Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Control Print Limited 3Q FY 2024 conference call, hosted by Asian Markets Securities Private Limited. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the Co, about the company, which are based on their beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. Actual results may differ from such expectations, projections, et cetera, whether expressed or implied. Participants are requested to exercise caution while referring to such statements and remarks.
As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone.
Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Karan Bhatelia from Asian Markets Securities Private Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thanks, Aditya. Very warm afternoon, and welcome all to the Control Print Limited 3Q FY 2024 earnings conference call hosted by Asian Markets Securities. From the management side, we have with us Mr. Shiva Kabra, Managing Director, and Mr. Jaideep Barve, CFO. Now, I would like to hand this call to Jaideep, sir, for his opening remarks, after which we will open the floor for Q&A. Over to you, Jaideep. Thank you.
Hello, sir, you are not audible. Jaideep, sir? Hello, Jaideep, sir, you are not audible, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, line for the management has been disconnected. I will connect them. Line for the management... Line has been connected. Over to you, sir.
Yeah, hi. My name is Jaideep Barve, and I work as the Chief Financial Officer of Control Print Limited. Welcome, all of you, to the earnings conference call for the third quarter of the financial year 2023-2024. We appreciate that you have taken out your time from your busy schedule to attend this call. We wish you and your family a happy and prosperous 2024. Mr. Shiva Kabra, the Joint Managing Director of Control Print Limited, also joins me on this call. The detailed presentations have been put up on our website as well as in the investor presentation notification on both exchanges for this call. Let me provide you a brief analysis of the standalone financial statements of Control Print Limited for this quarter.
On a consolidated basis, the revenues were INR 89 crore, and the period-to-date revenues are about INR 262 crore. The revenue for the corresponding nine-month period is INR 218 crore. For the year ending 31 March 2023, the consolidated revenue was INR 308 crore. On a standalone basis, our revenue is INR 84 crore, with the period-to-date revenue about INR 249 crore. Just for information, the consolidated, the revenue for 2023, 2022-2023 was INR 295 crore. The increase in the business does augurs well for the growth trajectory of the company. We, we have got a very good revenue for this quarter in the consumables for pipes, paper, dairy, steel and healthcare industry. We've added new printers in the Food, Dairy and Beverages sector.
We consolidated our position in the sugar industry and the cement, and we achieved good breakthroughs in the Plywood and laminate sectors. Regarding the expenses side, the consumption, which is the cost of goods sold, that has remained steady at about 40% of the sales. This is in line with the previous periods. However, we can definitely hope for an improvement in reducing this with better optimized buying strategies. The employee costs, depreciation, manufacturing costs and other expenses are incurred in line with the business operations. Regarding the profitability levels, the EBITDA, PBT, PAT and EPS, which excludes exceptional items, have grown by 10.3%, 10.6%, -2.6%, and -0.1% on a YoY basis. There exists a considerable scope of improvement due to higher revenues and triggering economies of scale.
We believe that there is a tremendous future for our company. The way forward is very exciting. We've got a focused marketing plan which will lead to increased sales. We've got diversified sales strategies. The installed base for our company has increased. We've managed to have a good traction in the Track-and-Trace division. We also hope to turn around the masks and the safety gloves business. Regarding the foreign subsidiary, Markprint, we wish to make sure that the technology is also used in the Indian operations. The floor is now open for questions. Anybody can ask me and or Shiva for any clarifications they would like to have on the financial statements. Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello.
Yes.
Yeah, I'm waiting for the first question.
Okay, sir. Thank you.
Yeah.
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 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 will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first line is from the line of Deepan Narayanan, TrustLine P MS. Please go ahead.
Good evening, everyone. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. So firstly, from my side, so we have got a very good increase in the gross margin side. But the EBITDA increase has been quite lower due to higher expenses. So do we see this current run rate of expenses continue, or we could see some margin improvement from here?
Hello? Yeah,
Yeah, so-
Yeah, sure. Yeah, you can continue.
Yeah, so roughly, I mean, we don't know, of course, where the margins go on a quarterly basis, and, you know, the expenses are booked as, you know, certain things happen. So it could be some, you know, expenses which are higher or lower in a specific quarter, depending on when they've been incurred. So it's difficult to predict, but, like, on an overall basis, you know, as our revenues increase, we can, you know, our margins should be in line with our revenues. Obviously, the idea is that, technically, our gross margins are quite stable, you know, in a band, and then the SG&A costs should be stable and maybe slightly declining as we get a, you know, a, with the economy of scale.
So of course, in this, this quarter, I understand your point is that the SG&A and other expenses are higher and, you know... But, but this, I mean, for us like, like I said, you know, in, in general, like, things can change in a quarter up or down, but like, you know, overall it's the revenue growth which will drive the margins. And, you know, in our size of company, you know, even a INR 2 crore-INR 3 crore expense in a quarter here or there can, you know, change some of the other results, so, can't comment too much beyond that. But yeah, so, so our, our main focus is on the revenue growth. The rest of the elements are, are stable, and then the margin should be accordingly stable, and maybe slightly, slightly increasing on the SG&A side. Slightly.
