Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to United Breweries Limited Q4 and FY2025 earnings conference call. 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 the star, then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Jorn Kersten, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining this call. We are pleased to have you here to discuss the development of quarter four for the financial year. By means of an introduction, allow me to share some of the highlights on performance. Before, I'll also hand over to Vivek for some comments, and then afterwards, we'll get into the Q&A. On the quarter, we see a growing growth of 5%, which is despite some temporary suspensions in Telangana, which I think everyone is well aware of, as well as industry-wide changes from duty sector changes in Karnataka, one of our biggest markets as well. The growth was predominantly coming from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, as well as Assam.
From a second point of view, we continue the story on premium, growing our premium segment ahead of the market, both for the quarter, where we grew 24%, as well as for the full year, where the growth stands at 32%. Within premium, we are growing the total portfolio, and it is led by Kingfisher Ultra, Ultra Max, as well as the Heineken Silver brand. Moving to the P&L, we see that net sales increased by 9% in the quarter, which is roughly in line with the 10% growth that we have seen for the year, which is based on the volume growth and the premiumization, but also supported by price increases in multiple states.
If we look into our gross margin development for the quarter, it stands at 42.1%, and full year at 43%, which are both improving versus last year, which is good despite some of the short-term margin pressure that we've seen ahead of the completion of our own capacity expansion. We are relying largely on growth coming from contractor-building parties. Last but not least, looking at the bottom line, we delivered 24% EBIT growth for the quarter, which stands at INR 137 crores. While we are still carrying the continued investment behind the brand, as well as the organization and supply chain, as mentioned, and where we also invested ahead of the peak season, which is the current quarter. In quarter, we're happy to mention that we continue our journey as a category maker, focusing mainly on beer category growth and booming across all segments.
We allocate significant resources to develop our supply chain network, both with our partner network, but also with investments into our own network, where we announced in this quarter the new Greenfield Brewery, which will be set up in U P. In the quarter, we've seen the annualized cost of the investment into our organization. That's been a very conscious choice to drive the growth journey, and similarly, we'll continue to invest behind the brand and in the quality of our beers. These are just a few of the pillars that continue to guide the strategy as we work towards long-term sustainable growth in the market. Of course, we're aiming to long-term improve on profitability as well as our capital efficiency.
I'm sure there will be questions, but before we address those, let me hand over to Vivek to also share some of his comments on the development of the business.
Yeah, no, thanks, Jorn, and thanks everyone for joining. I would say I think we're quite satisfied with the results of this quarter and the progress because I think in the last investor call I mentioned, we had a rocky start to the year in January. Driven by almost full month, we could not sell anything in Karnataka because of the label changes, which was an industry issue, but that was a big impact. In Telangana, we made a commercial decision of suspending our supplies for a good amount of the month, almost more than half of the month, to do that. The largest volume market and largest profit market both were impacted in January, which would have led to a lot of other challenges because in both these locations put together, we have five sub-breweries. That impacts the cost and everything.
I would say that I'm very proud of the team who bounced back despite these challenges, and we ended up with a quarter at 5% volume growth and 9% sales growth, but structurally much better output of where we were. We also announced this quarter our CapEx investment in UP about our Greenfield Brewery. I'm happy to inform you, I think last week we got the final land, what we needed. We are accelerating that build-up of our Greenfield Brewery at a very fast pace. We also made further design choices on how do we make this business more sustainable. We looked at each of the markets. We have put some design-to-win projects. One of these projects I know is shared in the investor presentation with Maharashtra. It is one of the distributor markets, but we never looked at our distribution network in depth.
I was quite shocked to see that almost there were 13 districts where we had zero distribution point of coverage. We looked at design and distribution networks, which is aimed to provide better service to retailers. There are almost more than 20,000 outlets in Maharashtra. We think that the response time, where if they order and they get next-day delivery, will move from around 62% to almost 95%. We are really improving the service, which really helps to build category and doing that. Those kinds of design projects, we are doing this kind of work in a few other states also, which helps us to design to win. We also expanded our Amstel branding into West Bengal. Very good early results. As we talk, we are actually launching in U P on Amstel Grande branding as well.
