Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Emami Limited Q1 FY 2026 earnings conference call hosted by IIFL Capital. 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 touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Percy Panthaki from IIFL Capital. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Emami 's first quarter conference call. From the management, I have with me Mr. Mohan Goenka, Whole-time Director and Vice Chairman, Mr. Vivek Dhir, CEO of International Business, Mr. Gul Raj Bhatia, President, Healthcare, Mr. Manish Gupta, President, Sales, Mr. Giriraj Bagri, Chief Growth Officer, Mr. Rajesh Sharma, President, Finance, and IR. Joining us for the first time on the call is also Mr. Zairus Master, CEO of The Man Company. To take you through the results, handing over to Mr. Mohan Goenka, and then we'll open up for Q&A. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Percy. Very good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today for our Q1 FY 2026 earnings call for the quarter ended 30th June , 2025. As you are aware, the overall demand environment in this quarter remained challenging. Urban discretionary consumption continued to remain under pressure, while rural demand showed early signs of recovery. However, the unusually soft and shortened summer season, driven by unseasonal rain and the early onset of the monsoons, adversely impacted consumption across our summer-focused portfolio. Despite these headwinds, we maintained a stable top line, with overall revenue remaining broadly flat. The talcum powders and prickly heat powder category, which is highly dependent on summer demand, was significantly impacted and declined by 17%.
Excluding talc and prickly heat powders, our core domestic business delivered a healthy 6% revenue growth and a 3% volume growth, reflecting the underlying strength and resilience of our broader offerings. It is also encouraging to note that Navratna oil delivered a 6% growth despite the subdued summer season. It is important to contextualize the 17% year-on-year decline in talc and prickly heat powder range, which comes off a significantly high base of 54% growth in last year's same quarter. On a two-year CAGR basis, this category continues to be healthy with a 13% growth. When we look at the full summer season, that is from January to June 2025, the category posted flat growth despite weather-related headwinds, a clear reflection of consumer stickiness and a very strong brand equity. Our pain management range grew robustly by 17%, while BoroPlus antiseptic creams grew by 60%.
Our healthcare range maintained a steady growth of 4%. Male grooming range declined by 9%, and Kesh King declined by 5%. Strategic investments declined by 4%. We remain confident in their long-term fundamentals, supported by ongoing brand and distribution interventions. Innovation continues to be a key growth driver. During the quarter, we launched Dermicool Prickly Heat Spray and various other variants under Navratna and BoroPlus brands. We also relaunched Navratna Gold and Zandu Roll-On. Further, three new digital-first innovations were rolled out via the Zandu portal. On the distribution front, we saw continued traction in our organized channels, which grew by 6%, with saliency improving by 190 basis points. Quick commerce remains a strategic growth channel, scaling up rapidly at nearly 3x YoY, further validating our omnichannel playbook. Our international business delivered a modest 2% growth despite macroeconomic volatility and geopolitical uncertainty in some key markets.
We have made meaningful progress in expanding our footprints across some other Southeast Asian markets, where initial traction from a focused portfolio has been promising. As this portfolio gains momentum, we plan to broaden our offerings to capture additional growth opportunities. We remain deeply committed to long-term value creation in our international markets. On the financial front, our gross margins expanded by 170 basis points to 69.4%. EBITDA stood at INR 214 crore, a marginal decline of just 1%, with a 20 basis points contraction in margins, primarily attributable to flat top line. PAT grew by 9% to INR 164 crore. Looking ahead, we are excited about the next phase of our growth journey. Smart and Handsome is being extended into other male grooming categories in this quarter. Kesh King is undergoing a strategic transformation, reimagining the brand for sustained relevance and future growth.
This change is going to take place in this quarter. The Man Company has returned to growth in June 2025, and we are confident of maintaining this momentum through a sharper positioning and a 360-degree brand revamp. Our digital-first brands are gaining traction, and we are further amplifying growth on marketplace and quick commerce platforms to drive reach and relevance among new-age consumers. We remain confident on the margin front, and we do not anticipate any significant input cost pressures in the near term. We believe the macro environment will gradually improve, supported by abhorrent monsoons, stabilizing inflation, and ongoing consumption recovery. With our strategic levers of innovation, distribution expansion, digital acceleration, and cost agility firmly in place, we are well-positioned to drive sustainable and profitable growth in the quarters ahead. With that, I would now like to open the floor for questions. Thank you.
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 touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question, please press star and two.
