Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Marico Limited Q2 FY24 Earnings Conference Call. We have with us the senior management of Marico, represented by Mr. Saugata Gupta, MD and CEO; and Mr. Pawan Agrawal, CFO. 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. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that the Q&A session is only for institutional investors and analysts. And therefore, if there is anybody else who is not an institutional investor or analyst but would like to ask questions, please directly reach out to Marico's investor relations team.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Saugata Gupta for his opening comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah, hi everyone. Good evening to all those who have joined the call, and please accept my greetings for the festive season ahead. I would like to begin by reflecting on the operating environment for the quarter, post which I'll give you a flavor of the performance so far, followed by our strategy and outlook for the year ahead. During the quarter, demand trends remained largely in line with the preceding quarter. Q2 started on a positive note with reasonably encouraging demand trends in rural and urban in the month of July. This gave us hope for a better quarter when I spoke to you during the last call. However, there was a noticeable drop in overall sentiment, especially in rural during August and early September, which seemed to have been triggered by significantly deficient rainfall in August, followed by a spike in food prices across.
We have seen some recovery since the second half of September, and we're optimistic about a gradual pickup in consumption with the onset of festive season, range-bound retail and food inflation, and government spending toward now and the elections. Amidst the current cost scenario, the sector also witnessed much more active participation from smaller local players in select mass categories. However, pricing cuts taken by frontline FMCG companies to pass on value to consumers should aid recovery in volume growth over the next few quarters. Moving on to our performance in the quarter, India business has registered a low single-digit growth across all our core categories, while we witnessed reasonably healthy trends in off-takes, market share, and penetration across our key franchises.
We believe the divergence between the reported volume and off-take growth appeared to be largely an account of the spiraling effect of lower realizations impacting distributor ROIs, resulting in reduced credit availability to the retailers, which in turn led to a drop in retail inventory level, or STRs. This was also evident in the channel-wide growth trends, where GT declined on a low single-digit on a YOY basis, while MT and E-com witnessed 20%+ growth. Over the next few quarters, we'll systematically address this GT issue, and the deflation tapering off in the second half will also help. Delving further, Parachute had a muted quarter in the given environment, while the four-year volume CAGR was at 4%, just short of the medium target range. The franchise gained 35 basis points in market share on a MAC basis.
As copra prices likely to inch up as we enter the off-season, we expect a gradual pickup in loose-to-branded conversions in view of our cost advantage, which will aid volume growth in the near term. With the anniversarization of price cuts in this quarter, we expect value growth to largely mirror volume growth in H2. The value-added hair oil portfolio reflected the muted trends in mass personal care categories amidst the subdued rural sentiment and higher competitive intensity from local players. While bottom-of-pyramid segments of the category hinge on the awaited pickup in rural, we continue to focus on driving market share gains in the mid-segment and growing our presence in premium segments through innovation. In Saffola edible oils, we registered low single-digit volume growth, steadying on a high base. Volume growth on a four-year CAGR basis was in high single digits, in line with our medium-term growth aspirations.
While there is some degree of volatility in edible oil prices, trade inventory continues to remain low. However, off-takes have remained healthy, and we continue to balance growth and profitability objectives in the near term. During the quarter, Saffola presented 40 Under 40 initiative by Times of India along with Saffola, which sought to inspire young Indians to hit a pause on living a supposedly productive life and recognize the repercussions of their unhealthy and sedentary lifestyles. As a part of the eight-week health movement, 40 Young Achieved Daily Healthy Steps to Improve Their Lifestyle Score. The campaign resonated with the purpose of the brand Saffola, which is dedicated to spearheading the cause of a healthy India. Foods continue its steady trajectory, and we are largely on track to meet our FY24 revenue aspirations. The oats portfolio grew in double digits, while honey and soya scaled up well.