Okay. Okay. Thanks a lot. And another question is on the user industry or our customer industry trend. So how do you see this volume growth picking up for them and this capacity utilization overall for your customers going up? So do we foresee in short to medium term there will be many new printer machine orders, if possible, because of this capacity utilization of this current setup is going up, so there are chances for higher growth in printer sales coming up?
Yeah. So in general, as the volume growth picks up, you know, obviously, our customers will have to expand their capacity. And as the capacity increases, you know, it increases our printer sales and, you know, the number of prints that we do, which is in the end, you know, what gives us the revenue. So far I have to say, like, it's been a bit strange. I think, like, you know, in that COVID time and the next couple of years, I think there was still a lot of expansion going on the FMCG dairy, you know, like, you know, the entire packaging sector, pharma and stuff. I feel in fact, in the last one and a half to two years, the industrial side has been seeing a lot of growth, and there's a lot of projects happening here.
You know, so I'm talking about, like, bikes, steel, tires, you know, all, all those types of industries now seem to be more aggressive in terms of CapEx as compared, you know, compared to maybe, you know, the, the packaging sector. But yeah, each, each sector goes through its overall cycle up and down. But yeah, overall, I mean, if you ask me, like, the market seems positive right now. Right now.
Okay. Okay. And how do you see these non-CIJ machines for us? Do we see this competitive position for us has been improving because of lot of new customer references, and we could reach newer categories in these segments as well, so we can establish our positioning there?
So I think if you look at the growth, like overall, the non-CIJ has been growing faster for us, and it's doing well. And we have some strong competitive edges out there. But, you know, we don't get all the results of our competitors, so the exact, and we don't know the exact breakup of sales, so it's difficult for us to understand. But yeah, overall I think it's actually, you know, overall the non-CIJ is helping us partly with the market share growth, to some extent. Like I said, even our market share gain is always, like, quite slow, quite slow, you know, but yes.
Okay. Okay. Thanks a lot, all the best. I'll join the [inaudible].
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Naysar Parikh from Native Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking the question. So, my first, I just want to understand on the printer growth. So can you give the number of how many printers we've sold and what has been the growth like?
See, for this quarter, we've sold about 630 printers. The YTD is about 2,000 printers. As compared to the previous full financial year, it was about 3,208 printers, so. That's the printers sales for the last nine months.
Right. So exactly, I mean, it is broadly similar. There is no growth, right? And if you look at your last presentation also had around 18,000, this time also it's 18,000.
Yeah.
On the net basis, it seems like we are not adding too many printers. So what is the reason for that?
Yeah. So, getting back, I think that we are adding printers. I don't know if you guys got a chance to see our previous, go through our previous two conference call notes. You know, we even had some presentation that we made at, I don't know, one of those conferences. So I think that we've been actually been more selective about the customers that we are trying to sell to, and we have actually reduced the amount of sales to what we call the Category C and D customers, even the B customers, to some extent. So that's because you know, people are stretching out our resources.
So what's happening is that the sales are happening, but we're getting a, you know, a higher percentage of sales in, you know, larger customers who tend to use the printer more, you know. So there could be two different guys, like, you know, it could be Britannia and some local biscuit company. But Britannia might make 10 million biscuits on the line. The local guy might make 5 million biscuits on the line. But in the end, for us, printer is one, but, you know, we will, like, get double the amount of revenue from a guy like Britannia. So, so, you know, in the end, it's the number of prints that count, you know, for us, less than the number of printers.
So that's been a bit of a focus of ours, for us to change the quality of the sale. And that's temporarily sort of reduced the growth, sales growth rate of new printers. And now this is the second part where we have to, you know, within the existing parameters, not increase the sales. So the first point was to be ruthless in the way we focus on it. But this is like, you know, one of those cultural things that happens, and it's gonna take some time for the sales team to really figure this out and also increase. So... But I think we've got the capacity in terms of the number of sales people in the market, if they call, give the time.
Got it. In the customer segment that we want to operate, like, you know, from a market share perspective, over the last nine to 12 months, do you think we are stable, up, down? What would be your sense?
I don't understand the question exactly. Could you just explain it a bit?
Yeah. Yeah, sure. Sure. So, so what I was asking is from a market share perspective versus the other three, you know, in the customer segments that we are targeting or we want to grow, would our market share be, you know, flat or up or down?
So I can't say specifically on what segments, because like I said, I don't get the exact details of where we are dominant in the market in March. But broadly, from the numbers, we've seen that like, the four of us are still dominating the market. There's no structural shift that we have noticed, you know, from our numbers. And it seems from the numbers we have and what we've seen of our competitors, that our revenue growth rates seem to be faster, that a little bit faster than the last, you know.
Okay.
We are.
Okay, got it. And, what would be
Like I said, it depends. Like, I can tell you this much, like, in general, we are much more strong in industrial, you know, as you're aware, and even stronger in the packaging sector. So the industrial sector grows faster than... You know, in general, that would lead to slightly higher growth rates for us, even though we are focusing hard on the packaging sector, it's not like we've given up.
