think given whatever happened, we've been able to achieve our committed band on the EBITDA front and the profitability front. We've done a lot of nice things to make sure that the company is future-ready, and Q4 by itself has also seen several one-offs, which is why the things are where it is, and we can explain those as well, and overall, I think we are well placed for the coming year. And I would now, I think, explain more as the questions come up.
Over to you all for the questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their personal 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 will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Sameer Gupta from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, for taking my question and giving me the opportunity. So as you stated during the opening remarks, I wanted to understand, like the cost of the one-off, then is it a genuine demand situation worsening, which has a largely primary impact, or have we taken any major price cuts? Is it a lower end, which is impacted more? Now, are we seeing the impact of a slowdown even at the premium end segment? So just trying to get more granular details on the demand side, sir.
Okay. So broadly, let me say that the inflationary situation has certainly impacted the entry-level products, wherein the price pressures have increased, and the competitive intensity also has been of a very different nature. That is at one level. Demand, of course, has not been as robust as it should be, given that there is a shifting share of wallet that is being happening ever since the second half has happened after the festival. Travel, hospitality, subsequently cooling products, etc., etc. The share of wallet has also been shifting. I don't think there is a major issue in terms of demand, except that it is not growing as fast as we want to. The premium end also, I think, given penetration level to those households, unless there is a reason to come back, they don't come back. So that is where it is.
For the one-off, it's basically never started because we have all the obsolescence inventory that will probably show up in the stocks, which you would have seen if you wouldn't. If that has contributed to about 1.15%, and if that was not there, we would have been almost at the EBITDA levels of last year, which was our peak EBITDA levels in several quarters. So in that sense, the profitability of the company is pretty robust. The demand situation is not bad, but not great. And hopefully, the share of wallet that decreased very will come back to favor very soon.
Sir, just one follow-up there. This 115 basis points of impact on gross margin, I didn't get it. Is it a?
There was some obsolescence inventory, which we have to write off.
Oh, okay. Forgot it. Thanks. That's all from me, sir. I'll come back and ask any more questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ravi Kumar from Moat Financial Services. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, Management and all. Good afternoon, everyone. My first question is, what is the geopolitical crisis? What's happening up? Is there any shortage demand in terms of both how the export is going?
So the geopolitics has actually created a cost of living crisis in many, many of these developed economies, which is where we get our exports from. And the other thing is, geopolitics has also meant, or the COVID has also meant that the stocking on the supply chain has gone all right. So I mean, six, eight months back, many of our customers, they're overstocked because they got inventory after a lag. And then when they got the inventory, the inventory did not get sold out because of the inflation and other issues in their economy. So therefore, there has been a temporary dip in the demand for further imports from their side. So that is how the geopolitics is impacting. And I think the inventories at their level also have been optimized since. And this year, exports will normalize the way they would.
And the China Plus One is now becoming even more aggressive in many of these export-driven economies. I mean, export-driven economies. And we are there to gain from that.
So my second question is on the online sales. How are they performing? Is there any growth in the e-com sector, or is it sluggish?
Growth is sluggish at this point in time, as is in most other channels as well.
Okay, so that's it from my side.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Srishti Joshi from ISEC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. So thanks for the opportunity. Sir, two questions. How do you see the revenue recovery in this year? FY 2024, would you like to share any individual numbers or guidance in a way on how you see the revenues panning out? Also, we keep hearing that there is a slowdown at the rural level, and even there is a lot of discounting on in the market. So what are the key strategies which are done by TTK Prestige to counter that? And lastly, where do you see the margin ending in this year? Considering there is considerable inflation in the commodity prices. Yeah. That's it.
We will not give a guidance. This is at first level. We can at best give you trends in terms of demand. I believe that demand, as I said, will come back in the second half of this year. The first half is sitting on a base of last year's first half. The second half will come on a base of this year. I mean, last year's second half. And I think the growth will start happening in the second half of this year, and it will be sluggish in the first half of this year. That's how it seems like. On the gross margin front, commodities are stable. They haven't gone down. Whatever gross margins you are seeing, I think we will be around plus minus 1% or 1.5% around that. That is where I see it.