Question two.
You may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please proceed.
Yeah, thanks for the question, for the opportunity. My first question is a bit structural. We have seen the last five years most companies not very happy with the initial expectation on the male grooming. In your case also, we have seen even this quarter the decline is there in both the male grooming kind of segment, The Man Company, and Smart and Handsome. You have commented that in The Man Company, July has seen growth. That one month, ultimately, we have to see longer-term trends. My question is to the business head of The Man Company and also to the overall Emami, what is the long-term expectation from this category? Because most companies have not really been able to crack this. Ultimately, this seems to be good on paper, but growth and explosive growth, in fact, growth itself is a challenge in this structurally. Could you comment on that?
Zairus, why don't you talk about The Man Company? After that, I'll take on the Fair and Handsome particular.
Sure, sure. Yeah, I think, you know, in my view, male grooming is still a very underexploited and underdeveloped segment of the market, and we are seeing that, but we are seeing there's a huge potential for that. I think what is required is, especially in the case of The Man Company, we have not really worked on the brand and the top of the funnel for some time, and I think that rejuvenation is required. We are already seeing a trend where, if you look at sequential trends, and I completely agree with you that it has to eventually come alive in the long run. Even if you look at sequential trends over the last two, three months, they are looking positive, and you know, month on month, it's looking better.
From that perspective, you know, we strongly believe that this is a segment that will grow quite handsomely in the near term as long as we work on the fundamentals.
Sure.
Abneesh, see, very honestly, in the last few years, the advertising spends have come down because of the overall market sentiment in this category. As far as because we were driving this category before, if you talk of the last five years, you know, but unfortunately, you know, Fair and Handsome has not been growing, which is a fact. After this brand name change, we are seeing there is a lot of D2C competition which has come in in the last few years. Overall, I think the market has grown for sure for the male grooming, which is not being captured holistically somewhere. Coming specific to Smart and Handsome, this is an absolute new launch, and we are seeing some headwinds, I think, and we are launching a lot of new categories in this quarter. We have a robust plan. Let us see how it goes.
We don't think very short term, Abneesh. Yes, there may be some quarters, bad quarters, but I think, as Zairus clearly mentioned, it is a very, very underpenetrated category, and there is a lot of scope in the male grooming.
One quick follow-up here, Mohan ji. I completely agree on the D2C impact. My specific question here is, launching adjacency and relaunching. Smart and Handsome, you had relaunched even in Q4, but Q1, again, there is again a talk of more kind of relaunch, etc. I wanted to understand, is this the answer? Launching adjacency and launching, relaunching, will it be enough to compete with D2C? Because if that was easy, I think you and the other legacy companies could have cracked it. I'm trying to understand, you do have The Man Company, which itself is a D2C, but is that enough? I wanted to understand that bit.
For sure, we are not competing with each other. There is a clear market. They are primarily on e-commerce and others. Their pricing is very different than what we are doing, and there's market for both. I think both for The Man Company, they're more into fragrances and other categories. We are more into some personal care and other categories, and pricing is also different. Abneesh, as I said, I think there is enough opportunity as far as male grooming is concerned. We are definitely focusing after our relaunch big time. Let us see with which brand we get traction. It is very difficult for us to say at this point of time, but we're not going to leave this because it's a prime brand for us, both The Man Company and Smart and Handsome.
Absolutely. Last question on the demand side. Your comments seem to be a bit more cautious. If I see some of the other business updates, say by Godrej Consumer, Marico, or even HUL's results, which have come, and when I also see paint company, India's number one paint company, call out the green shoots. Against that, your comments seem to be a bit more reserved. My specific question here is on the urban demand. You're still not talking about green shoots or recovery. If you could answer, when do you see that coming, green shoots in the urban side of the demand? In terms of modern trade and quick commerce, if you could comment how the growth has been there, and how the profitability is there in those two channels. Thanks.
My commentary may sound a little muted, only because we are struggling on our talc, and that continues in the second quarter also. Excluding the talc, honestly, and with the relaunch of Kesh King in this quarter and some of the new launches in Smart and Handsome, I am confident that we will be able to recover much better. Definitely, there is some green shoots. I'm not saying a no in urban also. Unless the overall results, overall sentiment goes up, which in our case is dragged by the summer, unfortunately, and specifically talc, other than that, I think we are very, very well placed, honestly. On the modern trade and e-commerce, let me just hand it over to Manish.
Yeah, hi. See, on the MTGT, MT, and e-com front, again, the story is the same as for the rest of the business. The talc is something where we did suffer some headwinds. As far as the non-talc business is concerned, we are growing pretty well. The saliency and the importance of these two channels has only grown up in quarter one, as was stated by Mohan ji.
Thank you. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nitin from Emkay. Please proceed.
Yeah, thanks a lot for the opportunity. My first question is with respect to the pain management where we have seen a heightened growth. Is this more attributed to early monsoon that has helped? I also wanted to check if the monsoon sort of extends, then this portfolio will be equally beneficial for us in Q2?
Yes, absolutely. Nitin, this 17% growth in the pain management is attributable to early monsoons. This is the peak season for this portfolio, and we have seen the same results in the month of July also. If the monsoon continues, which is predictable that the monsoons are going to be good this year, hopefully, this category should do well.
Okay, thank you. Second question is around the healthcare where we have seen 4% growth, which sort of has slowed down. Is it more of a transient or like a high base will limit growth ahead?
Yeah, Gul Raj?
Yes, sir.
It seems to be a one-off issue. As you can see, over the last many quarters, we've been having good growth in healthcare. Quarter one was somewhat challenging, especially for the OTC range, where I think there was a bit of a downturn in the market. We also checked out with various other companies in the OTC space and IRS space. They have also seen a similar trend. We are carrying out initiatives for quarter two to overcome the blip which has happened. We are hoping for a much better performance in quarter two.
This is the last. The last question is around your gross margin expansion. If you can help me understand what exactly led to this gross margin expansion, and aligned with that, I just wanted to check, like other expenses have also gone up. Is there any shift in sort of line items between these two heads?
It is primarily driven by the mix because normally pain management has a higher margin compared to the talc. It is due to the mix that the margins have gone up.
Okay, thank you. This is very helpful.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please proceed.
Yeah, hi, good afternoon. My first question was on the new launch pipelines. You put out a slide on the things you're doing. If you just kind of bifurcate this, it seems to be in the categories that we are either strong or already have a good hold on. If you look at, say, extensions in prickly heat or in oils or in Zandu Care, I just wanted to get a sense from Mohan ji that is this how we look at initiatives now for the next, say, 12, 24 months that really penetrate into the larger macro categories that we are into? Is that the innovation strategy that we should expect going forward as well and not really maybe venture into, say, newer subcategories or newer categories, just increase penetration in terms of new variants in the larger macro categories that we are in?
Is that the way to think about it?
Harit, the strategy is two-pronged. It's not that we are averse of completely new categories, but the work is on in those also. At the same time, we have to leverage our existing brands. As much as we can leverage those, why not? As I said, this quarter, you're going to see a number of launches in the Smart and Handsome range, plus a lot in Kesh King range. We really want to leverage our existing brands and make as strong as much as possible. Also, The Man Company, Zandu Care will also see a lot of new launches going forward.
In that context, Mohan ji, do you see ANP spends kind of move up further? I mean, as a percentage of sales this quarter, it's a tad lower. From a full-year basis, do you see that number getting stepped up as a percentage given that we have some gross margin leverage also?
Not really, Harit. I should. I think we will be maintaining our ANP spends as per last year's trends.
Got it. Got it. Got it. The last piece was, you know, we've seen this decline, obviously, in Smart and Handsome, Kesh King, and the male grooming portfolio. Do you see growth in these portfolios now to be expected in the second half of the year with all the initiatives that you're taking? Is 2H the right benchmark to look at for growth in these portfolios?
See, hopefully, because see, we as marketers, we keep on trying, right? As I said, we are never going to leave these opportunities because still the penetrations are low and we are the leaders in these categories. When the market will bounce back, it is very difficult for me to predict. Yes, Kesh King is again a big relaunch in this quarter. Let's hope that, you know, it rebounds. Smart and Handsome was already relaunched. Now, from this quarter, we are launching 10, 12 new products under this new umbrella. That should also bring some traction into the category. A lot of activities are happening, you know, in every category, every channel. Unfortunately, the talc has dragged us this quarter, and same continues, unfortunately, in the second quarter. Otherwise, excluding talc, I think we are very well placed.
It is very difficult for us to say which quarter the numbers will bounce back or which quarter the category will bounce back. Yes, I can say we are not losing consumers. At the same time, we are not able to attract a lot of new consumers. As marketers, this is our job, and we keep on doing that. We keep on trying.
Good to know. The last part was on pain management. I don't understand actually the dynamics from Q1 to Q2. Is it that the primaries were high in Q1 and that affects Q2 growth on the primary side for pain management because typically Q2 is a larger quarter, or that understanding is not correct?
No, this time Q1 was exceptionally good because of early monsoons. Of course, the.
Correct, correct.
Yeah. Secondaries are in line with our primaries. There is no stock up in any of the channels for any of those.
Does Q2 typically have a higher primary in, you know, for example, versus base quarter? What I'm trying to say is that.
Yes, yes. Q2 is a bigger quarter for pain management than Q1, for sure.
Given that sales have shifted a little bit into Q1, does that then impact our Q2 YoY growth this time, or that's not the right way to look at it?
No, I don't think that will have an impact because July was quite good for pain management.
Great. Those are my questions. Wish you all the best, Mohan ji. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Param Vora from Trinetra Asset Managers. Please proceed.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I'm sorry I missed a few parts of the Q&A session. Excuse me if I repeat the question. What I wanted to ask was that with international business showing a modest growth, despite macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties contributing to 16% to overall sales, are we exploring to increase the exports and to increase the share in the revenue?
Yeah, Vivek?
Yeah, Param. International business showed around 3% growth, 5% only because of one country. Bangladesh, where we had a very, very muted, in fact, decline over there. The rest of the business has grown by close to 14% for us. One country where we have faced little headwinds, and we are trying to resurrect those so that we are back on track. Hopefully, very soon, we should be back on track even in that market. The issue pertaining to largely one market.
Okay. Are we exploring any new geographies or will we stick to the nations we are serving right now?
The new geographies are a continuous effort that will keep on happening along with the development of portfolio and making the current portfolio relevant for the newer geographies. We have been able to scale up one new geography, which has given us some good results in the last five, six months. I don't want to name the country at the moment, but it is showing some decent results to us. During the course of this financial year, we'll be opening new geographies as well, and that will be, I think, facilitated with the launch of new portfolio.
Okay. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may please press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Percy from IIFL . Please proceed.
Yeah, sir. We have a Kesh King relaunch this quarter that hopefully should take care of some growth issues in this brand. What about Fair and Handsome? We are still seeing a sort of negative sales here, I mean, sales decline here. What is the plan here to bring it back to growth?
Sorry, Percy. Sorry, I missed your question, Percy, unfortunately.
Yeah, I was saying Kesh King is declining, but there is a relaunch planned for that, and hopefully, that should take care of the growth issues. Fair and Handsome, I think, is still not out of the woods. It sells weak. What is the plan here for strengthening Fair and Handsome growth?
Percy, the Fair and Handsome is primarily the cream portfolio, the famous cream, which is dragging down the business. Unfortunately, that is not growing despite the change in the brand name. The only way is to grow the portfolio, and the idea of changing from Fair and Handsome to Smart and Handsome was also that, that we want to get into a larger space of male grooming. The combined business should be much bigger because the opportunity has now become much, much wider. That is the only way to grow. Our enhanced focus is on the face wash category, which has become quite big compared to the cream. We are formulating a strategy to win in the face wash market. That hopefully should help in the H2.
In cream, what exactly is the issue? I mean, have you done some kind of market research, focus groups, or anything of that sort which tells you why people are not using the cream? Also, a related question is.
I've been.
Yeah, please go.
Percy, always that because of the beard-keeping habit, the surface area is reduced. The young generation now is mostly keeping beards.
Right.
Wouldn't that issue be in the base by now?
Yeah, that is in the base, but we're not getting in new consumers, you know, because that is a challenge.
Okay.
Yeah.
Any kind of.
We have to.
Going forward, we have to have less reliance on this, only one cream, and get into face wash and adjacent categories.
Right. Any kind of friction issues in terms of the brand name change? Sometimes the modern trade doesn't list you because the brand name has changed, or sometimes the distributors are a little bit confused, or rather the retailers are a little bit confused. The consumers might not know that this is the original Fair and Handsome. They might be confused. Have you done some kind of intense communication drives to make sure that there is no lost sales in this transition process?
Oh, yeah, yeah. 100%, Percy. Without that, we don't even go to the market. The entire research was done, and by and large, people have accepted it. There is no place where the new product has not been launched. We are still writing both the brand names. Fair and Handsome and Smart and Handsome, both are on the packaging. There is no chance of confusion.
Got it. Got it. Sir, with this relaunch, was there any sensorial change in the cream in terms of the perfume or in some other case? Sometimes these changes don't go down very well with consumers also.
No. We keep on improving products, Percy, whether with the change in the brand name or despite that also, if there are any improved formulations, which happens in almost every category. One formula doesn't stick forever because there are changing needs. The consumer trends change. The consumer behavior changes. According to the research, we tweak a little bit of formulations.
Got it. Got it. Coming back to Kesh King, I know that you have a sort of relaunch pending, and therefore, you might or might not be able to give certain details. Is it that the brand has fallen out of favor, or what is the problem diagnosis as to why it is not growing? We can understand what the interventions are to be done, right? Have we found out the reason behind the brand not growing?
No. Of course, Percy. The brand team is constantly doing consumer research and understanding the reasons. The key reason has been the D2C players. There have been a lot of new D2C interventions in this category. That is the key reason. Of course, BCG has looked into every possible option. The new strategy will take care of that also.
Okay. Understood. I guess when we have this call next quarter, we'll be able to talk a little more freely as to what exactly has been sort of tackled in the relaunch.
Yeah.
Okay, sir. We can go back to the question queue.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Agarwal from Ikigai Asset. Please proceed.
Hi. Good afternoon, Mohan ji. Sir, two questions. One is, obviously, talc, I understand it's impacted, but ex of talc, we've grown about 6% value growth. I would imagine this year, second half looks better. We'll retain our value growth of 8%- 9% for the full year. Is that a fair understanding?
I can't really comment at this point of time on 8%- 9% of growth. A lot will because first quarter, unfortunately, overall growth was not there. Second quarter also has a high base of talc. July has been pretty muted for talc. Overall numbers may be slightly challenging, but ex of talc, I don't see any challenge. I see good numbers. As I said in my opening remarks, I don't see any challenge on margins. We will definitely try to make up the losses we make on talc through other categories. Top line can be slightly challenging because last year, base was very high for talc.
Understood. Understood. Secondly, on the.
Profitable growth should come because Kesh King, pain balms, and antiseptic creams, those are profitable brands.
Right. Right. Got that. Secondly, on consult margins, obviously, you have said don't foresee much of input pressure. It should be profitable growth for the full year because we are seeing a lot of new product launches on The Man Company as well as Zandu Care. I think that will also expand. I was actually thinking that in case we can reduce some cash burn from those two brands, maybe that can also add up to overall margins. Should we expect them, the cash burn, to remain flat, or should we expect them to increase a bit because of a lot of new products in the pipeline?
Sorry, what? The cash?
What I meant was The Man Company and Zandu Care, I think they have a bit of losses, right? I was saying I was expecting that to decrease in fiscal 2026/2027. That could add to overall consolidated profitability. Is that the case, or how would the trend be?
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I think both The Man Company and the Zandu Care will definitely have lesser losses compared to the last years.
That should add to the bit of margin, right?
That should add to some bit of margin. See, it's a large portfolio, which is very difficult for me to say which portfolio will fire when, okay? Because mix makes a lot of difference. If BoroPlus doesn't fire, then there is an impact. It's very difficult for me, Rahul, to say which product will fire. Overall, I'm saying if we see the trends, we monitor it almost on a regular basis. If we see certain trends, then we, of course, change some internal mixes, reduce some advertising somewhere. Margin has never been an issue as far as Emami is concerned.
Got it. Got it. Lastly, you know, the idea behind the rebranding and the new logo, I obviously read the press release, but just as in terms of thought process, how does it go in terms of communication with the trade channels and on the packaging? Does it make any commercial sense on that, please?
Commercially, no. This is more of a, you know, corporate logo. It doesn't have an impact at the consumer or the trade level, very honestly, because we don't use this logo in packs or in any communication.
Gotcha. Okay.
It was just to celebrate.
Not for the product.
It was just to celebrate 50 years of Emami, yeah.
Got it.
Make it more modern, yeah.
Got it, sir. Got it. Best wishes, sir, for the rest of the year. Thank you.
Thank you, Rahul. Thank you.
Thank you. To ask a question, please press star and one now. The next question is from the line of Shirush from Motilal Oswal. Please proceed.
Hi, Mohan ji, Rajesh ji, and team. Good afternoon. Sir, I have a few questions on TMC and new age brand. Sir, last two quarters, we have been staggering. We had a higher inventory. We tried to rationalize the inventory. What exactly are we trying to do here? Have we changed any go-to-market strategy or any changes in the brand positioning, something like that? Maybe now we have a control to how we should look at this brand next two to three years in terms of growth, margin perspective.
Okay, Zairus is here for.
Yeah. Okay. I think, to your question, what we have done in the last quarter is that we have improved our efficiency and effectiveness in each of the channels that we operate in. Of course, predominantly, we operate in the online space and in organized trade as far as offline is concerned. In both these places, we've tried to improve our efficiency, focus on secondaries so that that's the true test of demand. The second thing that we've done is that right now, we've worked on our media mix. Objective, again, is to drive top of funnel. We've driven media consumption and spend in terms of influencers, in terms of product-led advertising. That's just been a start given the fact that it's just been three months into the year and me being here. That's phase I.
In the long run, all growth, in terms of all profitability, etc., has to come out of growth. Like I mentioned before, the market is extremely underpenetrated, and therefore, there's a lot of potential. If you look at the next three quarters, our endeavor is to continue to look at sequential growth. The trajectory has to be positive month on month. I think that's our endeavor. We are currently relooking at our brand mix, our brand positioning, etc., to see if there is an unlock out there and how we can drive that forward. At the same time, also looking at how the category roadmap is evolving going forward as new categories emerge, which are better. How do we take advantage of that?
All these things put together is what we're saying that how we will grow in the near future, as well as become more efficient at a CM2 level and therefore flow that into profitability.
What is the channel mix here right now?
If I were to just roughly say, 80% of our business will be online.
Yeah, is there any attempt to improve MT and GT?
No, we're not. As far as modern trade, I call it organized trade because a large part of our business comes out of alternate channels like lifestyle stores, etc., you know, the fashion and lifestyle stores. Yes, I think that's an area where we want to continue focusing. We are seeing, you know, handsome growth coming out of that space. GT is not something that we intend. We've not intended in the near future to look at that. We'd love to see our brand grow to a much larger size for us to then start looking at general trade as an opportunity. Right now, you know, again, given the fact that we're dealing with top of the pyramid consumers who are largely shopping in either modern trade or in e-commerce.
Okay. The reason why I'm asking is because online is profitable, but the moment you get into the different channels, the profitability will be impacted. I just wanted to pick up your thought whether the growth is going to be important or the margin also is going to be important in the medium term.
Look, I don't think it's one or the other. If we grow at a margin that's not good, then we will further destroy value. We are, in fact, working on both fronts where, and you know, if you look at an online business, I would say it is revenue and CM2. That's what we need to focus on. That's the unit margin that we extract. Quite frankly, as our brand presence improves, we do expect that our channel spends will come down going forward. We will grow, but we have to constantly improve CM2 also. I don't think we are, of course, if you're, you know, in terms of percentage, our growth will be much higher than the efficiency improvement that we bring around. We will have to work on both.
That's what our plan is in the next three quarters also, where we drive growth as well as at a reasonable CM2.
Okay. My next question is to Vivek. Excluding Bangladesh, what is the Bangladesh decline which has added this quarter? If you step off Bangladesh, what is the international growth we have reported?
That is, except Bangladesh, it is close to 14%. I think, to be precise, it is around 13.6%, exact number. Bangladesh, in primary terms, yes, we have a steeper decline. In market sales, we're able to decline by around 2% in BDH terms.
Okay. My last question, Mohan ji, any update on Axiom and Cannis Lupus? Is there any consolidation? What is the strategy there?
Can you repeat that question?
Axiom and Cannis, Giriraj, you are there?
Yes, I am there.
Yeah, yeah. Please respond.
Yeah, hi, Giri.
Hi, Shirush . How are you?
Yeah.
I'm doing okay. Right now, as far as Axiom is concerned, we have a significant minority stake at this point in time. In terms of channel consolidation, there isn't any intent to do any channel consolidation in the short to medium term. Longer term, as our entry into the healthy food and beverage space expands, there could be some synergy. However, on the side of the digital channels, we are exploring some opportunities where we can leverage our group understanding and network to see how the digital channels and the organized trade can help drive Axiom.
Okay. All right. Thank you, Mohan ji, and all the best.
Thank you, Shirush .
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one at this time. As there are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
Thank you all for joining us today for our Q1 results conference call. Thank you, Percy. Thank you, IIFL, for arranging this. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Emami Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.