Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Relaxo Footwears Q4 FY25 Results and Business Update Conference Call, hosted by Elara Securities India Private Ltd. 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 zero on a touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Prerna Jhunjhunwala from Elara Securities India Pvt. Ltd. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Yusuf. Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Elara Securities, we welcome you all to Q4 and full year FY2025 post-results conference call of Relaxo Footwears Ltd. Today, we have with us the senior management of the company, including Mr. Ramesh Kumar Dua, Chairman and Managing Director; Mr. Gaurav Kumar Dua, Wholesale Director; Mr. Sushil Batra, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Ritesh Dua, Executive Vice President Finance; and Mr. Ankit Jain, Company Secretary and Compliance Officer. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Sushil Batra for opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Prerna. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our Q4 and FY2025 earnings call. We appreciate your continued interest in our company and are pleased to walk you through our financial and operational performance. The earnings release and investor presentation are already available on the stock exchanges and on our website for your reference. Before we move into the question and answer session, I would like to highlight some key performance metrics for Q4 and FY2025. Revenue from operations stood at INR 6.95 billion in Q4 FY2025 as compared to INR 7.47 billion in Q4 FY2024. The decline was primarily due to softer volume amid a challenging demand environment, particularly in the mid-range footwear segment. The big top volume quarter was at INR 1.12 billion as compared to INR 1.20 billion in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.
PAT was at INR 560 million with a margin of 8.1% in Q4 FY25. Now, moving to our FY25 performance. In FY25, we recorded a revenue of INR 2,790 crore. EBITDA was at INR 3,820 million with a margin of 13.7%. PAT for FY25 stood at INR 1,700 million with a margin of 6.1% as compared to 6.9% in FY24. The company has incurred a capex of INR 620 million net of capital subsidy, amounting to INR 170 million till 31st March 2025. Our company continued to be net debt-free, and due to working capital efficiency, reported investment of INR 3,570 million as of 31st March 2025. We have implemented key initiatives including the Relaxo Parivaar App as a seller model and broadening our e-commerce product offering. We are confident that these initiatives will establish a solid foundation for the future.
Although some uncertainties persist, we are confident to see an improvement in our performance on top line with EBITDA margin enhancement led by operational efficiency. Thank you. The floor is now open for 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 the touch-tone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Videesha Sheth from Ambit Capital. Please proceed.
Yes, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question was on the top line trend. I wanted to understand the volume behavior of Relaxo Footwears. While the consumption environment is not favorable at the moment, but beyond these external factors, could you elaborate on is there any structural challenges that could be impacting volumes either on the competition side, or you even spoke about restructuring of the distribution model? Could you elaborate that?
That's the first question from my side.
There are any volume. Our Hawai segment was under pressure. The poorer segment, middle-income segment, there has been what we experienced. Pressure on demand maybe these poor people are really struggling more. As a volume, that's affected to Hawai because they are more shares and less ASP. We covered the shares from other segments, but volume of pressure only because of the Hawai segment last year versus this year, 2% share of the share was less than our Hawai segment, which is meant for poorer segment of society.
Just to follow up to this, this is a segment where we've also taken similar price hikes to the tune of 70%, right? Just wanted to clarify.
There were no hikes. Last year, things were stable. There were no hikes at all. It is a very competitive environment also. We have to be cautious. Probably because we are working on our back-end operations, you will notice that our margin structure remains intact throughout the year. Margin structure has been quite good. We have created good cash flow this year. Our efficiency in utilizing working capital has also improved. All these things, our cash generation has been quite satisfactory. Our back-end operations are getting more efficient. This year also, we are working on it, and our profitability will improve this year also.
Can you talk a bit about the restructuring of the distribution model which you started upon in the press release?
Yeah. The work is going on, and we are facing good resistance from a lot of distributors because they do not want to become really fully transparent. The DMS, what we are implementing, a lot of people we are facing resistance. From primary mode of selling, we are focusing on secondary mode. This kind of effort company is doing, things are happening, happening slowly. We are in the right direction. Our foot is down. We are not giving unnecessarily too much credit to bad distributors. Some distributors are closed also. We are improving the quality of our distributor, quality of credit also given to the distributor. Sale for the year is somewhat affected, but in the years to come, things will be on much better footing because of focusing on improving sale at the distribution, not retailer level.