Okay. So then, what is the strategy against the discounting done by many players in the market? Also, we keep.
Our strategy has always been, and it continues to be, innovation. We will continue to launch extremely good breakthrough products. And that pipeline has always been quite robustly full at this point in time. We have many, many new product lines. The second thing is, I think we forgot to mention, that we are doing a full-fledged rebranding of the Judge brand, and we are now calling it Judge by Prestige, and then distributing it through our mainline sales force as opposed to a separate sales force. And this would help us segment the market better, have a more stronger play at the entry-level price points, which we don't want to take Prestige to, and give us an opportunity to expand on our market share. On the premium front, our innovations will play so that we can then play on that side. That is the broad strategy.
Okay. Sir, that's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Devansh Nigotia from SIMPL . Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. I just have a quick question. I wonder if we compare our distribution and sales with our peer, which is also a premium brand, Hawkins. So it looks like there's a lot of divergence between the sales performance between us and them. So if you can help me understand over the last three, five years, what has not played out for us, and what has led to these divergent sales performance?
You mean that the other players are growing faster than us in the pressure cookers? Is that the question?
Yes. Yes.
As I was saying, a large portion of our sales is in the aluminum pressure cooker segment. The price competitiveness of the aluminum pressure cooker segment in the Prestige brand has always been interesting, which is why the pricing has been a problem. We don't want to dilute the Prestige brand down. The strategy to have a multi-brand approach has now evolved over the last two, three years, and we have decided to get more aggressive.
I think, sorry. Go ahead, so I see the customers actually playing everything up in this area, so in terms of sales, we've seen something like 0.5%, but I think that it won't scale up over there, so then how do you see ourselves competing with the entry-level players who are going through aggressive discounting?
So we will come up with innovative products, and I think we are increasing our focus on Judge.
What would be an entry-level exposure? I think. Excluding Judge also, are there any price points? Let's say if you this is something that aluminum pressure cooker is an entry-level product. So what would be the mix? If you can, you can share anything.
No, I don't think we can share that, but I can tell you that the aluminum pressure cookers contribute to around 10%-12% of our total revenues. We as a company, we are extremely de-risked. We are neither heavily leveraged on a single category nor heavily leveraged on a single channel or on a single geography, which is why they've been so stable. Now, there are new players who come on a very small base and show a higher growth. Now, the point is, the proof of the pudding is how consistent that growth can be. And if you see that, it will fizzle out in the four or five quarters. But then every time it's a new person coming in, they're creating a new source. That is what is happening.
And in terms of margins also, I mean, Judge did not happen as we expected it to be, and then it further got greater with the challenges in this year. So if we go back, because we went back, you know you are very confident that this margin is scaling up. So what do you think, what has not worked for us, and how are we thinking of scaling this business over the next two, three years?
See, Horwood has never seen a stable period of two, three years. When we took it, that did happen. One year back, that is 12 months back, Horwood recorded its highest-ever turnover and its highest-ever profit. Then the Ukraine war happened, and the cost of living crisis happened. But through all this, the company has been scaled between GBP 15-18.5 million turnover. What it's not been able to do is break through and go past that 18.5 million. The reason has been because of volatility and other factors. Now, if in this period nothing else had changed, I would be disappointed. But what has happened is the company we acquired was a company that largely was operating in a single channel of UK independent retail. Today, it is a very forward-looking, digitally-enabled multi-channel company.
If everything goes well in the economy, as we are now hearing that the U.K. economy will be back to growth in the next few months and the inflation will have faded, Horwood will be in a very good position to come back to growth.
Sir, can you also give a quick diversification to other parts of Europe? So on that front, where do you think we are right now? Did that grow out? And if you can help us understand.