Both these categories are nearing INR 100 crores in annual run rate. Our new launches of peanut butter, mayonnaise, and munchies are tracking well. We are not chasing growth indiscriminately, but we are focusing on driving sustainable, profitable growth by strengthening the cost structure and refining the supply chain and GTM capabilities. Once we optimize these, we'll endeavor to accelerate our food growth next year to beyond 30%. Premium personal care delivered healthy double-digit growth and is on track to contribute 10% of FY domestic revenue. The digital first brand led by Beardo and Just Herbs clocked INR 350 crores ARR in Q2. There's a significant reduction in cash burn, and we believe that we are investing less in this aspect compared to other digital brands which are standalone.
As this business scale up, we are simultaneously exploring various synergies between the brands to structurally lift the margin profile and drive further profitability. We are on course to achieve our FY2024 revenue aspirations with food and premium personal care contributing 20% of the domestic business. In Q2 itself, contributions of these categories are at 20%. Our international business continued strong momentum and delivered double-digit constant currency growth despite macroeconomic headwinds in some of the geographies. Bangladesh visibly moderated but was resilient amidst the current macro challenges which weighed on aggregate demand. We expect the economic situation to improve early next calendar year, although the currency depreciation issue will remain for some time. Vietnam also registered a steady performance in both the HPC and food categories.
In the MENA region, we have been clocking strong growth quite consistently over the last few years on the back of our expanding presence in hair oil, especially in Egypt. Our South Africa region and NCD business have also been scaling up ahead of expectations. In each of the overseas geographies we operate in, we have the fundamentals of portfolio GTM cost structure and leadership well in place, and we are confident of maintaining the strong growth momentum ahead. On a consolidated basis, revenue growth was subdued by pricing cuts in the domestic business and currency headwinds in some of our overseas businesses. About two-thirds of the impact was from pricing cut and risk due to currency translation. We expect revenue growth to move into the positive territory in the second half of the year as pricing deflation in the domestic business likely tapers off.
We recorded robust gross margin expansion in the quarter and the first half, owing to soft input prices and expect 350-400 bps of gross margin expansion on a full-year basis. We also significantly ramped up ANP spend in Q2 in line with our commitment to invest behind our brands for long-term sustainable growth, which will have impact significantly over the next couple of quarters. ANP as a percentage of sales is likely to be 9.5%+ this year. In light of the H1 performance, we expect operating margin to expand by 200 bps+ in FY24, and we are on course to deliver our highest-ever operating margin on a full-year basis this year. At the beginning of FY24, we had set a clear objective of driving improvement across key parameters of growth, portfolio diversification, and margin expansion.
With the first half of the fiscal behind us, we have made fairly promising progress along each of the parameters, although we hope to get a higher volume growth and will continue to drive improvement along these lines through H2 on a full-year basis as and besides earlier. Last but not least, we have always viewed our entire business operations through the lens of sustainability, and our Sustainability 2.0 framework has been progressing well in each of the eight broad themes. We firmly believe the value of creating shared value for all will aid us in driving sustainable growth in the longer term. I'm pleased to announce that we have launched a dedicated microsite which encompasses all ESG-related information, and I hope it will allow all our stakeholders to be informed of the progress we are making towards our sustainability goals. With that, I will now close my comments.
Thank you for your patient listening, and happy to take all your 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 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. We have a first question from the line of Abhineet Roy from Nuvama Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. My first question is on Parachute. So you have been taking a lot of interventions in Parachute to ramp up the premiumization. So two questions there. One is in terms of the blended oil and shampoo usage by customer. If you could tell within the alternate channel now how much is the propensity of customer to consume both shampoo and oil together. And second is, what would be your long-term 3, 5-year target within alternate channel to have the premium part of Parachute? Parachute itself is premium, but I'm sure you must be benchmarking that 30% of Parachute should come from premium in alternate. So if you could share some numbers on what's the target and what is the current number.
So Parachute is, if you ask me whether it's a little under-indexed in the alternate channels, the answer is yes. Having said that, I think the premiumization journey has started. Obviously, the bottom of pyramid as a bottom of pyramid doesn't exist there, just like in shampoo, for example, the entire market is in digits. Now, coming to the two vectors of premiumization, one is sensorial and one is problem-solving. So problem-solving is basically what is hair fall. As far as premiumization is concerned on the sensorial, you have certain ingredients. And also, as you see in the e-commerce, not so much in modern trade, we have certain premium brands which participate, whether it's brands like Mamaearth, WOW, and some of the other brands. The market size so we don't participate in 300+ kind of a price point.