That is what is going to really change our complexion of the company itself. It has been a wholesale-driven company, but now it has to be a distribution-led company. We are facing resistance, but we'll overcome. Things are happening, and it will happen. By H1, I will do, you will see the difference. We are setting right our e-commerce model also, other things also. Because 75% is our distribution, our focus remains there much more.
Understood. That's all for my side.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Shraddha Kapadia from SMIFS. Please go ahead. Shraddha, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead with your question.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, please proceed.
Yeah. Shraddha, I just wanted to understand that our gross margin has been impacted. If you could mention the specific reasons for the same. Our EBITDA margin has remained flat for the quarter. What exact initiatives have we taken for us to achieve this? If you could provide a bit of guidance for the future, that would be very helpful. Thank you.
Gross margin, if you see last year versus this year, gross means, I think definition is we should be aligned. It's revenue minus cost of goods manufactured. So it has improved 0.7% roughly. It's majorly due to some material advantage and little bit price increase, which we took long back January 2024, not in this financial year. So there is a little improvement due to product mix and material advantage.
EBITDA remains constant, same last year versus this year. There is not hardly any change. The margin we have been able to protect, actually, in spite of loss in sale.
Sir, just to confirm, the gross profit margin for your Q4 for this quarter is 64.9%. Previously, it was 60.3%. There is a reduction of approximately 500 basis points.
You talk about Q4, Q4 what happened? There was a lot of decrease in the inventory. Yes, yes. Q4, yes, definitely. I was just pressing full year. Q4, it has come down. Reason there is a decrease in inventory. When there is a decrease in inventory, the conversion cost is also there in the inventory part. Due to that, it looks much higher, the cost of goods. That is not the real case because once inventory decreases, it adversely impacts the margins. It is accounting entry, not much more than that.
Okay, sir. If we take a look at the other expenses, then that has reduced very significantly. Do we see that we have reduced advertising spend, or if you could just put the mix of the other expenses, that would be very great.
Other expenses, yes, definitely there is a reduction in advertisement as compared to last year because production levels were also low due to low sale. That is also there because less production, less overhead, other expenses. These are the two major reasons.
Okay, sir. Thank you so much. Can I ask one more question?
Yes, yes. You can ask.
Okay. So if you could just give a percentage, if you have it handy, for the FSEC for the full F5?
X9.
Yes, sir.
How many will X9?
3%. It's 3% of the revenue.
3% of the revenue.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you so much. Also, our Disney and Marvel collection, how is it?
How much voice?
Your voice is not clear. Voice is breaking. Can you repeat the question?
Hello?
Yeah. Can you repeat the question? Your voice is breaking.
Yeah, sure. The Disney and Marvel collection contribution to the overall sales and how it is perceived by the consumer, and what is the response from the consumers? If you could highlight the sale.
Yeah. We just started.
Okay.
Yeah. We just started with Disney and Marvel, and the figure is quite low. It is too early to comment anything upon it. It is only available at our retail outlets.
Okay, sir. Thank you so much. I'll contact the team.
Thank you. Before we move to the next question, a reminder to the participants to ask a question. You may press star and one. Next question is from the line of Prerna Jhunjhunwala from Elara Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Just wanted to understand how have been the sales of closed footwear for the company, and how has it grown against last year?
Close is also 20%, and 80% is our open footwear. Last year, also, it was the same.
Okay. So we had increased our capacities also in terms of closed footwear. How do we see that segment moving going ahead?
Still, we are setting our e-commerce model because closed footwear is now moving a lot of share to e-commerce model. This year, we are focused on it. Still, there remains some challenge in the e-commerce because ASP is not proving to be at the moment profitable and efficient. Now we have created special line for e-commerce, which will have some good influence this year. Number of pairs overall, if you see, open and ratio remains same.
Okay. What will be the e-commerce share for us today as compared to in the past?
See, we are continuing the same percentage. Last year was 10%, and this year also it is at 10%. 10% of our revenue comes from e-commerce.
Okay. What will be our capacity utilization today?
Yeah. 55% is our capacity utilization.
Understood. So we had also started with DMS, and we were reaching approximately 1 lakh retailers in that initiative. Where are we now, and how do we take the learnings from there going forward?
Yes, yes. You're quite right. We have implemented DMS across India to all our distributors. One more thing we have done is we have launched the RPA program, which is called Retailer Parivaar App. In that, we have tied up 70,000 outlets. Seventy-five thousand have downloaded the app, and 60,000 are buying regularly. This is more advanced than the DMS. We are getting the data on how the consumptions are happening across India. This is a new thing which we started last year. In future, we'll have our data to understand what is the consumer requirement at different parts of the country.