The answer lies in the Brexit issue itself. The Brexit deal with the E.U., as you know, happened for another year or two years. Subsequently, just very recently, there has been a new deal on the Brexit with Ireland. So the geographies that Horwood had planned to go to was largely in Europe and the U.S. They had some business in Ireland. Given this volatility, they obviously put them back. Given that the fact that the U.K. itself was going through such turbulence, the business had to be stable. But we assure you, its peer groups have not done anywhere near as well as even Horwood has.
How do we choose the best design for the country over the next two, three years? What can be the big growth engines for the company?
The good growth engines for the company are e-commerce, multiple brands, segmentation, new products. Those are brand new geographies. They're already established there in the U.S. I believe that that is just a small beginning. And these are the things that will come in step.
Okay. Thank you. No questions. Welcome.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Indrajit Agarwal from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sir. Thank you for the opportunity. I have a few questions. First, sir, when you talk about rebranding the Judge brand entirely, are we looking to get more aggressive on pricing as well, or how are we looking to price it versus competitors?
No, we are not looking at more aggressive pricing, but we are looking at better marketing, more distribution, better merchandising, and leveraging the overall reach of TTK Prestige in the market, which we are not doing as yet. That is how we want to leverage the Judge brand. Of course, leveraging it with the rebranding of Judge by Prestige rather than Judge from U.K.
If we say with some tactical, this is a strategic question, so that we can have better segmentation of the market.
Sure. I'm not sure if you shared with us about how much is a Judge brand revenue in India overall?
Around INR 50 crores last year.
50 crores. Okay. And lastly, you had set a target of INR 5,000 crores top line in a five-year period. Any progress in the inorganic front or any right shifting of these targets that was invisible?
Inorganic front is a constant thing that we are evaluating different proposals. Nothing to report at this point in time, but I can tell you we are getting a little more aggressive now towards looking for more and more opportunities. Nothing to report at this point in time, so yes, it is right shifted.
Okay. If I recall correctly, you had mentioned that 10,500 crores will be organic, 500 crores will be inorganic and 1,000 crores inorganic. But 10,500 crores organic, does that remain intact or that has been right shifted as well?
We said, I think FY 25, we will hit INR 3,500 crores instead of INR 3,500 crores. I think that we should be able to do that. We have basically what I'm saying. We need 15%-17% growth in the existing businesses to achieve that. And I think there we are on track.
Sure. Thank you so much for your answers. That's all from me.
The next question is from the line of Prakash Kapadia from Anivil Portfolio Managers Private Limited.
Yeah. Just a quick question from my end. At a time when real estate sales have been so buoyant across the country, why is that buoyancy not yet reflecting in our domestic sales? I'm not looking at a specific country number, but if I look at annual trends, 4.5% growth seems low in this background. So how does that add up, or what am I missing?
I will tell you, because the real estate bookings are different from real estate deliveries, and then it's time occupancy. When I told.
Of course, post-COVID, we've seen that real estate has been doing well, and some of the deliveries have also been happening. So it's not a one-quarter or a two-quarter phenomenon. It's been two, three years real estate has been pretty buoyant. And that too across the country, not specific cities.
So if you are looking pre-COVID to post-COVID, I don't know what numbers you are looking at. We have grown by close to 30% from that time. Please look at the numbers. If you look at FY 2020, we ended up with what? INR 2,077 crores. We are at INR 1,936 crores or something like that.
1,937.
We are at 22,600.
2,2600.
2,600-INR 2,700 crores.
Oh, it's just 30% over pre-COVID to now.
So that's 10% growth. So I'll put it the other way around. You said 14%, 15%, 17% growth on the organic side should be possible from here on. Then how will this step-up happen? Let me try and put it a little different way or understand from a new product perspective, which I think that recently you have mentioned you're launching new SKUs in Q1. So if you could give us some more direction in terms of what categories we are looking at or what will drive growth, and how will this sales trajectory move higher from here on? Obviously, we've grown, but this seems low as per our brand, our company, our image, our potential is what I'm trying to.
But you have to evaluate it from what it is with respect to our peers.
Okay.
Right. Now, coming back to the question, what will give us a kickstart to that? First, some stability in both our market situation. And I believe that you will agree with me that there has not been any 12 months which you can say is stable or comparable in the last 36 months. We think that.