We did a lot of work on peak season planning during this quarter. Our inventories were higher despite some disruptions. All put together, I think we ended up with a very good quarter. We are really looking to see our middle of the season. Almost half the season is gone. We feel confident that some of the choices we have made are going to be in line with the long-term aspirations. The big worry part in this whole is the increase in consumer prices and duties. I think we are seeing the impact of that on the category, like Telangana took 15%-20% price increase for consumers. Karnataka, we have still had a duty increase. Now, again, there is conversation happening on that. I keep repeating that affordability is the biggest threat to growth of this category.
We are working very closely with the government regulators to give data to really have a voice so that there is more sustainability on this industry. There are states where we are doing extremely well. There are states where the category is down, and there are states where we are working hard again. Overall, I think we are in a good shape. From an organization perspective, I would say we continue to invest in building a very strong talent pool and very strong capability. That is completely on track. Yesterday, we announced that our Supply Chain Director, Wiggert Deelen, who has been in India for almost two years, two and a half years, is very experienced. He is moving back to Amsterdam in August.
We are actually getting a top talent to replace him, who has been a brewer throughout his career and has worked in Heineken from 2013, worked in markets like Haiti, Congo. He is a Belgian, and he is right now looking after the Caribbean business, and he will be coming back here. We continue to work on the talent plan as well to do that. With this, I hand over to the moderator if you have any questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone 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. Participants are requested to limit their questions to two per participant. If you have a follow-up question, please fall back in the queue for further questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Krishnan from Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, my first question is regarding Telangana. You had mentioned last time that there was a 15% price increase that you obtained. You also stated that there is a further price increase that you expect "shortly." Has that price increase come through? If not, when do you expect that? That's my first question on Telangana.
Yeah, no, see, we just got the pricing only on February 15. When I say very soon, I think it has to go through the government pricing committee and all. I do not know the timing of that, and there is no notification which has come, but I am not expecting any pricing in the next few months because it goes through a process. There is a pricing committee which needs to be there. Our conversation with the government is completely on that it is important that they understand that we are still not out of the way completely on this one. Also, the recent price increase for consumers is also impacting category growth. We also have to see the data in the next couple of months, how the beer category performs in Telangana overall.
We will go back with a comprehensive proposal, which actually they would like to see how their revenue increases. They would like to see how our viability of our business increases. It is still a work in progress. Right now, another focus in Telangana is to get the payments back. There is overdue. I think we did get a part of it, but we are still not out of the wood there. I think we are also working with the government and through the industry association so that the payments are regularized as per their commitment. Especially in the season, we do not want to get back to a situation where the category is growing, we are growing, and we are stretched on working capital if we do not get the payments.
We're working very closely with the finance department of the state and the stakeholders so that the things get streamlined.
Thanks. My second question is regarding Karnataka. You had mentioned after the third quarter results as part of the conference call that there was a 30-35% reduction Jan versus Jan. You also mentioned in the presentation that there was a decline in Karnataka for the quarter. Does that continue in the month of April and the earlier part of May? If so, what is the extent of the decline?
Yeah, I think there is, I cannot share the exact numbers of April with you, but I would say that the decline is not to that extent. There is a decline in United Breweries' decline in the category, which we have seen since the duties have increased. It has also given primarily because the price of the economy beer has actually gone up. Now, on the other side, as a company, we are growing shares. As I keep repeating, my role is not to only grow shares. It is also to grow category. We are category makers, not category takers. On the share front, we are doing well because the economy segment has slowed down. We did not take pricing on Kingfisher. We have a very strong program. We're sponsoring IPL. All of those things are there.
There is a real challenge on the category versus the previous year in Karnataka.
Thanks, Vivek.
Mr. Krishnan, does that answer your question?
Yes, it does. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Latika Chopra from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question was on demand trends. There are a lot of moving parts here. You just mentioned chatter on another round of tax increases in Karnataka. There have been price increases in certain parts of the country. Of course, weather has been also not exactly turning out to be hot in certain parts of the country. In this backdrop, what is your confidence of sustaining mid to high single-digit kind of a volume growth for your portfolio? That's the first question.
Yeah, no, I think it's not all doom and gloom. There are states where we are also doing extremely well. UP is one good example where the excise policy has been progressive. They've added a number of outlets of beer, which you could see the impact of that. The prices are more or less stable for the consumer to do that. The actions we took in Assam continue to yield results. The work we are doing in our go-to-market and design choices to better serve. Because all said and done, there's enough work to be done other than price on this driving category and being there. We have installed two times number of fridges already, coolers already. There's one other thing I talked to you about that we want to invest in cold beer. We have markets where we are doing extremely well.