How are you using this Relaxo Parivaar App into our product mix or availability quotient of the stores? I mean, I'm just trying to understand how are we using the data that we are collecting now?
See, it is just the first year. First year is to collect the data. Second year onwards, then we'll do upselling. The scheme, it is first for the retailers to download and start using it. Once they are into the habit, we'll understand which are the outlets who are giving more sales. We can target them well. We can take more shelf space, and we can focus there more.
Okay. Is there any incentive?
It has incentive program, yes. It has incentive program. We have given for starting from 2% to 7%. So depend upon the buying of the retailer.
Okay. Okay. Sir, I'll come back to the question queue. I have a few more questions, and we'll have more on this. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Devanshu Bansal from MK Global. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, we sort of interacted with the channel, and there were two feedbacks that we picked in our interactions. One is that during the course of FY 2025, there were multiple changes in terms of channel commissions, and that too in a very short period of time. That sort of brought in a lot of uncertainty in terms of distributors as in when to sort of purchase the stock and when not. Second feedback was that, obviously, it's a very good initiative in terms of the retail app, but there is difficulty in scanning of each and every product to get the sales target commission. There is feedback that retailers do not scan, and the burden sort of only increases with distributors.
I just wanted to check, as you also mentioned, that there is some resistance in terms of adoption of these good policies. Regular change of commissions, obviously, typically do not delve well with the trade. How are we trying to stabilize such commission rates going ahead?
Talking about commission, we have a fixed commission for our distributor. It is only the scheme, which is the add-on, which keeps on changing seeing the season. For example, if shoe season is there, the most scheme is given on the shoe. In the summer, most scheme is given on the Hawai category or the open category. This is nothing new what happened this year. This is every year phenomenon. Schemes go up and down slightly, but commission is fixed.
Sorry, I'm just saying on.
Yes, sir.
Yeah. The second thing you're talking about is RPA. Again, I'm telling you, it's the first year. It's the implementation year. So 75,000 retailers who have downloaded, 60 are regularly scanning the products. Yes, there is some technical issue in our which we are working upon it. Sooner or later, the habit will be there with the retailer, and they will get the benefit of this.
Got it. The feedback, obviously, I may not be understanding it properly, but the feedback that we were sort of getting is that MRP minus 35 is there. Sometime it is minus 37. Sometime it is 39. What kind of a is this largely because of the incentives, or there was some change in the commission? I wanted to just pick up. These were the things that we were getting in our feedback.
We have just launched RPA. We have started giving directly to the retailer. Yes, there was some resistance from the trade that you are reducing our margin a little bit and giving directly to the retailer. That was little, you can say, not taken well with the distributor in some months, which we have corrected later on.
Is it again directly to the retailer, or is it via distributor?
We are doing both. We are doing both, distributor as well as retailer. RPA is only for retailer, and distributor commission is separate with schemes.
Okay. Are the tensions and the resistance more or less largely done with, or they may be?
It's already done. Yeah. We have done in quarter four years.
Okay. Sir, now secondly on the demand front, obviously, there is some benefit expected out of the tax relief announced by the government, right? Obviously, April was the first month, but any initial signs that you are picking up in terms of how your trade exhibitions went for the upcoming season? Anything that you can sort of indicate which is giving you some confidence on the growth recovery front?
Currently, no. Actually, things are settling down because our retail app got accepted. Our trade has been now more secondary. We are going secondary focus. A little bit in the past, the situation made the thing a little jittery. We have to wait and see how the thing settles down. Otherwise, we are going on our fundamental strong distribution network is settling down. Because of the retail, this is currently what we experienced in the last four nights. That is a little bit our consumers and retailers. Retailers are there. On all north side, there were a lot of blackouts and disturbances in the market. That must have affected some sentiments and demand, let the thing stabilize. Things will be all right.
Got it, sir. That's it from my end. All the best for your upcoming quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rakshit Desai from IIFL. Please proceed.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is on the.
Mr. Desai, you are not audible clearly. Please use your headset.
Hi. Is it better now?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. My first question was on the U.K. trade deal. It has opened export opportunities across many sectors, including footwear. With an extensive manufacturing footprint, are you exploring this as a revenue stream?