I will. I agree to that.
Great. Now, which product we are going to launch, I don't think I should tell you now because it is a competitively sensitive situation. But I can tell you that there are identified growth categories that we have. There, in our market share is either low in a high-potential category or low in a geography which has high potential. And products are there for those. Some of these products are also in areas where a very innovative approach, like for example, we had the Svachh we had sold last year. The Svachh platform is being extended to the entire cooktop situation. We have got some excellent induction products coming up. So on and so forth. In pressure cookers itself, we've got some very, very nice launching happening. So these are some of the things that will happen. The new products will drive. There is also Judge.
It will have its own level of market share demand from the entry-level area. These are things that can be started.
Prakash, what has been new products' contribution to our sales? How has that been breaking? And are we looking at a higher number of new products as we move forward and aspire to be faster?
Close to two-thirds of our growth any year comes from new products. Now, if you take pressure cookers as a category, almost 90% of all our pressure cookers are now Svachh. So all our launch revenue in the last two years. So that's 35% of our revenues.
Right. Okay. And lastly, from my side, you mentioned discounting happening at lower end by certain new brands or certain online specific channels. So what percentage of our portfolio would be competing with such price points or such brands?
Specifically, we are speaking of our core categories, a substantial portion, I mean, I can't put a number to it. I haven't looked at it that way. But these are high-volume driving price segments, which we sometimes don't want to go because it can have a very debilitating effect on the rest of the brand. To be fair, remember that this company makes 15% every time. Nobody has made 15% in this year too.
I'm not doubting, and under this thing or potential, I'm just trying to understand why it can hustle with grow faster. Is all what I'm trying to understand with respect to.
Innovation, distribution, segmentation, and aggression.
Sure. I look forward to all of these being contributing to higher growth in 2024 and beyond. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from the line of Resha Mehta from GreenEdge Wealth Services. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. So my first question is on, again, something related to what the previous participants have asked. So we have a very strong brand. We keep on launching a lot of new innovative products, right? And despite that, we see—and I'm talking about one quarter, right? If you look at, let's say, one-year performance, three-year or a five-year top-line growth performance, it's at 8%-10% CAGR versus our peers being in that 30%-60% when we put their numbers then being in the 30%-60% top-line CAGR, right? Now, you did speak about cookers. That's why because we have a higher aluminum SKU in our portfolio, right? That is why our CAGR is lower versus our competitor.
Can you just break down granularly what are the challenges or is it the other categories like gas stoves or mixer grinders, etc., where the other electrical kitchen appliances' competitive pressures have become very, very high over the last three, four years? Or is there some other sales and distribution rebate that we are doing or something of that sort which has contributed to lower growth? Because one of the things that I'm comparing to is a south base player. I understand their channel mix was very skewed towards e-com. And the other is a Pan India player. So that's my first question.
Pan India player, you look at its growth in pressure cookers over the last few years. So we see that both of us have reflected or mirrored each other's growth. The other number-two player in pressure cookers will reflect our growth or mirror our growth. What seems to have happened as a trend in the last two or three years is after demonetization and GST, the drop in participation of these regional unorganized players has happened. So that is undergoing resurgence because things have now stabilized. And their ability to drop prices is better than ours. We have to be very stable on our pricing, which is quite simple. So if you look at our growth rate, which we are a comparable player, it is very comparable. If you look at their growth rate, they are an aggressive new kind, new upstart.
That is something I don't even want to look at. You look at, there are some players, for example, another South base player who uses pressure cookers as a tool to sell their appliances by actually selling their product very cheap in the open market, which is also competition. So there are very different types of competition that we counter. Our response has always been to go with an innovation. We patented the Svachh concept. We launched the Svachh concept, moved 90% of our cooker portfolio to Svachh, and now we have copycats coming, which we are actually acting against. So when people start copying, you know that your product is succeeding, your concept is succeeding. And that is the proof of the pudding. Growth in this consistently, you must look for over a period of time. Remember, pressure cookers is an extremely mature category.