Having said that, below the 300+ price point, we have a fair share as we have in GT. The only thing we don't participate in, which is hair fall, which is a big category in both modern trade and e-commerce. Now, obviously, we have to disproportionately increase that. Having said that, our market share in modern trade and e-commerce, if you take out the premium part of it, is fairly in line with what the market share is in the value share is in GT. In fact, actually, in certain cases, in certain markets, it is higher, actually.
Thanks. One quick question on the 300+ price. So currently, you are not there. Is it because you want it to become a threshold level and then enter? Is that the reason?
So now, I'm just giving you a broad number of 300. It could be 300, 350. This is occupied by very, very premium hair oils which are entirely D2C brands. We are present there through Just Herbs, not with the core. I mean, onion oil from a competitor across the 300+, from us, it is not 300 maybe. But all I'm trying to say is that this is a market we are increasingly wanting to participate. I think as far as digital business is concerned, we now have a working model which operates. Having said that, I think the only market where we are not present in a significant way is hair fall, and that is a big market, not only in GT but a significant bigger market in the premium channels.
Sure. My second and last question is on what you alluded in the initial remarks, local players. So other companies are also talking about detergent bars, tea, and biscuits also. So if you could discuss in coconut and hair oil, what has been the performance of local players in rural markets? Because in these two also, there is a deflation, especially coconut oil. There's a big deflation, and there's a downgrading, downgrading also. So how long has been the impact, and do you see that continuing for 2, 3 more quarters? And what has been your response? So I understand the market share numbers of Nielsen, but normally, local players are generally taking share in the last 2, 3 quarters. So wanted to understand real on-ground situation in both coconut and hair oil.
Okay. So if you look at coconut oil, I think we believe that some of the conversions from unbranded to branded have slowed down. I will give you an overall perspective in the last 12-18 months. If you look at it, whenever there is significant food inflation and copra, there was deflation. Now, what happens is that where we have to take price drops, and it takes a certain amount of time for the price drops to get affected in the market, we get impacted. Having said that, for the first time in the last one quarter, we are now seeing offtakes ahead of secondaries. So we expect that the volume situation in Parachute will now start improving because most of the if you look at it, most of the SKUs are pricing is right.
In fact, going forward, as we enter the off-season, we believe that there will be a slight inching up that happens on copra. And as you know, because of the way we do supply chain and our procurement, we have a cost advantage, a system advantage when this inching up happens. And therefore, we expect now, having seen the offtakes in the last one or two months, that the Parachute secondaries or the volume will start inching up. The other thing which I pointed out, which has also contributed to it, and I don't think there will be an immediate solution, is that as you know that in addition to the smaller brands, there is if you look at our distribution system, GT distribution system, the revenue growth is negative. The costs have gone up.
Now, one of the areas which is therefore creating an impact is what is the credit in the market. And similarly, if credit is squeezed in the market, obviously, retailers will stock less. And therefore, we have seen around 3-4 days, if not more in certain cases sometimes, an STR drop which has happened. Now, will I get back that STR? I don't know. But certainly, that has also contributed to that so-called gap between offtake and secondary and primary. But I think if I look at the trend in Parachute, the trend in Parachute that turned around in terms of offtake, which is the first lead indicator, that has happened in the last one or two months.
So I believe that now the volumes will start coming back, and especially as we enter the off-season where we will be at a relative pricing advantage because of whatever the system could stock we hold in terms of raw materials.
Similar thing would be for VAHO also in terms of destocking?
VAHO is a different issue, I think. VAHO, what has happened is that in VAHO, there has been a downgrading happening because of significant activity of some of the players at the bottom of the pyramid. Yes, there could be also because, as you know, that there is also a small but our belief is that there are not only local players playing but some of the larger players also wanting to play in that commoditized part of the category. That has resulted in, if you see, Amla as a category, hair fall as a category, which are so if you look at there are so there is a 1.1-1.3 RPI where value-added coconut oil selling as a jasmine and those brands operate. I think they are okay. I think where the problem is is where 1.3-1.6 where Amla operates, where hair fall operates 1.6 and beyond.