Hi. Hitesh Dua this side. We are already in touch with a few leads in the U.K., but we need to see how we can explore this opportunity seeing own-branded footwear sales or the tablet table. We are open with both the ideas, and we will see how the opportunities come, and we will surely track them and capitalize that.
Okay. Understood. Understood. My second question was on the outlook on EBITDA margin. With the crude prices correcting, do you see margins inching up even as sales growth remains separate, or do you see competitive intensity heating up? Something that happened last time around?
No, I think this will be better because we are working on back-end operation, bringing efficiency. Things should be better than what we saw last year. It's quite a competition intensity.
Got it. Got it. Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nipun Sharma from VLS Finance. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, please go ahead.
For your financial 2025, your revenues were dropped by 4%. I just wanted to know the reason behind this and your future guidance on the revenues as well as the volume growth. Thank you.
One thing, you know, the labor consumer sentiment was muted last whole year. It has been actually happening for the last one or two years. Second thing, we are focusing on our general trade transformation, which generally from primary-led focus, we are putting focus to secondary-led and focusing on retail growth. To some extent, our distributor partners, they have been resisting all this transparency implementation of DMS and our retailers and all these things. That resistance is there. That has affected our sales also. Then quality of the distributor, a lot of distributors, there were a lot of credits against them. We did not want to give more credit. We wanted to discipline all the other distributors. All these things, our quality of distributor has gone up. Quality of data has gone up, and we have been able to bring down our inventory levels.
All this efficiency has brought good. Whenever you bring change of anything, it is always a pain, but it is pain for the short term. For the long term, it is going to be a real good gain for the company. That's it.
Okay. What is the future guidance for the company? Can you please share your future guidance?
The way market is, I don't think the sale will be too high or jump because the general conditions are not good. As for the we are focusing on profitable, improving the bottom line of the company. We are working on it. Our top line also in edge too, what I think keeping in view all transformation which we are bringing, these things are settling down. Our top line will also grow, and our bottom line will also grow.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Participants, to ask a question, you may press star and one. Next follow-up question is from the line of Shraddha Kapadia from Smith. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you so much for the opportunity again. Sir, if you could just give a basic guidance for the prospects for the next year.
Around INR 100 crore.
Okay, sir. Thank you so much. Not in terms of only revenue, but if we take a look, then our ASP has been increasing continuously. Do we have any targets for the next two or three years?
Because there are two things. Because the share of premium article and share of shoe business, that is going up, and our lower price segment like Hawai, that has gone down. So our average sale price has gone up. In future also, with the launch of more premium article, this will also improve for this.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much. Just one last question from my side. If you could highlight something on the BIS and how is this currently having an impact, especially for small players and how it will benefit to us? Just touch upon the recent.
As for the BIS concern, we have implemented this QCO, Quality Control Order. Things are settled down in our organization. As for others whom government has exempted, that is now government's outlook. I do not know. Up to now, micro and small, they are exempted.
Sure, sir.
Going to remain or they are going to implement, government has to decide. As for the BIS concern, our job is over. We are complying with it, and we have nothing to now fear or anything.
Okay, sir. Thank you so much. All the best for the future.
Thanks.
Thank you. Participant, if you wish to join the question queue, you may press star and one on your touchstone keypad. Next follow-up question is from the line of Prerna Jhunjhunwala from Elara Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello. We just wanted to understand, is there being any impact of the ongoing situation in the country on the sales? How should we take it for this quarter? I mean, what kind of impact should we assess?
Recently, what we are hearing from the market is some of the markets in north, they were keeping the retail outlets off. Now the things have improved. Now the things are from, I think, today onward, they're seeing that all the outlets are again open. I think it's a matter of some time, things will come back to normal, and we will have a normal quarter.
Okay. Do we look forward to reducing prices given that raw material prices are coming down?
As of now, we have not seen any major shift in raw material prices. As soon as there is any change, we'll.
No, no. There is no change.
There is no change as of now in raw material prices.
Okay. Because crude oil prices were coming down, we thought that there could be a rub-off effect on our raw material.
Till now, there is no change in raw material for us.
Okay. Sir, in e-commerce, now we understand that there is a lot of competition in the mid-segment, mid-price segment and all. How are we thinking about product launches? How many SKUs do we think are we increasing? How are we connecting with the younger generation going forward? Any thoughts on the sales?