Category growths are not more than high single digit in a good year. Low single digit in a not-so-good year. Now you evaluate our growth rate against that, and you will get your answers.
Individual growth rate.
Their base is so low. 14%-15% on their base means nothing.
Right. And can you break this up granularly into gas stoves and mixer grinders and other kitchen electrical appliances as well? You've spoken at length about cookers. I take your point.
For example, and look at a five-year CAGR. We've had a double-digit growth.
Right. So that's up to 11% kind of a CAGR that we are looking at. But so are we losing any market share in any of these categories like gas stoves, mixer grinders, kitchen electrical appliances?
Mixer grinders, we have gained market share. We would have lost market share in rice cookers because we moved out of China and we were moving supply chains here. We've led to the kettles category, which is a very big becoming a bigger category. We have done a double-digit growth in our mixer grinders. Svachh gas stoves have just started getting traction. We are at a high single-digit growth in terms of CAGR over the last so many years. And if you please look at the CAGR on gas stoves with our peer groups specifically, you will probably see equal, if not better.
Right. So would you say that the resurgence in the competitive intensity from the demand side that you mentioned, have you witnessed this kind of competitive intensity, let's say, 10, 15 years back? What was the behavior of the market then, or any color you would want to give on that?
It is very similar. And even then, our response was consistent to what it is today. Innovate to lead the category, add value to the category, and give a reason to the customer to find a new value proposition. That is how we have approached it, and that is how we have maintained our leadership.
My second question is on distribution. So all your categories, etc., are distributed to by a national sales team? You just called out that Judge basically had a separate sales team, but now they are clubbing it with your national sales team. But otherwise, all other categories have been through your national sales team to the same? This person goes to a retailer and tries to sell mixer grinders, gas stoves, kitchen electrical appliances, all your entry-level products for you?
No. All there are verticals that we have created. We have created a kitchenware vertical and an appliance vertical and there is a separate salesperson who goes to both these to handle multiple categories. Unless the business is too small, in which case, all will be under one person.
Has this structure been in place since the last couple of years, or have you made some major changes in the last three, four, or years?
It has been in place for the last 20 years.
Okay. And lastly, what would be the universe of kitchenware retail outlets in India? What is our reach there? And yeah, if you could just comment on that.
In the last census, they have shown about 130,000-140,000 outlets across the country in which they showed about 65,000-67,000 outlets at least with us.
Thank you. Ms. Mehta, may we request you to come back to the question queue for follow-up questions? There are several participants waiting to interview. Your next question is from the line of Nitin Shakdher from Green Capital Single Family Office. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, Management. My question is not as an analyst, which I'm sure the management has already explained on the volume guidance and all that. But more as an investor, I saw this cash flow on around INR 8-10 crores, which is about 500 on cash balance and about 300 on receivables. I just wanted to get a sense of how this will be deployed in terms of acquired inventory or any strategy in terms of allocation of capital. If you could also just explain on that.
Listen, our CapEx will be between INR 50 and 75 crores year on year for the next two, three years, even past the CapEx strategy. Otherwise, in terms of free cash flows on a yearly basis, free dividend, I think we are getting about INR 250 crores, INR 200 to 250 crores, which will keep coming in. You know we are looking for inorganics. You know that we are in a position today to acquire without even doing a decent-sized acquisition, provided it meets financial standards. I don't know that is where it is. If nothing happens very soon, I know the kind of expectation on this front, and we will come back to you if there is nothing happening. We are still looking at we are a growth-oriented company. And I believe the money can come in handy the moment we find the right platform.
So we don't want to leverage the company to acquire businesses. We would like to use the free cash. That's one of the reasons we are retaining free cash. For years, we have been distributing largely less than 25% of the PAT, like I mean, under 20% of the PAT. So this proportion may increase if we don't have any other avenue to expand.
What I'm coming to was from that we can leverage a little bit more and increase the investment cost by leveraging a lot more capital and looking at acquisition opportunities in case the growth is declining, so we are keeping more aggressive, keeping the interest of the company being safe and minor, from that point of view.