So those categories have actually shrunk in the last 1 or 2 years. And that is where the issue is, perhaps. But again, I believe we are seeing some signs of improvement in the last 1, I think the worst is over out there, and we will start getting value growth. The other reason hair oil has suffered as a category, although we are reporting value growth, is that there has been shrinkflation, which the anniversarization of the shrinkflation is now broadly over.
Sure. Thanks. That's all from me. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one on your phone now. We have a next question from the line of Tejas Shah from Spark Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So on the success that we have seen in Saffola Oats and in conquest for that, I just wanted to know, reflecting on the journey, is there any playbook which is emerging which we can kind of replicate in our future launches in terms of category selection, channel selection, or price point selection?
Okay. I think there are three, four learnings. First, Saffola is pre-sold on health. Therefore, we don't have to push health on Saffola, and therefore, we have to make the product deliver on taste as a green. So therefore, all product tests we do, it has to deliver green on taste because no Indian consumer is willing to compromise on taste for health. That has been the first learning. Second, it doesn't matter if your price point is 15 to drive penetration because for at least six, seven years, we were at a 50% premium to our nearest competitor in masala. The third learning is a playbook is that you have to even on health, you have to Indianize the Western concept. The biggest play is in between meal snacking because in India, there are two meal locations, which is for some, there is a 11 o'clock location.
For some, there is a 6 o'clock location. 6 o'clock is the biggest location. And therefore, there, you can substitute anything. It can be a soup. It can be a biscuit. It can be a cookie. It can be a noodles. So to me, these are the, I think, a learning. And therefore, ideally, I mean, the next category which is ripe for this is plant protein, which is a plain soy is a commodity. Can we replicate this masala oat story on the plain soya tomorrow?
Is this learning or is this playbook duplicable, or is it scalable across categories, or this remains only for food as of now?
No, I think it is a food, this one, where you drive penetration, you drive distribution, and get scalability. And I think the other learning is that I think it's very important to get into a 200 to a plus because then this category, then you start making in food. I think scale is very, very important.
Got it. Got it. Second, so whether we are picking up many conflicting signals and commentary on rural economy, and we will pick up from FMCG perspective. So what's your view, then? If you can see it, if you can share your thoughts from near-term perspective also for this year.
I think the situation will gradually improve. As I said, that last time when I spoke to you guys in July, things are improving. And suddenly, there was this deficient rainfall which led to a sentiment issue sometime in August. And therefore, we had a very bad August, a very bad early September, but things are improving. So I think gradually, it will improve. I don't see reason why it shouldn't improve between now and in the next two, three quarters. The second thing, as I said, that's why I said there are three factors. One is consumption. There is a factor on smaller players have become active. And the third is there has been a, I think, because of the ROI situation in urban GT, there is an STR loss. So all three have contributed to it. I don't think it's just rural consumption.
Whenever we have seen the drop, all the three have contributed to the fact that we have not been able to improve the volume trajectory.
Sure. And any regional flavor you can give within the rural pickup or slowdown, is there any particular region which is doing relatively better or somebody is doing worse off?
I think I won't give it to a specific city, but what we have seen in the past is that wherever we see, again, the concentration or the spread of rainfall and everything is not uniform. History has told us that whenever there has been a dump deficiency, whichever states there, the impact is slightly higher.
Got it. Got it. And that's all from my side. Thanks, and all the best.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one on your phone now. Participants are requested to press star and one to ask a question. We have a question from Akshen from Fidelity. Please go ahead.
Hey. Hi, team. Just a question on the diversification agenda. So you highlighted that the premium personal care will get to 10% run rate by the end of the year. Foods obviously scaled up. Together, this is now, as you've called out, 20% by the end of the year. Over the last two, three years, obviously, you scaled the top line very well. Just wanted to get the management's view on how are we thinking about profitability of foods, premium personal portfolio, B2C as an aggregate? How should we be thinking about margins three to four years from now? So you've obviously done very well on top line. I'm guessing today, this portfolio is margin diluted from your overall India margins despite being at 15%-20% of sales. The next three to four years, how are we thinking about margins in this portfolio? Thanks.
Okay. I think two things. First, let me just give you a perspective that if you look at this year, and I started off by saying that while we continue in the journey from moving from 15%-20%, two things we'll look at. One is how do you move the food's gross margin? Second thing is how do you reduce the cash burn of digital? I think we have made significant steps in that. Now, one of the things, we have actually restricted our food growth this year simply because we believe we didn't have a working model in terms of scaling it at a certain gross margin, okay, which is basically our supply chain in terms of lower shelf life, our ability to forecast, our ability to so therefore, if you ask me, over the next six months, our endeavor is to get all these right.
If today we are at, say, 6 on 10, can we move that onto 8 on 10? I mean, we maybe started the year on 4 on 10. We move to 6. Can we move to 7 or 8? Once we do that, I think there is no reason why we should accelerate the food journey into, say, driving, say, 30%-35% growth. As far as digital is concerned, again, I think our cash burn has been reduced. We believe at least in one or two of the brands, we will break even. And if I look at, say, a performance of Beardo versus a similar standalone brand in the same segment, our Beardo, I mean, our profitability or our cash burn will be far lower. And in fact, we will make profits.
So if I look at in the next 3 years, definitely, the digital business will deliver EBITDA levels of what the India business is doing. I mean, because as I said, as far as we are concerned, we might not be the best in the world in creating 0-50 crore businesses in digital. But once we have acquired it, we believe that the scalability journey of driving scaling up business profitably, we will be one of the best in class as far as FMCG companies are concerned in digital business. Now, food will always be a question of when do you want to put the brakes on growth versus so if food continues on this growth journey, yes, it will not deliver the company EBITDA in 3 years.
Having said that, anything that crosses a scalable thing like masala oats and all, those businesses will be able to deliver EBITDA. So in food, you will always have 50% of the businesses which have matured to INR 200 crore plus delivering that. And maybe the rest, we are still on the journey to delivery. But I think if I have to get the EBITDA margin of but if it's a growth business, that same strategic funding I have to do even in personal care. So I think we are okay. I mean, I don't see any reason that we should stop, because if we correct the food business and get into a threshold level of profitability in gross margin terms, which is significantly higher than Saffola edible oil, I think we are fine. And today, we are already. Food makes significantly more gross margin than Saffola edible oil.
Also if I can add, Akshen, that in digital business, there could be two models of growth. One could be growing disproportionately at 70%-75% with a significant bleed. And second model could be that grow at 20%-25% with a keen eye on profitability. So we prefer the latter model where we are happy with the growth of 20%-25% but not to bleed significantly. That's one. And number two, also at this point in time, many of these digital businesses are disparate businesses. There will be a time when we will bring all these businesses under one umbrella, and we can drive a lot of synergy benefits in terms of supply chain, in terms of CRM, in terms of having common digital tech stack.
Therefore, at that point in time, it can structurally lift the margins up, and that will also improve the overall margin of the business. That's the overall take on digital business. Once we have all of these, definitely, it can be a sizable business with a decent operating margin.
Okay. Another follow-up was on the international business. Growth, obviously, in Bangladesh has been impacted this year with volatile macro over there, but that doesn't seem to be having a bearing on your margins. Could you just comment on the margin performance on the international business on a YOY basis? Is this more to do with Bangladesh margins having done better, or it's more to do with other geographies sort of starting to throw their weight on the margin front?
So I think the dependence on Bangladesh has reduced on profitability. Vietnam is doing extremely well on the margin front. We have also had significant turnaround as far as the MENA business and the South Africa business is concerned. So our dependence on Bangladesh, although it's still high, it has significantly reduced. Number 2, I think in Bangladesh, we operate with a certain amount of scale. Now, what happens is that what we have noticed is that whenever there is this kind of economic slightly downturn, the overall spends, SOVs, we can still manage with lower spends. So overall system spends have gone down.
And number two, given that we were foreseeing this because we knew this was an election year and a combination of election and obviously, the things that are happening, we have taken very, very aggressive cost management initiatives in the Bangladesh business so that we ensure that we don't, at least in constant currency terms, we don't dilute our profitability there.
Okay. One last question, if you wouldn't judge me, was around capital allocation. So last year, obviously, we had pulled back a little bit on dividends because we were looking to make a couple of acquisitions. We acquired something in Vietnam. We acquired Plix this year. Clearly, diversification is a key agenda for the management. Any broad guardrails on how are we thinking about capital return policy and how much would we want to retain in terms of cash reserve for any future acquisitions? Thanks.
I think we should revert back to our old this one. I think last year was an aberration, but we should return back to our old policy, which is there.
We've been maintaining the ratio of about 80%-90%. And unless there is a big-ticket acquisition, we would hope to maintain similar kind of ratio for the year.
All right. Thank you, team.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Amit Rustagi from UBS. Please go ahead.
Sir, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Could you explain us how much is the difference between the secondary and the primary growth? And when we are talking about the second half of the year, how much should we think that we can catch up in the second half of this year itself?
No, no. I don't think we alluded to a secondary primary growth. What I alluded to as an STR correction, which is offtakes are ahead of secondaries. Secondary and primary are always broadly in line. I don't think I'm going to and anyway, we don't want to get into this secondary primary. I think what we alluded to is if you look at the Nielsen numbers versus what is the volume growth reported by most of the companies, you will see a difference. And we believe a lot of it has got to do with a combination of two things. One, maybe smaller players are gaining share. Nielsen is not picking up, right? And the combination of STR reduction.
So I don't think it's a primary, secondary is the fact that offtake and what I alluded to, therefore, if offtake has started growing well in the last 1 or 2 months, especially what we are seeing in Parachute, volumes will follow. Therefore, secondary volumes will follow because STR correction is not that; it doesn't happen every month. There's a one-time that has happened already.
Just to clarify, when we say STR, it is about the retailers.
Retailer STR, not distributor.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it.
That has happened because, as I said, that the credit in the market, people are—I mean, people are not willing to give more credit in the market, which there's a demand. So at the end of the day, I mean, we are the distributors have to manage the ROIs also.
Okay, sir. Got it. Got it. Thanks for answering this. And wish you all the best and a happy quality of time. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Sheela Rathi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Saugata. So my first question was with respect to your comment on the GT decline and low single digits. Just wanted to understand here, is it any specific category or specific market where we are seeing this decline? And what is our expectation in terms of the trend going ahead, especially in this quarter?
So I think if you look at it, the reason is the entire rural, obviously, goes to GT. And therefore, rural is one place where there is obviously an issue there. The second is also, as you know that, in the top urban towns, if modern trade and e-com continues to do well, there is a steady erosion of the GT contribution, which has happened in the last 2-3 years during COVID. Obviously, GT had an advantage because modern trade was not functioning. And therefore, there was a movement from modern trade to GT, which has got reversed while modern trade has gone back. So these are the two of this one. I think what I'm alluded to is ultimately that we have to invest. And this is we have been talking about, have we done a great job yet?
We haven't, which is if I look at if you look at all the new categories we have launched, we have disproportionately high market share in modern trade and e-com where we have done a great job. Having said that, I think there is a scope for this one to do a better job in chemists, cosmetics, and food outlets to drive our diversification. At the same time, rural, we believe, is a source of competitive advantage because direct rural distribution is an entry barrier for others. So therefore, that is something we have to keep on doing it because our rural portfolio also makes good gross margins. The second thing is I think we believe that wholesale as a channel is going to reduce its saliency. In India, there is no viable alternative, scalable, profitable cash-and-carry model which has emerged.
Therefore, there is no reason why we should not push ourselves to continue the journey as far as rural is concerned. In fact, in some of the rural markets, we are underindexed, like, say, if you look at some in the north and all. Therefore, that is how the GT growth has to be rekindled because I think it's important that GT growth. Even if I look at a 2030 kind of outlook, GT will continue to be in India. It will be an end growth and not an all growth.
Understood. So will it be fair to say that the GT growth is worse off in rural India versus the last quarter?
No, not really. I don't think there is any movement, I would say. It's a similar kind of a level. I don't think if you look at our volumes, they are also broadly similar. Channel-wise growths are broadly similar.
Understood. Just my last question is we are called out in FY24. We are targeting 20%+ margins. But what I noticed is from a medium-term perspective, we are talking about 19% margins. So Saugata, any particular reason why we feel that the margins would be slightly lower?
So I think we give an overall this one that we will envisage to do a 19%-20% margin. As you know, sometimes we have experienced volatility. Having said that, once we have hit 20%, we'll try to ensure that we are in that level. But there could be years of volatility where number two, also, you must realize this year, there is also some kind of a denominator effect because of the fact that when revenues because of deflation, the revenues have been depressed. So in an inflationary year, that reverses. So I think that is a band that we should operate within 19%-20%. There have been years of 20%. And long term, it has been creeping up. That is something which we have delivered.
Understood. One final question with respect to copra prices. How do we see that panning out in the course of next six months? That's it from me.
There will be as you know, in the off-season, it marginally moves up. It will move up a little.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Amit Purohit from Elara. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. I just wanted to get some insights into the go-to-market strategy on the foods that we initiated. Any feedback on that? And can that be leveraged, or is this helping us to increase our overall distribution reach?
No, no. So I think the food outlets, what we are doing is only in urban specialty food outlets. They are essentially a mixture of open-format outlets. In the south of India, it could be what we call bakeries. So these are basically outlets which have a food skew. It was not that there are that we were not present in some of the outlets we are already present. The reason we have put a separate food GTM in these outlets is if you look at the rest of the portfolio versus the products which we have, the selling norms, the merchandising, the replenishment model is completely different. We wanted to give it a focus. Secondly, we want to create what I call a demand generation model for non-advertised food brands. So in Saffola, we will ultimately move to mass advertising, maybe things like honey, oats, and soya.
But there are a lot of other categories that could be present without mass advertising. And if you look at a lot of food startup brands, we don't advertise. You have not seen some of the food startup brand advertising, okay? So that is the model. I think we still need to get our act right in terms of maintaining stock freshness, replenishment because a lot of us are used to selling in cases. We have to now sell in pieces. It is a work in progress. And once we achieve that, our ability to launch new products through that system will be better. Secondly, even a brand like True Elements and Plix can come into that GT and actually leverage the Marico association and scale up because essentially, those brands are primarily now digital.
I believe as far as food is concerned, the route for digital or new age brands to scale up is brick and mortar because opportunities are far higher because food AOVs are low. Personal care has a far better scalability opportunity in digital compared to food.
Okay. Just to check, this does not include the chemists at all, right?
We haven't been able to, as I said, that food we have done reasonably well. I think in chemists and cosmetics, something has been bugged there, and we need to do a better job there. That is something which we will now take up because we now know how to do food. Therefore, we have some experience in opening up a new channel. This is the second one we have to do. It's not that, again, we are not present in chemists' channel. But are we correctly indexed? I will say we are slightly underindexed in both chemists and cosmetics. That will help in our premium personal care journey growth in GT.
Actually, sorry, I wanted to check whether the team which sells the food does that also take care of the chemists?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Not at all.
That will be a different channel. Again, as I said, the skill set in selling beauty and the skill set in selling food is completely different.
No, I'm saying right because some of the chemists' channel do keep these foods portfolio as well.
No, that's fair because no, no. So as I said, that it's not that our existing distributor salesman is not reaching those outlets. So for example, oats and honey is available in chemists' outlets. But if I have to really disproportionately do demand generation, like selling hair fall, selling serums, selling suppose we are prototyping a baby, for example, on market. So those are the kind of things we have to sell. We have to get a specialist, this one, to drive that. So in that process, drug guys, if they can sell honey and oats, so be it.
Lastly, on the Wahoo piece, we have, I mean, targets to have a double-digit growth. But when I look at from a channel perspective, we would right now be more salient on the GT side, right? And that's on the.
Absolutely.
Yeah. So if that's the case, then double-digit growth would be driven by rocks because when you launch a new product, you would expect that.
It has to be for broader participation. I think, as I said, that we are not present in a lot of segments. It has to be driven through broader participation because currently, if I look at Wahoo, it is reflective of all the HPC growths, okay? No HPC category. As I said, in addition to that, given the high inflation that happened in Wahoo last year, it became a victim of significant shrinkflation. The journey to the double-digit value growth will happen through far better participation in the premiumization and gaining value share, which we have been gaining. It has not been gaining at a rate which we would have liked to because our volume-value share gap still remains.
These new launches are largely on the digital side, right? The ones.
Not just digital. It has to be mass. It has to be scalable. So for example, hair fall, if we look at hair fall brands, they are significantly present in GT also.
Sure.
But they might have a bias towards chemists' channels or something like that.
Okay. Okay. Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Latika from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Hi, Saugata and Pawan. My question was around some of the brands that you've acquired or launched over the recent years. So True Elements was something that was acquired about a year ago. And then, of course, you recently got Plix in your portfolio. What's been your reading of these brands? Particularly True Elements, has that been able to meet your acquisition standards? And at what level do you think these brands will be ready for a more wider rollout in the general trade? And similarly, on your digital-first portfolio, your experience with Just Herbs and PureSense and CocoSole, how are these faring? And how should we think about organic growth rate for these portfolios going ahead? Thank you.
I think as far as organic growth rate is concerned, let me answer that. I think Pawan alluded to it sometime that we have chosen a model where it grows perhaps by 20%-25% organically, but we will also focus on profitability. Now, if I had to give you an overall digital business, has it met aspirations? It has met aspirations. Obviously, Beardo has performed extremely well. We are also extremely gung-ho on the business model of Plix. Just Herbs, again, it is meeting aspirations. We should again Just Herbs will be the third brand to perhaps cross an ARR of nearly INR 100 crore and get into profitability next year. Beardo should get into profitability this year. And as you know, Beardo is INR 150 crore plus. We believe Plix also is INR 150 crore plus. So they are sizable, this one.
I think as far as True Elements is concerned, while it is close to acquisition assumption, we believe that we have to in order for a food startup brand to be scalable, we have to bring it significantly into brick and mortar. So therefore, that is the job we are doing. The second thing on True Elements is, obviously, perhaps we have to Indianize some of the offerings because currently, most of the products are extremely Western, and Western is niche. So that's the journey we have to do. We are also working with True Elements to improve the gross margin because gross margin is extremely important in food. So once we do all that, again, True Elements will be the one which also crosses INR 100 crore. I mean, we believe that is in line to cross INR 100 crore exit again this year.
And also, maybe True Elements will need one more year to break even because compared to the others, I mean, that's where we see it. As far as CocoSole and PureSense is concerned, I think they haven't still not reached critical mass. And we have a job to do. Having said that, have they improved on the burn rate and all? They have improved. But are they on a INR 100 crore journey right now? We have to wait a couple of years for that INR 100 crore to be done.
Well, understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thanks for listening on the call. To conclude, we've been fairly resilient in the first half of this year amidst challenging demand conditions in India and macro headwinds in select overseas markets. In the quarters ahead, we will be focused on driving competitive domestic volume growth and maintaining the strong momentum in the international business. We are likely to have a good year in terms of profitability, even though we have been uncompromising towards investing behind brand building of our franchise. We've also fared reasonably well on the strategic imperatives that we had called out at the start of the year. We remain committed to exhibit an improving trend across each of the key performance parameters in FY2024.
As seemingly transitory headwinds in the operating environment subside, we look forward to keep growing from strength to strength and driving our strategic endeavors that will enable sustainable and profitable growth over the medium term. That's it from our side. If you have any further queries, please feel free to reach out to our IR team. They'll be happy to address. Thank you, and have a great festive season ahead.
Thank you. On behalf of Marico Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.