Andhra is another example where we actually did quite well in the quarter and continue to serve the market. In fact, one of the reasons our gross margin was also impacted because we had to import a lot of volume beyond our brewery in Andhra to serve consumer demand there. It is a tale of two cities. Basically, there are two halves. You have states where we are doing extremely well. There are states where we are creating demand. There are states like Telangana, Karnataka, and in some cases where we have supply issues in certain states, which is where the category is really struggling. I also believe it is a cycle. We just have to continue to work with the regulators and the government and bring the impact of this.
I think I'm still confident that the level of growth we are delivering, our 6-7% volume growth we talked about, is extremely possible here.
Thank you for this. My second question was on gross margins. This was a good performance in the quarter. I also wanted to understand how are you sensing inflation in some of your key raw materials, Bharati, particularly because I think the current quarter probably is your key procurement quarter. Any thoughts on share of recycled glass bottles versus new glass bottles? How is that trending for you? And potential for these gross margins to improve going forward? Thank you.
Yeah, no, that's a good question. I think we keep a very close eye on gross margin development also from a future perspective that long-term, we want that to, of course, develop in the right direction. There's a couple of items you mentioned then. One of the challenges, of course, being that in India, we cannot translate cost price increase into consumer pricing. Therefore, we need to look at all angles to make sure that we drive sustainable margin development. You mentioned bottles. Over the last three quarters, we've been able to improve our percentage of bottle injection for coming down versus the quarter before versus previous years. That's one thing where we definitely have a lot of focus on to make sure that we take the right decisions. Also, to balance indeed that we see input costs also going up in other areas.
It remains a bit of a challenge. The other thing which also plays a part here is that on our growth journey, we're investing behind capacity. It means that while we're expanding our own capacity, we rely on contract partners to do, which has, even though on the bottom line it delivers a similar profit, margin-wise and the way we account for it, it has a negative impact. We're happy with the current margin development, but very cautious in terms of the outlook because there will be some short-term pressure on the margins, which means offset these other items that I mentioned.
All right. Any specific color on Bharati costs? What I made out was your share of recycled bottles is increasing, right?
Yes.
Yeah. Bharati, any specific color?
Not specifically on pricing. I think we had, yeah, it's always a bit of a mixed bag, but no significant impact.
All right. Understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Harit Kapoor from Invest Tech. Please go ahead. Hello, Mr. Harit. Your line has been unmuted. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah, good afternoon. Can you hear me? Is this okay?
Yes, sir.
Okay. So yeah, I had a couple of questions. I just wanted to get a sense now, where are we as far as the share of premium in the portfolio is concerned? We had two years of fantastic growth on that part of the business. I know it is a slow move up in terms of mix. And when do we believe that scale benefits as well as benefits of RM, etc., start to really show up in an improved margin profile, which kind of positively benefits the portfolio? That's my first question on margins for premium.
Yeah, no, thanks. I think last year, you're right. In 2024, our premium business grew almost 34% for the full year. And we continue to see the momentum of the premium business. I think a lot of it is driven by the choice we made on localizing premium production in many, many locations.
are also relooking at our portfolio to really do that. During this period, we also had some disruptions, like the labor disruptions in Karnataka and all of those things we put together. Having said that, I think our premium business is on the right track. Our expectation is to go even faster. I'm not happy with 30-35% growth because our shares are still mid-single digit and growing. We know that for the last five quarters, the premium business is growing, and premium is still today 17-18% of the market. We have a plan to hit 25% share of premium, for which we have to further accelerate premium. When we accelerate premium, we have to put a lot of new bottles, as you know, because that's how the equation works. We have done a lot of good work on collecting old bottles.
A couple of quarters back, we talked about we are putting a lot of operating discipline there, working from choice. It is helping us. This has also helped us to balance because we are also putting a lot of new bottles on premium in the mix to do that. It is a plan. Structurally, we are getting in the right way on the premium portfolio as we are making those choices. The focus on premium will remain growth for the next few, I would say, years, not only quarters, because we really need to keep hitting 35%-40% growth year on year on premium so that we at least reach our respectable share on premium. I think based on the consumer response as we are making availability, better execution, better programs, we are very confident it will happen. We feel good about it.
You know that once the return bottles start coming in, then the margin profile will improve.
Fantastic. The second thing was on preparedness for summer. Last year, we had certain supply chain challenges. I think a few months back, you also spoke of a lot of efforts we have gone into making sure that some of those blocks do not occur again. I just wanted to know, we have one and a half months broadly through the peak summer. How is your execution in your mind panned out? Do we expect some positive offshoots of some of the supply chain unlocks that you would have done showing up in this time summer?
Actually, absolutely. I think I feel pretty good that we had a plan. If you ask me how did we execute that plan, I think it is seven out of 10. If we did not have a plan, we would have been three out of 10. I would say that those plans definitely helped us. We could feel that momentum and the share growth we are seeing in our business right now. Having said that, we also had a couple of setbacks very early on. One was around bottle supplies because you know that the bottle industry went through a lot of changes, especially with some of the key big suppliers where mergers and some of the acquisitions did not come through. We had a little bit of a glitch there, which we are trying to manage in the whole part.
Other than that, also, the second big challenge we learned was the government warehouses where we are having in the corporation market. While we increased our supplies and planning, in many cases, government states were not able to increase their depots or execute their warehouses. We had situations where a lot of trucks were standing outside the depots for many number of days. Not because we were not planned well, it was just because we faced in the government depots did not increase proportionately where the category is going. All these are part of learning. That is why I call it seven out of 10. Not only on the issues like the right taxation, we are now also going to go back and working actively on what is the right network design, especially for the corporation market where government depots are there.
Because if the beer category is going to grow and we are going to really lead that category grow, it needs space. It needs to do that. States like Rajasthan, we faced a challenge where depots were not there. We faced some challenge in Agra. In some of there, the category is growing. We can give it to them because it was not growing as fast a year back and two years back, and it takes time to build infrastructure. I think these are all learnings, but these also become opportunities for next year.
Fantastic. Fantastic. Those were my questions. I'll come back to them. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abneesh Kumar from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. I have two questions. My first question is on the Maharashtra distribution changes which you are doing. The question there is essentially, is this something new for the beer industry in India? In the mass end, premium end clearly will be more urban focused, so there it is easy to do. The benefits of this will be more from a working capital for the distributors, or it will be more that the stockouts which were happening, those will get addressed? Any sense on the stockouts if you can mention? That's the first question.
Yeah, I would say I think we designed this whole, we looked at it from a pure customer point of view and customer as a retailer. That is, the store getting the best service in the distribution models, right? And the service measured out that if you're placing an order, do they get delivered within 24 hours? Are they getting good fresh goods? Are they able to get access to all the range? Are we closer to the market? This was a complete network design exercise. Where do we need distributors? Where do we need distribution points? How do we serve the retailers better? How do we make sure that the execution in the store is there? The design was really keeping end customer in mind rather than the distributor part.
Now, the benefits are going to be all of it, whatever you said. Better availability because in many cases, we are expanding the distributor warehouse space. In many cases, distributors are opening up multiple distribution points so that they can store it. Now, all that needs excise regulatory approval. Some is there, some is not. It is also about making sure that there is better discipline in the market in execution. I do not know that it is the first in the beer industry, but I definitely think that the quality of work which has happened is quite intense. It is quite world-class what we see in terms of quality of data at a store level, quality of execution, and what we are going to monitor. We will be able to reach 100% of the stores in Maharashtra as we look at corners.
We know it's a market which has a good gross margin also. We can actually invest in developing the market. In parallel, we are also continuously recommending to the government to reduce the gap between beer and spirit from taxation. We will reduce taxes on beer because the industry has not grown significantly in the last few years. We are feeling good about it on what we have done.
Thanks. Two follow-ups here. One is, which are the two other states where you are doing this? Eventually, will it be fair to expect that medium-long-term pan-India this will happen? In terms of cooler placement, say in Maharashtra, what percentage is there currently? Will you target here also, say, the 100% which you mentioned?
Yeah, on the cooler placement, apologies, I don't have the exact number. I can come back to you. I don't think our target is 100% cooler placement in Maharashtra. I think we'll be around 50% cooler placement in the next couple of years, which will be much higher than 8-10% or 10-15% we have today because it will take a lot of time. Yes, we are doing this work in other states. I can't tell you right now which, we have to keep something for the next councilor's call also. Yes, we are doing, and some of it is a little bit confidential and compatible because there's a lot of work, redesign work we are doing. In Maharashtra, we have completed this work in terms of defining a distributor, defining the points, the execution.
I think already the people are in place in the stores, so we wanted to share it. Yes, this will happen at least in four states this year. The idea is to get this playbook and go to all India. We are picking one distributor market, which is Maharashtra, one corporation market, which will be one thing, one wholesale market, and one corporation market led by corporation. We are using a different architecture of market, create a playbook, have an execution model so that for next year and the year after, we keep expanding it.
My second and last question is in terms of innovations and new brand launches, we have seen sharps scale up in the last 18 months. My second question is in the states where Amstel and, say, Heineken Silver, etc., have been launched, could you share is this creation of a new revenue generator for you, more market share gains? How exactly has this panned out? Any learnings, any things you can improve in terms of execution based on the launch which has happened till now?
Yeah, no, I think we are feeling good, very good about both Heineken Silver and Amstel Grande. I would say Heineken Silver, you know, we had a challenge of producing only in a couple of states. We got approval to produce in Karnataka last year. We have expanded Heineken Silver in Karnataka again. In some markets like Goa, Heineken Silver is a very sizable business now and growing. Actually, when I look at our plans, I think we are actually growing high double digit on Heineken as a brand, and Heineken Silver is growing in leaps and bounds where we are doing. Great product, great acceptance. Amstel Grande is in two markets right now, Maharashtra, Mumbai, and West Bengal. We are expanding to UP this week. The initial thing is there. We are very encouraged with the initial trials and repeats, especially on the premium brand.
In West Bengal, we already reached almost four to five shares of that premium category. It is helping to grow shares, but it is also helping to grow our revenue because it is a paid-up story. It is a premiumization. I think on the execution learning, it is just a state-by-state game, getting labels registered, local production, making sure we have the full model, especially in a dark market because, as you know, you cannot advertise and talk about how the product is better than what is already available. A lot of it depends on in-store execution and distribution. It is a slower buildup than what I would like, but we are working creative ways to make sure that the rumors actually try the product. We are extremely happy with both the launches. Our focus is on the states where we have launched.
We do a very good job. Then we go to the next state and the next state.
Thanks. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jay Doshi from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Vivek, around last summer, if I remember correctly, your bottle recovery rate was about 65% or maybe a little lower than that. If you could talk about the progress you've made over the last three, four quarters, and what should be the expectation for this summer in terms of bottle recovery rate? Second is, if you can give us some idea of for the new bottles, what is the nature of contracts you have, and do you have visibility at a full-year level of the inflation and any outlook or color you can give there?
Yeah. Thank you for the question. Very straightforward on the bottle returns. We've improved by approximately 300 basis points. We're very happy with that. As Vivek mentioned, a lot of operational improvements that are going on, and that will continue to happen. As you can see, across India, we see pockets where things move better, and there's still opportunity to continue to do so. As we continue to expand the portfolio, as mentioned by Vivek, we'll continue to have a challenge on this because building the category, it also means that we're looking at our consumers and future consumers, which means that we want to attract new consumers into the category with new innovative products, which in many cases also lead to new bottles. It's something that we continuously balance and where we also closely connect with our suppliers.
I won't go specifically into contracts, but we are running a key supplier program, which also involves bottle suppliers as they are for packaging materials, one of our main partners. We are looking into building longer-term strategic partnerships with many suppliers, of which also bottle suppliers.
Okay. Thank you. Actually, I think there is some, maybe you're away from the speaker, whatever, but we're not able to sort of get the message clearly. Anyway, I will go back and revisit the transcript. Second question is, in this quarter, there was significant, if I look at March quarter gross revenues versus December quarter gross revenues, it's broadly flat. However, the excise component has declined 13%, and net sales on a QOQ basis is up 16%. Normally, we don't look at quarter on quarter, but very surprised to see the trend of sharp decline in excise. If you could explain to us what is the change in the state mix that has resulted into this? My last question is, at a full-year level, receivable days have increased by about 23%.
Receivables have increased by 23% versus 10% increase in net sales, or maybe even lower increase in net sales. Some updates on what is the situation of collections from the state where we had problems? Is it getting better, or the problem still sort of remains?
Yep. Thank you. I hope I am audible. I moved a bit closer to the speaker.
It's better now. Thank you.
Okay. Very good.
The first question again. The next revenue on the ground.
Oh, yeah. That's a good. Yeah. Actually, there's an accounting impact from a change in U P where the excise is no longer part of our P&L because we are no longer liable for paying the excise. There's a change in who's liable for paying excise, and nothing else but that. That's the full change in our P&L in terms of the difference between net sales and gross revenue. That's one. On the receivables, yeah, we see two main items, which is one, there's still an effect of Telangana there if we compare it versus last year in terms of the aging of the inventory, sorry, the aging of the receivables.
Secondly, we see also an increase in preparing for season where we will grow more inventory in corporation markets, which leads to a temporary increase in our receivables because the collection happens only after we dispatch further into the market. We did expect also a temporary peak in receivables, which we also expect to recover. Overall, I think, as Vivek mentioned earlier, the conversation with Telangana remains ongoing, and it is our main priority now after we have got the first pricing to make sure that we also recover the cash. I think we can say that we are in a better space than where we were a quarter ago, but it remains a high priority to make sure that we recover it. For the other markets, we do expect that as the season continues, we will recover that peak in receivables over the next couple of weeks and months.
Thank you. I wish you the very best for financial year 2026.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Line of Dhiraj Mistry from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon, sir. First question is regarding CapEx. When do we expect that the UP CapEx would be done and when it would be materially contributing to the volume numbers? What would be the capacity of this plant?
I think the brewery is going to take two years minimum to build. Without that, we cannot count on extra volumes. We already shared there is a range of capacities we are looking at from 1.5 million-3 million, 3.5 million. Depending on the demand at that point of time, the policy, we can be modular there. We have already started investing in the CapEx. As I said, we already got approval for the land, and we had to make some deposits. We already started placing some orders, working on architectures, and all. The work is going on, but it will take minimum two years to complete the project.
Got it. The reason why I'm asking is that during the peak summer season, we have seen multiple times there is a capacity constraint, which we face. Given that now the summer season has been going on, what would be the constraint because of the capacity and whether it would materially restrict the volume growth in the current quarter?
There is some restriction. In some states, there is a concern. I also talked about reduction in demand because of excise duties increase and pricing increase as well. We are balancing. We are also transferring stock from one state to another, which has an impact on margins, but we are taking those calls. We are also strengthening our partnership with our partners, contract manufacturers. I think, as Jorn said, that as we increase that volume, while the profitability does not look very similar, but there is an impact on the margin. We are making all those calls. Yes, do we have supply issues in a few states? I would say yes. Yes. I would say, yeah, we did keep planning, but there are a couple of states. I would say we are in a much better shape than the last year.
As we change on the category, growth normalizes, we'll continue to invest CapEx to improve our capacity. We are making a lot of strategic calls, which we will hear sooner about those calls as well.
Yeah. If I can add something here, as Vivek mentioned early on, it's about the network design, which consists of many different pieces, part of which is investing in doing capacity extension, partnering up with network partners, as well as planning in logistics and warehousing, etc. We're working on all these pieces to make sure that while we are building capacity, we will be able to supply the market. It's a consistent trade-off where we also look at margins versus growth, again, to really build the category. We continue to make these trade-offs also when our own capacity becomes unseen.
It is a conversation that we have as we look across the whole of India, there is still excess capacity. It is really a matter of deciding what is the trade-off between maybe incurring lower margins in the short term but really growing the volume. There is a moment that we get capacity unseen, we can also benefit from the margin extension. The trade-off will be part of our continuous business for the short term, but also for the long term.
Yeah. That's clear to know. Thank you. Second question related to that, what would be your current capacity in terms of hectoliters, and what can we expect in a CapEx for the next two to three years period?
Sorry. Could you repeat that question?
Yeah. So what would be your current capacity in terms of hectoliters, and what would be the CapEx amount over the next two to three years period?
Yeah. I think, look, as I said, we are adding more capacity. The current hectoliter capacity is a function of the capacity on our own brewery and the negotiated capacity with the contract brewers. I cannot give you the exact numbers because it's easy for me to give you numbers, but there is also commercial context attached to it. It is safer to say our CapEx investment rate is going up in multiples versus the previous years. We already announced a massive investment in U P. We already talked about making CapEx investment in our brewery. I do not know if we shared with you, we are already setting up a can line in Maharashtra in one of the breweries, which will be ready by the next season, which will give us significant leverage on our can volumes as well.
That is another CapEx investment we have made. We are investing CapEx in coolers, which is the last CapEx investment. I can only say that the CapEx investment is going to grow in multiples, and we just need to do a better job of execution and making sure the momentum we see in the business continues to happen. Jorn, anything you want to add there?
No. I think, again, it is a trade-off between investing in commercial CapEx to really grow the demand and make sure that we serve consumers, as well as from sourcing, and where we also balance to really service the trends that we see. I think Vivek mentioned cans, and we see that there is momentum on cans, so we need to make sure that we are ready to supply that. We will continue to do that as we move along.
Okay. Okay. Sir, last question is related to price hike. Other than Telangana, is there any state where we are expecting price hike or likely to already taken price hike?
We have taken pricing in a few markets. Rajasthan, there has been a pricing increase. It has been effective April. We have taken in Orissa. The price increase. U P, we have taken a pricing increase in U P. There are a few markets where the pricing has happened. At the same time, we are also investing in the business. Like in Karnataka, we did not take a pricing increase on Kingfisher Strong despite the duty increase last time. We are balancing our investment choices there, but yes, there have been a few states where we got the pricing.
If possible, can you quantify that?
Quantify in terms of we can track that in the next quarter. Right now, I do not have the numbers with me. You can see our volume versus the price mix has been 4%. We grew 5%, and price mix has been 4%. We are hoping to maintain that for the next few quarters, at least.
If you look at the current quarter, there is quite a good balance between volume growth and the contribution from price mix on net sales. Like Vivek mentioned there, we go case by case and state by state where we see how do we best serve the consumer and grow the category. It will be, again, here a balanced trade-off on where do we take pricing and where do we invest in the market.
Very much also speaking to the earlier comments around the importance of affordability and that we really want to be the category maker, which means that we need to keep a very close eye on what consumer wants and needs while also safeguarding our margin. It is going to be a case-by-case decision. Overall, our aim is to maintain sort of a similar trajectory with the balance between volume growth and contributions from price and mix.
Okay. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vanshika Gupta from JRK Stockbroking. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I just have one question. I know we've spoken about CapEx being multiple. We're doing it in the brewery, in cans, in coolers. I just wondered if we could quantify that in numbers over two to three years, what is the CapEx that we're investing in? We plan to use debt to finance some of this CapEx if it is substantial. That will be the follow-up.
Yeah. I'm not going to comment exactly on the CapEx numbers. I think it's been a continuous conversation we had also in these calls where it's been highlighted that over the previous years, we were falling slightly behind in terms of CapEx in terms of looking at the percentage of revenue. That's where this comes in, where we plan to significantly increase and also make sure that we have the structure in place to make sure that we can finance that. I think over the past year, we've also learned a lot from the situation in Telangana and looking at how does that work for our cash flow similar to peak season planning, the question that we had earlier on the food growth. I think these are all things that have happened now but continue to be part of this market for the years to come.
That means that if we also want to invest, which is clearly part of the plan, we need to make sure that we have the structure in place to be able to do so.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today's conference call. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vivek Gupta for closing comments.
Thank you for the engagement and thank you for the questions. As I summarize, I think we feel good that the choices we made of being category maker, going both premium and mainstream, bidding in outsource, making sure we leverage our beauty network, we drive cost mindset, and we really have a bidding culture. I think we are all we think we are on the right track. I think this will be six consecutive quarters of close to double-digit growth on the business. Our premium business is doing extremely well. We are building design capabilities, which help us to win in future years, not only tactical volume. I feel pretty good that I'm hoping this momentum will continue.
We will continue to engage with the government and set up government in every state to make sure we keep bringing the thought leadership on how do we grow the category. We need to do a lot more work on backward integration with our vendors, suppliers as we capture this growth market by market. There are also volatilities in the market, which we do not know how they will impact and how they will play out. I would say that UBL is much better geared to meet the category growth and the momentum. Thank you for your support, and thank you for all your questions.
Thank you. With that, we conclude today's conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.