No, you're absolutely right. But the point is that it's not that we are shying away from anything. It's not that we are shying away from a large acquisition, provided it makes strategic sense.
As you see what has happened or whatever level of consolidation that has happened in this space, we have had two large acquisitions in the last financial year, one being Butterfly, the other being Sunflame.
Personally, I believe that even if we had known about them, we wouldn't have taken them because strategically they don't add any value to us.
So Nitin has several brands that they have created similar products. So we'll have to do something very different and very strategic with him, which will add value to your balance sheet. One more question, company.
Yeah. I mean, what I was explaining on the way to the question is, for example, if ONDC, which is a very new-age e-commerce platform, obviously the company might not have explored opportunity on ONDC. The return might be right now slow, but I think there's a huge growth opportunity in terms of, ITC is there and people are ordering food. And I'm sure the Prestige can also sell microwaves.
Let me assure you that we are the first company in Bangalore who got onto the ONDC network. We are normally very, very progressive on these things. Direct-to-consumer is occupying a lot of strategic mindset playing in our company. Everything is consumer-oriented, and we believe that any such new opportunity, whether it is digital, whether it is Omnichannel, whether it is ONDC, whether it is e-commerce, anything that will lead to sustainable business and brand building, we will definitely invest in it.
Thank you. May we address your two follow-up questions? Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address questions from all participants, please limit your questions to two participants. The next question is from the line of Naman Bhansali from Perpetuity Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. So my first question is partly answered by the previous participant's answer. It was related to the industry wherein you mentioned that Stove Kraft is a newly innovative company. Generally, we observe there are two types of people, innovators and the imitators. And in this case, the industry has been able to replicate their innovation with the other companies they are pushing up. So my question is that what has the industry witnessed in your experience over the last decade, and which type of strategy works better as an innovator or an imitator to scale up their business? Because the imitators have been doing it at a different scale or a little bit of efficiency to get there.
Let me tell you, we are of the opinion that innovators in the long run are the winners. Short term, anything can happen. Innovation finally, the first-mover advantage has a very different mind share in the customer's mind. That has been our strategy. It's not that we have not done a me-too. But I don't think that might be tactical. From a strategy perspective, we are clear. If we want to lead in a particular category, we must innovate.
My second question relating to this one is that we see that many companies and leaders in this industry are pushing on backward integration. How well does backward integration help in this industry? Is it worthy to go backward integrate to highest steps possible with some of the clear strategy you're trying to do?
In our opinion, it is not going to be worth it because as you grow up in scale, the management of cost by a small entrepreneur or an MSME is far superior than management of cost, especially of components in the value chain, by a large company. That's an opinion I have. It may not be shared by the person who you have just referred to. He has gone on a complete backward integration program, but that also commits him to a certain level of production, which may or may not be required, depending on the demand, and therefore can lead you to wrong decision-making on pricing, so we are of the opinion that we are doing it correctly. We are actually optimized perfectly. We have a great set of partners and vendors who have been with us for generations, and that is the right way to go.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Samuel from Perfios .
The question, you know, you spoke about Judge brand, right? So the prices are still not competitive in comparison to other brands in the rural segment. It's just good brand name. So that is one thing. And now we are coming with Judge brand. But still, the prices are not very competitive in comparison to the other brands, the lower segment, mainly the rural people. And also the other one is that, you know, right now there are many competitors in this market, right? And many competitors are acquiring other brands and all those things. And there is some of the brands which one-stop solution for all the products, including cookware, fans, and all those things. And then there are other lower segments where they just copy the product and give the product at a much lower price. So how you are planning to tackle those situations, those scenarios, actually?
We have been tackling in the past. Innovation, distribution, migration, segmentation.
Okay, so is it only because you're planning to innovate or work on other products as well from plastic apart from cookware?
In all the categories that we operate in, we will do innovation.
Okay.
We are not going to be the cheapest player. We respect all these brands we have there. And that is not the game we are going to play at all. Quality of sales is very important for us because even in this adverse time, we maintain a healthy gross margin as well as our margins.