Right. No, understood. Understood. And so this,
Just to answer to your question, see, we've got about 18,000+ printers in the IP. So, and if we update this number, I mean, with 500 or 1,000 printers, net printers. So, definitely in the next quarter, we'll update our figure. But it's 18,000+, so be rest assured about that.
... Okay. Understood, understood. And just if you could give the mix for this quarter between consumables and printers, the way you usually give?
The revenue, you mean to say?
Yeah, yeah. Revenue mix.
Yeah. So, the printers contribute about 16% of our business, the consumables 62%, spares 7%, and service would contribute 14%.
Right. And have you taken any kind of, price cuts or something on consumables? I mean, what is the reason that growth has slowed down in this quarter? We were clocking 15%-20% growth, 18%, 20% growth the last two quarters. This year, this quarter it's lower. Is there any specific reason?
No, no, no price cuts for sure, but no price increases. I think our pricing has been flat, it's flat. Like, I think we took some price increases in the end of last year sometime, and they've translated sometime, you know, in the end of last year or Q4 of last year to one of this year. But since then, there's been no price increases, and, even if you look at the discounting in the other structures, there's been no change. So the prices are absolutely stable. So whatever growth is, it's all volume growth, for the last, I don't know, what, about 8-10 months. So yeah, so I, I don't think that...
Like I said, we from a quarter-to-quarter basis, it's difficult to see in a company of our size, you know, because we feel that the pipeline looks good now. It can come sometime in some quarters, some, you know, things can come in some quarter. You could sell an extra 40, 60 printers in one quarter, which could make, you know, INR 1.5 crore difference. So it's, you know, it, it's difficult for me to say what it is. Like, it seems good so far, is what I'd say, you know. But like, the market can turn, in our past experience, like, pretty fast. And you know, it's not, like, completely gonna stop, because the basic growth is there, you know, but customers can postpone some decisions, is what we've seen.
But like I said, you know, it's overall, we are seeing that we're doing bigger projects and bigger pieces as our focus has changed, and these are longer gestation times, so the slight lumpiness in the printer seems actually increasing, is what I'd say. You know, because when you do, since you're focusing more on the bigger customers, you kind of do, like, bigger projects with them, you know?
Right.
If it goes through, you know, it gives slight bump, and then if it doesn't, then, you know, it doesn't. So I'm expecting the printer revenue to be a little bit more up and down, but I think the rest of the business should be quite stable. And that's, like, 80% approximately of our business, you know?
Yeah. Got it. Got it. Just one last question. If you could just give an update on the Markprint and the Track-and-Trace, those initiatives. You know, where are we and how is that going?
Yeah. So the Markprint, as you know, we've been working more closely with them. And, in fact, you know, we are hoping to, you know, we're trying to actually. We've got a couple of projects in India now, that where we are trying to look at how that works out. They've got a pretty good technology evaluation, which is the reason why we invested in them. So even they need to actually, they need to increase their sales, you know, and, like, their capacity, both on the sales side and on the service side. They also have a pretty good product, and they can also increase in the northern area. And I think that's some of the margins and are bigger, cheaper here. So some stuff is going on.
But we have a bunch of stuff that's been happening out here in Control Print itself. So like I said, it's been slower, but it's actually now, I'd say, like, at least in the last six months, I'm much happier with the progress we're making probably compared to before, or maybe last six, eight months. So there are some sales that we will not come up in Control Print. It's those sales, I think, like the, what we like Markprint would do directly to some Indian customers, what happens. So that part needs to be figured out. We also put some specific sales resource in India, who would look at some sales for Markprint, some opportunities. So one of the experienced people we shifted in, and, you know, hopefully that should give us...
I mean, like I said, these are also long gestation projects. I just want to re-emphasize, you know, if we start something now, you know, we should not expect results for, like, six months, is what I'd say.
Yeah.
But you know, then at least it, it starts. Then as far as the Track-and-Trace goes, that's actually going quite positively. We are about to complete one of our major installations and start the second phase out there, so I think that will give everyone a lot of confidence in our own team and everyone else. We are focusing a bit slow on it because we had a bunch of, you know, niggling issues or teething issues because we were starting it off, and we had that in a couple of smaller projects. Now that we've got that figure of how exactly to execute at pace, you know, by maintaining the quality, now I think, you know, it's easier for us to go to and pitch to other customers. Yeah.
Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay, got it. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Shiva. Thank you, Jaideep. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
... Next question is from the line of Devin from Matthews. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, Jaideep. Can you explain why was the tax go significantly higher this year compared to the last year?
See, what has happened is that the proportion on the sale of investment, like the sale of shares, has increased in this quarter and the nine-month period as compared to the previous year. And what we do is that we the Ind AS. And in the Ind AS, all the proceeds, I mean, we have to show in the other comprehensive income, which is below the line. Whereas we provide for the income tax as per the Income Tax Act and Rules. So the hit of the income tax goes above the line. So that's the, that's why, you know, there's a skewed percentage change as compared to, for tax as compared to the previous financial year.
Got it. But for the full year, the average tax rate would remain in that 17%-18% ballpark, right?
As in all of, we will, we would still get about 17.47%. We follow 115JB calculation, so that should not be an issue.
Got it. Shiva, so you mentioned that one of the reasons the revenue growth has decelerated is the focus towards big customers. Did I understand that correctly?
So we don't think it's decelerated. For us, we're happy with the results we've had. Like I said, we don't look at it so much on a quarter-to-quarter basis. So I'm looking at more like on a nine-month or a trailing twelve-month basis, you know. So we feel that's good. But more importantly, I would look at the CRM and I would look at the pipeline, you know, personally, and we are comfortable with that. So, yeah, but I said that because of focusing on larger customers, the lumpiness of the printer sales is gonna increase. So we don't think that. I mean, obviously, we would not do something that will decelerate our revenue growth. You know, that would be stupid. So we don't wanna do that.
We feel that this will help us maintain the revenue growth, without stretching our resources that much, because, you know, since we have a limited number of resources like this, what we'll do is, we have to, like, you know, put that focus where we have the maximum return. As you all know, we had an investment in ICIPL, and, you know, we hope to, you know, sort of like improve the focus so that, you know, more of the C and D accounts are being handled by them, you know, leaving the B, C, D accounts, and we are only focused on, you know, the A and the massive customers of India.
So, it's not about, you know, reducing the revenue growth rate, it's about, you know, that there's going to be some more lumpiness in the printer sales over... Because we're focusing on larger customers, the individual cases of larger numbers and, you know, it could be up and down, and so on. That's why. When you said one, two, one, two, it's like, you know, it sort of stabilizes your overall,
Understood.
Yeah.
So, it's not like we will stop catering to the semi clients, that revenue will shift to innovative goods?
No, no, no. We are... Whatever people buy from Control Print, they're gonna buy. Now, obviously, there's a price gap between you buy from us versus you buy from ICIPL or some of the smaller players, you know, but the thing is that even if the price gap is there, sometimes, you know, it puts a bit of stress on our service, you know, and our other resources that are there. And, you know, so that's the reason we wanna focus more on the larger customers, because what our understanding is that for large customers, they want more in-depth focus. Like, you know, they want... So what they, they're paying Control Print for is reliability, that's one thing. But I think now from the sales side, they also want, like, a lot more expert advice, you know?
So it's not like I sell the product, and buying the product, and buying a product because it's reliable. I think that there is also, like, a feeling that, you know what? I'm buying Control Print because they are, like, experts at this. So not only they are the products high quality and high technology, but the guy is, you know, is like more of a relationship manager, like, to some extent, and so they'll address all my concerns, and also, at the same time, they know about my business, and they'll recommend looking the right set of products. Because now we have, like, we're not just selling the inkjet printers anymore, right? We're selling, like, a bunch of... Not just a continuous inkjet printer, we're selling a bunch of products, or we have Track-and-Trace and we have other things.
So we also need to make sure that we are reorienting ourselves to maximize, you know, those sorts of solutions for our customers, rather than just, you know, being a sort of product sales type of focus. So it's a bit of a transition, you know, we're, like, in part of it, but, you know, I'll just say, like, it's gonna take at least a year for the culture to, like, change and even the efficiency to come back to normal, so I think.
Understood. Understood. And, finally, for Jaideep: so in the investor presentation, you have mentioned that the manpower costs were higher because of annual incentives.
Yeah.
But when I look at FY 2023, like Q3 of FY 2023, I don't see any significant jump in employee costs last year. So has something changed in terms of accounting this year?
No, there's no change in the accounting. I mean, we have a cycle of performance appraisals, so the incentives were given to the higher management in this quarter.
... Got it. But every year we give that in Q3 or that again keeps on changing?
So that will depend upon the business needs, actually, And, quite frankly. I mean, it ought to be done in by end of Q2, but this time we have done in Q3, so.
Okay, understood.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, a request to all the participants. Please restrict to one question per participant, and please join the queue for follow-up question. Next, next question is from the line of Rashmi Sharma from Samar Wealth Advisors . Please go ahead.
Hello. Good evening, everyone. Am I audible?
Yeah, Rashmi, we can hear you.
Yes. So my first question is that companies have been doing well at 16% year-on-year for last three years. So, what can be the future growth drivers of the company for next three years?
I'll answer that question. So you see, like, in the end, like we're discussing, in the end, it depends on the volume growth of the manufacturing industry in India, you know, one way or the other. So nothing is in our control, frankly, in terms of, you know, number of prints that are there. So, you know, we might sell machines to, you know, something like a Century Plyboards. You know, it depends on how many plywood boards keep selling in the end, and that, that's what's gonna be the end driver of our revenue. And in the end, what that means is if the plywood industry is growing, the number of plywood boards is increasing, you know, then Control Print's revenue will increase.
If we are selling to, you know, some dairy or in the end, we are sort of dependent on the dairy industry to grow, so or especially the organized packaging part of the dairy industry, which is where we focus. So we are like more of a, you know, we don't have that, like a complete control of the destiny in our own hands, because in the end, we require, like, our user industries to grow and, you know, we are dependent on them. We're not like a B2C company, where I'm selling shampoo and I can, you know, do some sort of promotion and, you know, shift people's wallet from something else to something else. It's a compliance-driven business also. So that's one of the main reasons too. And then, of course, for a lot of customers, it's because of branding and other things.
So that's the-
Okay, sir. So, sir, like, are there any plans or strategies to explore and expand in new regions?
No, I can't... I couldn't hear you that one clearly. Can you repeat that, please?
My, like, my next question is, that are there any plans or strategies to explore or expand in new regions or new countries?
Yes. I'll just go through the thing what we're looking at, because you asked about growth initiatives. So what we are trying to do is we've taken three definitive initiatives. One is we started QRious Codes, which is our Track and Trace division. The second is we've looked at you know one exploratory product in the packaging area, which is called V-Shapes. And then, of course, we purchased Markprint, and we have also started now to some extent more actively looking at you know some sort of digital printing, hybrid-type printing solutions that we're providing to customers. So these are the three growth initiatives that we're doing beyond our standard coding and marking business. We saw well-paced out in our standard coding and marking business with our product range and our technology.
Of course, this keeps upgrading. You know, so, like, there's a five- to seven-year cycle that we follow. We keep phasing our products and getting new ones in, but it's okay. We've got a good product range right now. So we are hoping that we will continue to do well in our core business of coding and, you know, maybe with the track increase, with the packaging, with the, you know, part like digital printing, you know, with Markprint or part hybrid things like maybe we can get some extra sales. These are like exploratory strategies, so we'll find out. Now, as far as geographical expansion goes, that's something we've looked at. We actually explored it quite actively.
Then because of COVID, it just happened as we were, like, about to, you know, sort of explore into the Middle East and Africa, and we had some sort of arrangement with GB for that. Because then after COVID, that whole thing went cold. Then frankly, after that, you know, in Sri Lanka, we had a disaster because, because I think they ran out of foreign exchange or some economic crisis, and we lost a lot of money because we had invested, we had, you know, a good market was growing, and, and I think they stopped us from getting our money back. And, we lost a lot of...
I don't know, maybe Eddie can explain it to you, but we must have lost, like, at least INR 7 crore-INR 8 crore in that, because the money we had invested had, you know, sort of been converted into Sri Lankan rupees, and it had depreciated and all those sorts of things. So after that, you know, there was some more pressure on us to, you know, consider expansion internationally with a lot more care. So we're still looking at it, and I still want to... Something I wanna explore. We are taking two to three other initiatives already, and in a way, Markprint and other things are international in a way. So we're gonna look at it, and I-- But right now, I can't tell you anything, you know, but it's not something we've given up on completely.
But there were some reasons why for three to four years, it was off the plate. And even now, you know, Sri Lanka was a bit of a sore point for everyone and. But, you know, now hopefully it's getting back on track. So just keep you posted.
So we'll, you know, I can't tell you something then, you know, if you're looking at it or not, you know, if we do something, but you know, it's not something we've given up on, but we still hope to explore it.
Okay. Okay. Got it, sir. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Saket Kapoor from Kapoor Company. Please go ahead, sir.
Namaste, Jaideep, sir.
Yeah, hi.
Sir, I missed your point, Shiva, when you were explaining about our Track-and-Trace initiative and also on the V-Shapes part. If you could just elaborate, pardon me for the sake of repetition also, where are we in midst of these two initiatives, and what can we expect going ahead, especially from the V-Shapes part, and have you done some investment for V-Shapes currently? This, this is my point.
Saket , so regarding V-Shapes, I don't know, Jaideep would have... He would have published something. I think we had started a JV company, and then I think there's a INR 10 crore, it was a sanction capital, which we spent good part of money. Jaideep, I mean, maybe provide those, those details are public, I think, but I don't know. Approximately this, if I remember correctly, I don't know if we spent the entire amount, or, or invested the entire capital. We're going to be able to use something, but approximately we've done that. We have the V-Shapes machine. We've invested in this thing. One of the key problems we are, we're feeling is that the, the cost of the sachet is quite expensive.
So, I mean, like, you know, the pharma industry can afford that type of expense, but even the premium cosmetic industry and definitely the food industry cannot afford that. So we need to see how we can lower the cost, cost of the material, and that's something we are working on quite actively. We're also working on manufacturing one machine, which is of a lower volume capacity or lower speed rather, and that machine we're gonna be manufacturing in India. And so these two initiatives, so we still need to work more on getting the cost of the laminate, the material lower, because for the customer, the per sachet cost is the most important aspect. So we are working on that. And it's a complex material to manufacture. It's also patent protected.
So from both angles, you know, of course, the patents, we have those rights for it, but, because it's a complex material to manufacture, there are very few people, if not anyone in India, who have that capability to manufacture this laminate. So we are still working, but when we import from Italy, it is quite expensive. So that's one of the bottlenecks we have to look at. But the market is there. We see good interest in the product because it's a premium product, you know, and, it has some functional use values also, which are good. As far as the Track-and-Trace goes, just as I said, we are executing one project. We're at the end of the stage one, and we should hopefully get, you know, another, part of the business.
And then, you know, this, this is one of the bigger customers in India, and, you know, if, if that goes live, then, you know, it will give confidence to everyone in our own team, so we can be more aggressive on it in other customers.
But what goes around for the Track-and-Trace part? If you could just elaborate more on it, how does it work, and what is the ecosystem that you are trying to develop there?
Okay. So the first part is like the Track-and-Trace is okay, it's quite specialized thing. It's not the best place to explain it. But essentially what we do is, we need to the government of India, for example, in pharmaceuticals, has mandated, you know, your top 300 brands to print the QR Code on the thing. Now, even there are some other markets, like some rest of world markets or other types of things where they have to trace their product through the entire supply chain. So what I would do is suppose, I mean, give you an idea. Suppose you have a blister. Okay, let's take it as, say, a Disprin. I will print a QR Code on the Disprin. Each different Disprin strip will have a different QR Code.
Each of them will have their own serialization, which we create, and what we do is we do it through a blockchain type of a software, so there's no duplication of the same. What that will do, we'll have a QR Code, and then, each... Suppose I take 10 Disprin, and I pack it in one carton. Then, when we have a camera, so forth, that detects that each Disprin that's printed, whether it's printed perfectly, whether it's scanning at A grade or B grade, what sort of level of scanning is happening, and if it's not, scanning at the criteria that we've set, it'll get ejected from the line. So that's the ejection, rejection mechanism that's there. Then it will get agglomerated.
So when it's going inside the, you know, 10, 10 packs of Disprin, let's say, going in one carton of Disprin, you know, like one carton, a small carton of Disprin. Then on the carton, there'll be another code. That code will enclose the information of all the 10 individual blisters of Disprin, which have gone inside the carton of Disprin. Then, when that Disprin gets packed in another shipper carton, that will also contain a code. It will also contain the information of, say, you know, 100 cartons get packed in one large carton. And when we enclose that, we will get the information of those 100 cartons also, so that in that carton, you know each of the 1,000 blisters that are there.
Then what we can do is you use that for your line maintenance, so that first, when anyone clicks it, we have a shortened URL, which can authenticate the product, for the user. That's one part of it, but then you can, for product diversion, you can use it to also measure, you know, how much, your... whether it's being sold in the right place or not. You know, so sometimes people have, you know, free samples that they give their MRs... and they want to check whether, it's being sold or what is given as a free sample or it is not. So, you know, there, there's many various different types of metrics you can use, but of course, one of the easiest things to do also is manage your inventory, across all locations by having this sort of, system.
So there are basically, it, it's like a sort of system that needs to be there. There are multiple cameras in each place because each barcode needs to be scanned, and verified. The quality of scanning of each barcode needs to be there. There's need to be an ejection, rejection on each part of the line. The software, of course, the printer is one critical part of it, and that's maybe the most difficult part. So, but the agglomeration needs to be there. There's a separate thing with then all the data that comes, nothing is stored in our printers, nothing is stored locally. I think we upload it to Amazon or something.
So for each client, we will set up their own cloud stack on Amazon, and then, I think on AWS or something, but of course, if they have their own internal database, it can be uploaded there. And so, you know, it's on the thing, but we never control the data because legally we cannot do that. So it, we do it for the client, and then, you know, so we've got all that sort of data out there. And, and then, you know, of course, that is used for the customers to validate, all their, transactions and, you know, to validate the authenticity of the product to, maybe, you know, sometimes these... In pharmaceuticals, not, but in some other types of industrial, people also might give a discount on that.
Like, you know, maybe like to give your details and, you know, to win a trip to South Africa or something like that, you know, something else can happen. So some people can also use it for marketing reasons. In pharmaceutical, it's used for compliance. So, you know, that's the basic idea of where this thing is.
Okay. So this will lead to incremental consumable demand. I'll get this?
Understand that if you see one of those, you know, flow diagrams from, you know, our team, and if you actually see it on the site, like, so that's a much more complex thing, you know, if you've found you. But there may be, maybe we can try to put some sort of video presentation on this next time. We'll try to do that.
Yeah, why not? We can. So just to conclude that this will lead to incremental demand for our consumables, or the printers, any special other category of printers will be required for this purpose, or the existing ones will only work? And how are... I mean, the consumables is the one where the demand will be.
So the existing printers work in general, because you need a higher quality of printer to maintain a QR Code. You require high quality printer. Normally, in pharmaceutical, frankly, 95% of our installations are done with our Thermal Inkjet, if it's not more. That is the printer of choice for this application, our Thermal Inkjet, and, you know, we're strong in the Thermal Inkjet, so it works well for us. Of course, there's some exceptional ink revenue that doesn't come to this specific team. So I don't know, we have some, like, internal thing that we do. But of course, there's also, like, an AMC to maintain this entire infrastructure, because the... Maybe for the customers, he doesn't buy our printer and someone's camera and someone's software. Like, he wants them to do the entire thing.
So the software capabilities and the product capabilities and the integration of the entire line, you know, it's like a sort of slight type of automation or compliance automation required from a different answer. And of course, the printers are an important part of it. So it's more strategic in nature. I mean, of course, people will print extra because now they have a QR code, but in the end, people will print what the government tells them to print. So, you know, that's the basic rule. If the government tells you to print the QR code, then of course, that takes a good amount of ink. So that's good for us. But, you know, it's a regulated industry. It's not for everyone.
It's for specific, like, pharmaceutical, and even now, some agrochemical and seed customers, I believe, have to implement the same. So it's for those compliance-related driven industries, you know. For the rest of the people, there are a lot of people who use it, but that's mainly for some marketing campaigns. You know, you give this and you get a, you know, you buy four and you scan, and you get, like, some discount on something or some sort of like Paytm credit or whatever. So those are like different things, but they're not a compliance driven people.
So the small point I have is, how are, I mean, how are the consumables, utilization levels improved? And what are we expecting going ahead with the, with the improved sentiment, as Shiva sir mentioned, from your customers, what, what would, what would be the, increase in the utilization levels for the consumables? And for Markprint printers, sir, we, we have observed that for the last-
No, no.
Sorry, for the last-
One, one question at a time, just because-
Okay.
-You can...
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, okay. Sir, first, first one, I would like to understand how the utilization levels for our consumables are going to trend going ahead with improved sentiment from our customers.
You know, Saket, as you know, we, we keep doing some debottlenecking, so we are still operating between 50%-70% capacity at Guwahati. So we still, still have that capacity. So, you know, we have added some more equipment there in the last year or year or not, like in this year. So we, we continue to maintain that CapEx to, you know, cater to that increase in capacity, that, you know, for, for the fluids manufacturing. More on the specialized side, but yeah, it's there.
So the utilization levels have not improved, sir? I mean, when you were mentioning about the-
If we sell more consumables, we also have increased our capacity that much, so you know, our factory capacity has also increased, our processing capacity from manufacturing the consumables has increased. So we're still less than 70% capacity utilization at Guwahati.
Okay, sir. And sir, for the Markprint part, the revenue has declined, I think so for that, for the year ending 2023 versus 2022. So any specific reason why they have posted lower turnover?
For what?
For the Markprint division.
Yeah, just because... So, okay, we have one person, so a team, you know, somebody ex Magnum looking at it and some other things. They're doing better. It's not doing badly, but, you know, like, it's going and that's working fine, so there's no, like, pressure on them. It's going as it is.
Okay. In rupee terms, what have been our investment as on date?
In what?
How much... In Markprint, how much have we invested? I think so now 80% we are owning the company.
Yeah, in Markprint, we have, EUR 1.5 million, EUR 1.75 million is the total investment we've made. No, EUR 1.7 million . EUR 1.7 million is the total investment made in Markprint from the beginning to now.
Sorry to interrupt. Saket Kapoor, please come to queue again. A request to all participants, please restrict to one question per participant, and please join the queue for follow-up question. Our next question is from the line of Chinmay Nema, Prescient Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Could you talk about our wallet share? So typically, if you are supplying to a client, then are we the only supplier or are there other suppliers as well? Could you tell us what's the typical wallet share?
Can you just repeat that question? I'm sorry about that. I couldn't hear you clearly.
I just want to understand what kind of wallet share do we have for a typical client? So are we the only supplier of printer and the consumables, or are there other suppliers as well?
No, so, so for a typical client, like I said, most clients tend to have one supplier and one factory. Some definitely have two or even three, of us, you know, and tendency, like I said, in one factory to keep one supplier, but, you know, if something in one factory, they can be two suppliers. There is no saying, you know, it could be less for us, it could be more for us. But, in general, as far as the industry goes, it... So our measurement is that this year will be like INR 2,000-INR 2,100 crore. You know, last year it was about INR 1,800 crore, INR 1,750 crore, INR 1,800 crore something. So like, I think it's gonna go about 11%-12% this year.
You know, obviously now if you take our revenue, it was INR 291 crores. How much was it? Something like that last year. And the industry was approximately between INR 750 crore, INR 1,750 crore, INR 1,800 crores. So then, you know, you get a idea of our revenue market share overall. And this year, of course, we can take, like, the market will be INR 2,000 crore or INR 2,050 crores, you know, somewhere between that size and what about our revenue is. So it's, it's, I mean, if we calculate it, it's approximately somewhere between 16%-17%. You know, it depends on 16%... I'd say like 16%, 16.5% is the number that what we're doing right now.
Maybe 16%-17%, something like that, is our revenue market share of the overall, the, of the industry. And then from customer- to- customer-
I was actually referring to the wallet share, but that's all right. I understand. Secondly, could you talk about the nature of our contracts? So, what kind of contracts? Are these long-term contracts? When do they get renewed? Some color on that aspect. And, additional part of that question is, what kind of price hikes are we able to take? Like, what has been the trend in the past, and how do you see this going in the future?
Yeah. So in general, our capital equipment lasts for, you know, between 10-12 years. So an average working life of a printer, once a customer purchases it, is approximately that much, that's the working life. And then what happens is customers tend to start replacing the printers once about, you know, nine, 10 or 11, 12 years old, with some new equipment. They'll upgrade their lines also a lot of times, and they'll upgrade the equipment also a lot of times, depending on the situation. So that's the approximate life of our printers. And so once the customer purchases the printer, of course, it's his property. And, you know, we have a tag on the printer, so as long as the printer belongs to him, he's locked into using our consumables sort of thing.
So it's... And that's obviously where the majority of our revenue comes. And yeah, like, in general, like I said, like, that's the life of the printer. In some cases, we do have a lot of contracts, and it's been increasing as a percentage of parts of the world, where a lot of customers outsource their entire coding and marking business to us, or at least part factory-t o- factory, and, you know, we charge them on a per cost or per pipe or whatever type of basis, and that, so normally those contracts like, you know, three years at the very minimum to like six years. It depends on, depends on customer to customer, depending on how the whole calculation works out for us. So yeah, those are the different types of sales that are there.
But I'll just say like, obviously for us, we always prefer the CapEx. You know, we just sell the printer and then, you know, it's, it's customers, you know, property and... even though the margins are a bit higher on, you know, the, when we, we do the entire business for the customer. So the margins are normally higher in that. We normally prefer that the customer buys the printer. And, and of course, the last part was about the price hikes. So we don't normally hike regularly every year, but whenever there's a cost increase, then we pass it on. So our last price hike was last in Q4, of last year. Yeah, in Q3, Q4. So in Q3, we announced it last year, and then by the time it, it got implemented, it was Q4, Q4 of last year, Q1 of this year.
But yeah, we might increase the prices, you know, depending on the foreign exchange rates and, you know, depending on the type of inflation that's happening. But service is the only area we increase the prices every year in our service charges, but not necessarily in the inks or something. Sometimes we might increase the printer price. It just depends. If our cost increases, then we increase the prices, but normally we don't tend to just increase the prices if there's no increase in costs.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Karan Bhatelia from Asian Markets Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yeah, you are, Karan.
Yes. So I just wanted to understand, given the ongoing global supply chain challenges, do you think you can get some benefit of this in the near term?
No, we don't. There's no supply chain challenges right now.
Mm-hmm.
So, I mean, we are—at least for us, there's not been that much of an issue. Definitely, we had a lot of problems with COVID in the course of one and a half years before that, but now I think it's quite nice.
No, I was more referring from the Red Sea point of view. Yeah, given the global disruption in the supply chain, you think we can have some benefit?
So, in the end, it depends. If that means more manufacturing is gonna happen in India, you know, then we benefit. If it's just like a temporary, you know, their freight rates for other people increase, like, I don't see that affecting us, you know, too much.
Mm-hmm.
From what I understand, anyways, in the Red Sea, it's more of the oil and gas type of, you know, bulk of products which are going to be more affected. Obviously, like, in the end, if, if India's manufacturing picks up, you know, then we are gonna get a, a chunk of that. We're gonna get a chunk of, you know, the, the, you know, the print, the coding and marking requirements, Track-and-Trace about the other types of things so that they require. In the end, like I said, that's obviously like, you know, one of the, the negatives of our industry, that we can't create our own demand. We can't like, you know, create some sort of like a food snack-
Yeah.
and, you know, advertise it and do it. Like, you know, we depend on someone else to sell this food and, you know, then we benefit from that. You know, so that's, that's, that's true.
Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the clarity. Any closing remarks you want to make?
Yeah, I think that, I just want to first thank everyone for, for coming, you know, we really appreciate your time. And for us, this was a, a stable quarter. There's a couple of transitions that we're trying to do, which we'll see. One is, of course, we've been implementing our own sales strategy, our new sales strategy this year. And, over the three quarters in FY 2019, it's gonna take another, you know, four to five quarters for, you know, the... If, if the cultural shift, the mental shift is much more difficult than anything else, frankly, then, you know, I mean, I think so it's gonna take another four to five quarters for I, I think that to be streamlined.
Hopefully that will then result in, you know, not only better sales, you know, in terms of which we're already doing, in terms of better quality of sales is improved, but also like the quantity will ramp up. So we have a dual benefit. But again, like I said, there are some items which people asked on and I don't know, you know, totally, as Aditya has explained very, you know, perfectly, like, you know, there are some like changes that happen on a quarter-to-quarter basis, and, you know, it just depends. Maybe, you know, like a trailing 12-month basis is a better, better, better thing to look at. But, you know, it's everyone's call.
But of course, like the three initiatives that we've done in marketing with QR codes and with, you know, like our own, Track-and-Trace division. So I think, and, and V-Shapes , I, I think, like, if we see... Especially V-Shapes might take a little bit more time because of the cost of the materials, but I think that there should be some traction, at least in the previous quarters, and, market we feel more positive that, you know, we should get something like this, better integration with one of these projects now. So it's, and hopefully it'll still contribute to us in the long term, but again, in the short to medium term, it, it is core business that's gonna be the main driver for our, our company.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah, Aditya, over to you.
Yeah. Thank you. On behalf of Asian Markets Securities Private Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.
I also wanted to thank you, Karan, and AMSEC, for hosting this. Thank you. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, AMSEC. Thanks, Karan.
Welcome.
Have a good day.
Thanks, everyone. Thank you.