First of all, we have segregated our portfolio. We had our general trade portfolio. Now we have specific e-com portfolio. There was a price war between these two channels, but now we have addressed that. Secondly, we have now started selling through BAS, business bestseller. Earlier, we were giving directly to Flipkart and Amazon. Now we are not doing through them because they were also undercutting the prices. We have really designed our portfolio according to consumer need. Sorry, go ahead.
Any examples that you could help us understand how consumers are liking or accepting whatever you are selling now? I mean, any initial feedback, anything that you can share?
It's just like we have to really understand the consumer and design product accordingly. Now the fashion is moving toward more sneakers. We have really developed our portfolio line to address that category. We are getting good response.
Okay. Okay. What about the opening price point? Because there is a lot of competition, as you mentioned earlier. Our opening price points were around INR 700-INR 800. Do we face any major competition there, or are we gaining some market share over there? How are we seeing our market share in the closed footwear category, and how are we improving there in the opening price point segment?
Major sales is from INR 1,000-2,000 in e-commerce platform. Yes, you are right. There are a lot of local players who have entered in this price point. We are following our own ways of selling, so we have designed our portfolio accordingly. Gaining the market is very difficult to get the data of what is the total size of the market and which consumers are buying from what competitors. It is very difficult to share the data with us here.
Okay. Are you confident of maintaining our margins or improving our margins in FY 2026?
Yes, yes. We are very optimistic that we will improve our margin here.
Around 100 basis points is something that we should look forward to?
Yes, yes. It's workable. Definitely, it will be a little higher, but that is surely workable, 1% plus.
Will this come from improved mix, or what will be the reason for margin improvement in your opinion?
We are working on both sides. Definitely one of the high-value item product mix, and majorly we are working on the cost side. We are driving a lot of efficiencies in the system back end and at plant level. We are working on that. That all will bring at least good margin improvement in the coming times.
Is any further improvement possible in the working capital from your end? Anything possible over there in terms of inventory reduction or data reduction, something?
Yeah. That possibility is there, definitely, but not in a big way because the volume will increase. That's what we are expecting. Overall, from the inventory holding or working capital, overall gain, it will come down. It will come down.
Working capital, yes. That's still going to work.
Okay. Okay. Anything on the retail strategy? How many EBOs would you like to open this year? Where do we see you in various brands, if at all, any Sparx store or anything that you are planning on the retail side? We would like to get some clarity over there.
This year, we are adding 50 more retail outlets. We are also modernizing retail outlets and a few Sparx S2C outlets also.
Okay. You also started with the quick commerce deliveries, right? Any color on that? Where the value share will be for that segment? How is it doing?
We are really tied up with all the quick commerce platforms. It is too early to comment upon that. We are seeing good sales contribution from that channel. It is too early to say anything on this.
Okay. Maybe we can check with this six months later.
Yes, yes. Yeah. Correct.
Okay. Thank you, sir. I will come back to the questions you sent me. Thank you.
Thank you. Next follow-up question is from the line of Devanshu Bansal from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity again. Sir, we sort of indicated that we may sort of explore the export side of the business, right? I just wanted to check. One, U.K., obviously, maybe the product is more on a premium side, while in India, currently, we are at the entry level. One, I wanted to understand that bit. Second, how big can this opportunity become, right? If any initial outlook that you can provide us from that perspective.
Export side, we have been exporting raw G2 to the African continent and Far East, Southeast Asia. These have been our major markets. And some part of Central America as well. Seeing the product file we are having, we have been putting our same product line toward these markets, seeing the market potential and the price point what we are working in. Now, seeing the latest development of the deals that are happening, yes, we are open to this. Just a few questions back, I replied that we are open to both the option, like our own branded or the private label.
Do you think there is a market for our products, or we have to change the product strategy for U.K.?
Market is, we have market for all kinds of products in the U.K. We have seen that the traction is for EVA footwear. We have a good opportunity. Then we have, even in flip-flops, we have a good opportunity. Beside that, we are scoring opportunity for Sparx, right, like sports shoe, extra-form shoes. Whatever opportunity we will have, we will surely grab it.
Understood. Is there a component of Capex towards this opportunity within that INR 100 crore that we have sort of talked about? Are we specifically dedicating some of that towards this opportunity, or how should we see that?
See, we already have good capacity, as you know, that we have a surplus capacity with us. We will be able to utilize that capacity well. In fact, we will get the advantage of utilizing that capacity in a better way. We will give a benefit on fixed cost, definitely, by utilizing that capacity.
Okay. So any indication that you can provide, sir? What is the thought process behind investing another INR 100 crore? Where, in what segments, that is specifically going since our utilizations are relatively lower as of now?
One thing is certain. New articles have to be introduced. So cost of new goods, that is a regular feature, around INR 30 crore every year, it has to go there. Then opening of new 50 retail outlets, their capital will go. We are also making major capital investment in energy-saving devices, like putting solar energy, and then fuel-efficient boilers, where we have saved the cost. It will help us in the long run. These are the investments. Some of the expenditure is on our projected budget from office expenditure.
Last question, sir. From a distribution perspective, what is your target in terms of addition of distributors and retail outlets for the current year?
See, our target, we have last time we mentioned that we have reached 70,000 outlets. We are going to really increase it by 5%-10% in that sense because what regular buying is happening is around 50,000-60,000 outlets are buying regularly from us. We have to first take it to 70,000 and then increase our base.
Okay. So it's more mining of existing outlets? Can we term it that way rather than addition of new?
Correct. Correct. You can say that.
Also, addition of new distributors. We are targeting adding 100 new distributors in the distribution business.
If we're not adding outlets, it will be like division of these 50,000-60,000 into more distributors for better servicing of those outlets. Is this the way to look at it?
Yes. Yes. Because we have four brands with us. Some brands are weak and some are strong. We want equal representation of all our brands.
Okay. Last follow-up on this. Is this like are we also targeting brand-specific distributors, or that's not the case as of now?
No, not yet. We will see how things will go.
Got it. Got it, sir. Thanks for my question.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, participants to ask a question, you may press star and one. Next question is from the line of Siddhant Gupta from RV Investments. Please proceed.
Good evening, team. Just a small question. When can we expect some improvements in our sales volume, and what could be the drivers behind it?
We are setting our distribution model, and we are focusing on that. This improvement will help. We are focusing on secondary sales. Opening of new retail shops, around 50, we are doing. Focus on our modern trade. All these things will help to see uptake as to onward because still some distribution is 75% of our contribution in sale. Here, it is taking time to revamp all these distribution setup, which is from primary to secondary. As to onward, you will see uptake. Although we may get earlier also, but as to onward, a lot of things will settle down, and things will improve.
Okay, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Participants to ask a question, you may press star and one. Next follow-up question is from the line of Prerna Jhunjhunwala from Elara Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Just one last question. Just trying to understand that because you're connected to Relaxo Parivaar App, can we distinguish how much would be secondary sales through this app initiative and how much can be primary sales through distributor-led model? Just trying to understand the effectiveness of this initiative taken.
It has been just one year we have implemented this app, and we are very happy to see that 50% of our sales has been captured there. We can see the retailers, whoever are scanning, and they are selling the products. At least 50% is captured. Whatever we are selling to distributors, 50% of that is being captured in this RPA app, Retailer Parivaar App.
This will only improve.
This will improve month on month.
Okay. Okay. What changes are you trying to do in the distributors' system? Because I'm just trying to understand how things can improve radically in terms of distributor acceptance or product acceptance. What are we trying to change in the distribution system to improve our sales?
First thing is we have identified the distributors who are not going or the distributors who are giving a lot of discounts or doing the value erasion. We are closing them down. Secondly, we are going to appoint a huge number of distributors. Like MDS said, 100 more distributors will be added. Secondly, RPA plus DMS implementation. A lot of things are going to happen here.
Secondary sales?
Yes. The mindset shift from primary sales to secondary sales is going to happen, which is taking a little time. A lot of wholesale to retail mindset takes time. A lot of small, small actions we are taking to improve our distributor growth, sales growth.
Just trying to understand how are you monitoring the growth from them? Largely because sales growth will be a function of revenue and the volume and the mix improvement. Price hike is in your hands. Volume and mix improvement, anything that you are targeting towards mix improvement? We are at close footwear at 20% for a long time now. How do we really?
The company is taking control of sales.
Sorry, sir. My name is Nagar Singh.
You're drawing sales officers. The sales officers are going to the retailers. That is going to help us what we want to sell, where we want to sell, how much we want to sell. Our control will be more because our people are in the market selling to the retailers. That is the way forward. We have to take the responsibility of selling ourselves in front of our sales team and less on the distributor.
Plus, we are going to increase our ASP as well. What launches we are doing, our NPDs, we focus upon that to improve our product mix as well. Multiple things are happening too.
Okay. Okay. What is the price range of sneakers that we have launched?
These are all above INR 1,000, INR 1,000-INR 2,000.
INR 1,200 plus.
INR 1,200 plus.
INR 1,200 plus. Okay. Okay. And it ends at INR 2,000 or it goes above INR 3,000-INR 4,000?
INR 2,500.
INR 2,500.
INR 2,500. Okay. Understood. Understood, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much for detailed response. Really appreciate the same. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rajiv B. from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, with regard to these compliant distributors which you mentioned, what is the revenue per distributor of this lot currently? I mean on an average.
We can say we have more than 500 distributors. On average, we are doing more than INR 40 million per distributor.
Of the compliant lot? Or who have already transitioned to your?
He's contributing to sales. Total number of distributors with the average sale of INR 40 million.
650 was the number which was there in the presentation if I'm not wrong.
Yeah. Which I'm talking about is the active month on month.
Okay. No, I was asking there is pushback which is coming from a certain lot of distributors, right? There are distributors who are already embarked on your DMS journey and working with their RPA app as well. The contribution of those distributors is larger in the sense for distributor revenue?
That number we have to see. What we have noticed is around 10% of our distributors we are facing more challenges in terms of changing their mindset or who were not growing or cutting a lot of discount in the market. These are the corrections we have identified, and we are going to replace them with the new distributors.
Sure. Is it safe to assume that the average new distributor would be smaller in quantum in terms of revenue per distributor? Is that the incremental which you're adding in future?
It depends upon the market. In your market, they will be slower, but in the existing market, they will be a bigger distributor.
Sure. In Sparx, what is the standard shoes mix currently?
For Sparx, wear is 40% of the sale.
Right.
The 50% is shoes.
50%.
The rest is sandals.
Yeah. Because if I remember a few years back, I think 2022, 2021, your shoes used to be 40%. The ASP has not moved up despite the, let's say, the contribution of shoes portion has gone higher. Any reason why?
In this brand, there are three things. One is sandals, second is shoes, and third is our fabricated slippers. That is also a share because that has also grown this year, which is in the price range of INR 400 or something.
INR 400-INR 2,000.
That is why you are noticing this thing average out when it happens.
Sure. What is the reach of Sparx currently in terms of touchpoints?
We have more than 25,000 outlets Sparx is present.
Okay. There was a question on gross margin. I could not understand it clearly. There is a drop in gross margin, and when I see that your inventory has decreased for the second half, close to, I think, INR 100 crore in the second half. The channel inventory in general is healthy, or you have pushed something to the channel by rolling out higher discounts, and that will basically affect, let's say, future sales in the next couple of quarters at least?
No, no. We are watching our secondary sales, which is more important. We can push primary, but rather we are more concerned. We just do not want to push primary sales. We have to watch the quality of the sale. That is through secondary.
In March, there was a pull, definitely, because people have to achieve their targets. That's why this inventory has come down in the month of March. Due to that, margin seems lower side, but that is not the actual case. Overall, margins are intact and a little better at full level. In March, because inventory was reduced, every inventory was reduced in a big way. That's why it's looking different in this quarter for.
Sure. That's all from me, sir. Thanks a lot, sir.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you may press star and one. Next question is from the line of Ashish Shah from Business Match. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Thank you for taking my question. There are two questions, both slightly long-term in nature. If one was to take a three to four-year outlook ahead, do you see meaningful volume growth ahead if one was to look at it slightly long-term rather than the next few quarters?
We are moving in that case, volume may not be there, but overall growth will happen. We have to see quality of sale, whether we focus more on premium or more on mass articles. Since mass articles are under pressure because the lower segment of the society are going through more pressure and premium articles are getting more accepted, we will be focusing there. Value sales may be more proportional to the volume sale. That you will say.
Okay. Sure. Thanks. Sir, the second question is on ROCE. Even if growth was to meaningfully improve over the next two, three years, do you see ROCE also moving meaningfully higher? If yes, then what are some of the levers that you have for you to improve ROCE? Or ROCE will remain in this band even if volume was to improve?
ROCE will definitely improve when we are working over the core side. Overall, EBIT will improve because EBITDA will improve, and everything is going to improve. We are expecting it will improve by at least 2-3% in coming time.
Okay, sir. Okay, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, if you wish to join the question queue, you may press star and one. As there are no further questions from the participants, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
This is all from our side, and we thank you all for joining the call. Looking forward to joining you again. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of Elara Securities India Private Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.