Okay.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Devansh Nigotia from SIMP .
Yeah. Thanks for the follow-up. In our acquisition, are we looking to add mainly different types of product categories and not necessarily existing scale of products? Is that the point of view?
We are looking at an acquisition that can get us entry into an HSN category or an HSN distribution. And not necessarily the existing categories that we are in because today we are truly a pan-India player. We don't need any other brand in the same category to actually give us a crutch of distribution anywhere in India. And we are therefore looking at, can we get a new category? Can we get something HSN which is substantial, which can add to growth and top line? That's the kind of things that we are looking at. And in India, the valuations are not comfortable. You are aware of that. And anything that we use of the company's money, we have to be first able to justify to ourselves that we are taking the right value. So that is where it is every time falling short.
Thank you for joining. You mentioned the category. The fact is that you are very bullish on this category. That's a large opportunity side. But the scale-up actually did not play out as expected. So what do you feel has been the constraint to scale up? And do you still believe that this can be a bigger we can reach a bigger scale? And how do you see the strategy planning out over the next two years?
So key solutions we have actually tackled are expectations from that category because, as I've been telling in the past, in this call itself, if there is a category where we are not able to add value through innovation, we believe that we as a company never succeed. And the moment we got out of China and the supply chain became a little more difficult within India and the scale being where it is, we believe that the investment in that category did not just get justified. So what we are now doing is we are bringing the categories down. We are not going to operate in so many subcategories within the same segment and try and see what best we can do to the categories that we retain and continue.
In the meantime, in our best of the future plans, we are trying to identify at least one or two core categories which can give us a substantially higher growth.
Thank you for the question. You mentioned there are three brands that we did over the last one to two years. Can you help us understand what exactly did we rebrand in the specialty product category which brings up the trending business you said? And also what are the kind of innovation increments we are looking forward in core product categories that we have?
So I can't tell you what innovation we are looking at because that is competition-based and competition-centered scale. But to answer the first part of your question, which is what does the Svachh lead to, Svachh cookware do? We had a very simple research on pain points of the consumer customer. And what we found out was every time the cooker whistles, the cooker froths and actually spat out a lot of liquid from inside the pressure cooker onto the pressure cooker and down into the gasket, which was a hassle to clean. We are trying to just solve that problem or mitigate that problem. And we believe it has resonated very well with the customer. And we have then transformed all our pressure cookers with Svachh components. And now that people are using it, they are finding value in it.
By doing so, what we are also giving a reason for the customer to discard their existing pressure cooker and buy a new pressure cooker. So these are the things that can create a growth opportunity.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Alisha Mahawla from Envision Capital.
Hi, I'm just asking some questions. Excuse me. So firstly, with respect to our aspirational target, which is in the mid-20s 500s to 2050, are we confident of doing this kind of business in the forward also? Because we are expecting a huge reset.
Right now, I don't want to give you a guidance. This is a backdoor way to ask that question. We have told you what the challenges are. We are, of course, recognizing those challenges and making strategies to mitigate these. We know what our LRT is. We know where we have to reach. And we are going to do our best to try and get there. I'm not commenting on anything at this point in time.
What would be the guidance? Would you say this is a roadmap to the aspiration that we have shared? Because we are confident of achieving the first.
The roadmap is innovation, expanding on our segmentation, distribution. That is our roadmap.
Yes. In this process, you mentioned that we took a write-off to obsolete inventory, which impacted gross margin by 1.1%. Is there any more write-off that can be expected in the near term?
Not substantial. I mean, there is always some kind of obsolete inventory, which is very small. That happens during the course of a business where you're launching so many new products, and it's likely that something is left over. But that's not going to be substantial. This was a run-off, and we thought it is good governance to actually do away with it. So it's a loss at this point in time. You won't see it so often for the remain.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pavan Kumar from Ratna Traya Capital.
Can you comment on what would be the price hike that we may be looking across our products on a year-on-year basis?
Last year, there was hardly any price hike, actually. We took all our price hikes the previous year when the commodity prices were shooting up. Last year, in fact, we were quite stable.
So estimated that there were no price hikes, right?
Not significant. I mean, there could have been maybe one or two SKUs here or there which would have had some problem. Otherwise, nothing significant.
Okay. On the EBITDA margin front, what would be the EBITDA margin we should look forward to on an annual basis?
We have already said that between 14.5% and 16% is what we should evaluate last time.
Okay. And just to see even the premium segment, now the smaller players are coming up in the industry. They are copying that stuff. So how do we plan to tackle the previous year's competition challenges? Is it like we have to again create a new product where we are going to get ahead?
We have the advantage of scale, reach, brand. And a copycat, it can give short shrift to our true relationship with the customer. That's the true strategy.
The copycat might still have a unique product, not necessarily the customer's product. So they will disappear just like some share and minor share to start it, and it disappears. And some other copycat will come later. That's the strategy I've been taking the last 30 years.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Naman Bhansali from Perpetuity Ventures LLP .
Thanks for the follow-up, sir. Just wanted to understand, is there any possibility that you see over the next three to five years that there will be a lower profitability or a lower margin in these small players providing very low-cost products versus being provided?
I don't think so because this is not something new to us. We have seen through so many movements like this. We believe that every time this comes, we are challenged, and we react in a manner in which we actually come out stronger. These are all opportunities because when they come, their performance is evaluated. We live in a very different world today. Any failure is very quickly known to people. The buying behavior has changed. So many things have changed, and I think these are all opportunities. They are not problems.
Thank you.
Demand for them has also increased. You can see that the cost of doing business has come down. Technology has not actually brought the cost down. They have only gone up.
Got it. And one last question.
That's the same for a long time with low prices. So they have disappeared. If the product is not good, the customer is moving to a better brand.
Understood, sir. Last question more than a product specific. So what do you see in the enterprise segment as it is picking up over the next few years with respect to the international market that are watching that product very well? Do you see India picking up that product very well in the same?
It will not be a very large category. I mean, in Europe, for example, it is a very large category because they do a lot of heating, and most of them have very large ovens, and the energy crisis has forced them to buy air fryers because they are much more energy efficient, and they can do smaller quantities. That's why the air fryer in the European context has grown as much as it has. In India, baking, grilling is not so much an integral part of our cooking, so it will have a limited appeal, in my opinion. But yes, definitely, with exposure to international cooking, that's why it will find resonance with some countries.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Alisha Mahawla from Envision Capital.
Thank you. Nice to be back with you again. I just wanted to know, on a sequential basis, are other expenses that are coming up sharply? What would you attribute that to?
Our other expenses this time are lower because the Q4 you are asking about. It's primarily because I think we have reduced our advertisement a little bit because some money was spent on the sales promotion, just shifting our businesses from one way to another. Yeah. And that has been the effect of the top-line winter discounts. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you, and we've been speaking about rural and the route in to standard entry-level, where we want to be slightly more accessible with them, but the margins would only not be at the level where the usual company-level margins are, so how confident would you be of maintaining the margin via premiumization marketing strategy that you're guiding to?
That we are very confident of.
Despite incremental contributions?
Yes. Yes.
The more capacity-building manufacturers that are just more product and different margins.
We will leverage the better operating leverage, which will definitely take care of that.
What is the outcome that you're targeting to do with this revenue for next year?
We won't give you that number, but it's at a percentage higher than all our peers put together, and it's been very stable at around that. Okay? I think we can - we've done it in the past. We have between 6%-6.5% is what we actually do .
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
First of all, thank you all for some very stimulating questions in this quarter. Let me assure you that the company is in very good strength in some very challenging times we've come across them. We would like to look at ourselves as being consistent market creators, customer-centric players, and we would like to see ourselves as innovators for this industry, which we will continue to do and continue our growth. Thank you very much.
I'll be in the conference with customary safe harbour clause . You are well aware of it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We are off. Let the participants conclude this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect .