We would like to thank the management of Bajaj Consumer Care for giving us the opportunity to host this Q4 FY 2019 call. The management is represented by Mr. Sumit Malhotra, Managing Director, Mr. Sandeep Verma, President, Sales and Marketing, Mr. Dilip Kumar Maloo, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Kushal Maheshwari, Head Treasury. At ICICI Securities, we actually have a buy rating on the stock with a target of INR 450. It is one of the preferred picks in the mid-cap space. In this call, we have three expectations from the management. One, an important commentary on rural consumption, given the questions about deceleration in consumption. At least that is what is coming from a lot of other companies. Secondly, an update on the core business and also the thought process on the new products.
Without further ado, I would like to hand over the floor to the management for the opening comments, and after that, we can start the Q&A. Thanks, and over to you, Sumit.
Thanks, Manoj. Good morning to all, and Welcome to the conference call for the declaration of the fourth quarter and annual results for the financial year 2018-2019. With me are Sandeep, who is the President, Sales and Marketing, Mr. Maloo, who is the CFO, and Kushal, who is the Head Treasury. We have closed the fourth quarter with a turnover of INR 238.26 crores and a PAT of INR 60.62 crores. The growth in turnover is 11.1%, whereas the PAT has grown by 9.4% this quarter.
On an annualized basis, our company has clocked a total operating income of INR 909 crores. This is the first time in our history we have crossed INR 900 crores in operating income. This is on a standalone basis, with a growth of 9.4% over the last financial year. The EBITDA for the year has been INR 284 crores, which is a very healthy 33% of our sales.
During the quarter, the rates of nearly all the raw and packaging materials have gone up. The two raw materials that we really look at, which is light liquid paraffin and refined mustard oil, have gone up quite steeply. Light liquid paraffin has gone up by 10%, and RMO has gone up by 7%. What is different this year is that the other raw and packaging materials also have gone up. Glass bottles saw an inflation of 6%, and cost of perfumes even went up by 5%. However, by proactive purchases and timely MRP increases, we were able to contain the rise in COGS, thereby affecting our gross margins by only 24 basis points during this financial year. The fourth quarter saw a significant rise in market shares of our lead brand, Bajaj Almond Drops Hair Oil.
The value market share in light hair oil went up to 64% in February of this year. Even if we take the performance of the brand in the total hair oil segment, it has touched an all-time high of 10% in February 2019. This rise in market share has been driven by increase in household penetration. The penetration of Bajaj Almond Drops has gone up from 17.6%- 20.1%, which is an impressive rise of 2.5% in penetration within one year. The relaunch of Bajaj Almond Drops has been very successful and has resulted in market share as well as penetration gains. The growth within the total hair oils on a national basis has been improving on a monthly basis. The total hair oils grew by an impressive 17.4% by value on a moving annual total February 2019.
Within this, the growth of light hair oils and heavy hair oils are now nearly the same. The growth of light hair oils have been driven by rural growth. For MAT February 2019, the rural growth have outgrown the urban growth by 450 basis points. The other brand we relaunched during FY 2019 has been Nomarks. During the fourth quarter, the growth has been 41.4% in the domestic market. Even on a company level, the brand has shown an impressive 26.8% growth in turnover in this quarter and an annual growth of 14.4%. The market share of the brand in the antimarks category continues to do well and is currently at 8.6%. The two recent launches of Bajaj Cool Almond Drops and Bajaj Nomarks Sunscreen have been well received in the market and currently meeting our short-term goals of timely sales and distribution.
This quarter saw all our sales verticals, with the exception of CSDs, showing a distinctly positive performance. The leader was the sales vertical of international business, which grew by 66.4% this quarter. The restructuring of the international business has now begun to show positive results, and we are hopeful that in the coming quarters, you will see more of the same. Alternate channels, which grew by 21.8%, was led by a small but very exciting e-commerce business. The e-commerce business grew by over 150%, and our brands are now being sold in platforms like Nykaa, Grofers, JioMart and Purplle. With the increase in investments in various parts of the alternative channel, we expect this part of our business to grow exponentially and outgrow all other sales verticals. During this month, our company has informed the exchanges about our engagement with Bain & Company.
As you will all know, Bain & Company are a well-renowned global management consultant. The firm will help our company plan to grow our hair oil brands faster. They will be using their well-respected BBA or Bain Brand Accelerator Model to guide us towards faster growth. The positives that we have witnessed during this quarter are double-digit growth in turnover, improvement in growth in volume of the light hair oil and total hair oil, growth led by improvement in rural volume growth, and all-time high market share in light as well as total hair oil segments. A healthy EBITDA of 33% despite strain on RMPM. Relaunches of Bajaj Almond Drops and Nomarks showing positive results, and engagement with Bain & Company to further speed up the growth of our hair oil brands. We are planning an investor meet on the 30th of April.
Though a formal invite will be sent to you, may I please request you to make it convenient to attend the same. We are now open for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue opens. A reminder, you may press star and one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Avi Mehta from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Just wanted to understand some commentary on the demand environment as we close 4Q. We've kind of heard commentary on weakness in rural markets. Is that something that you would corroborate or you would disagree with? If you could share your.
The figures that are coming in from Nielsen, which tracks off-take, clearly shows that rural is not slowing down for hair oils, at least. What you would have heard from other companies for various other segments, I can't corroborate. For hair oil, the difference between urban and rural is widening in terms of growth, and rural is not slowing down.
Okay, sir. The second bit is on the competitive intensity and in an environment where input costs are the way they are behaving, just wanted to understand our ability to pass on the input cost inflation through price increases, what are your thoughts on that?
We have made it a point that we are not really increasing our gross margins. Therefore, whatever RMPM cost increases, we normally, during the year, at least once, take a correction in our MRPs. There was a period between 2015, 2016 to 2017, 2018, where we didn't take a price hike because the raw and packaging material situation was quite benign. Last year, we have taken two price increases, one in April and one in August, September. This year, we have taken a price increase as we speak in April itself.
The quantum, sir, of the same?
This is around 3.7% in April 2019. The new MRP will hit the market during this month.
Okay, perfect, sir. I'll come again in the queue for any other questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star 1 to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Prakash Kapadia from Ambit PMS. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. I had two questions. If I look at the annual other income, it has fallen from INR 24.3 crores- INR 17.5 crores. Could you give us some color on the decline? Has there been some mark-to-market loss, and why this decline?
I think you've answered it yourself. The other income is largely the treasury income or wholly the treasury income. If you, being in the financial play, understand what's happened to the returns on the investment, it has gone down. A very large proportion of this is obviously the mark-to-market and not realized profits or gains. The large part of reduction of around INR 7 odd crores is due to mark-to-market losses on our treasury.
Okay. As we've seen or delayed summer, what are we doing to ensure that retailers are stocking Almond Cooling Oil? That's a fairly new product for us. How are we tackling the delayed summer, any-
It's a very new product currently. We launched it in March of this year. The first response is very encouraging in the sense that the USP or the selling proposition of this is a light cooling oil. Our research actually showed us that the cooling oils in the market today are seen as very harsh. Both in terms of appearance as well as the stickiness that they give to the consumer. What we did was, we did not play upon the coolness. We have a product which is as cooling as the competitor, but the feel is much more lighter. That's why we actually extended Bajaj Almond Drops, which is a light hair oil, into a light cooling oil.
Since it's the first year, negative impact of delay of summer and all that is something which we haven't seen at all, we are still just putting the product in the market. The off-takes have started, but they're still significantly small as we speak.
How would it be compared in terms of pricing with the available cooling oils in the market?
It's the same. We haven't played with the pricing.
One more question, if I may. Nomarks will always be a niche and not a big contributor, as you know, anti-blemish categories were small. From a de-risking perspective, what are we thinking in terms of the inputs from Bain? How do we de-risk from the almond light hair oil? Because this is a very niche category, unless and until we do acquisition organically, any thoughts of some newer categories?
It's too early because Bain has just come in from 1st of April. The whole idea of getting Bain is to help us collect our thoughts and come up with a strategy for doing exactly what you're talking about. You're dead right that the Nomarks in its present form is a very small category, which is Antimarks. This is a small category, that cannot be used as the bedrock for de-risking. Bain is going to help us, and as we move along on a quarterly basis, we'll give you an update on what's happening on that.
Sure. Understood. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Jha from Bay Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sumit. This is Nikunj Doshi from Bay Capital.
Hi, Nikunj.
wanted to understand this mandate to Bain. Is it only for the hair oil category that we are looking or are we looking them to suggest on the adjacent categories or some new categories to enter?
The first part that we have set out is only on hair oil. Further, we may not engage with the overall company strategy.
Okay. 30th analyst meet will be presenting their suggestions.
It is too early. Normally, this first project itself will take six months.
Okay.
We will present why we went in for Bain and what are we hoping to achieve.
Okay, thanks. Thanks, Sumit.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Himesh Satra from Choice Broking. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Can you hear me?
Yeah.
I wanted to have some clarity on the number of shares that are pledged by the promoters of the company.
Again, like I said in the last con call, you're asking the wrong person because the people involved in pledging and taking loan and all that is the family office. I expect during the investor presentation, since Mr. Bajaj will be there, you'll get an opportunity to question him there. I don't have a clarity on that, and therefore, I'm not the right guy to answer this.
Okay. Is there any change in the management of the company or the management is the same as it was?
I think it is the same. We have put it in the investor presentation, and for the last eight years, we have been putting the organogram. I don't see any change except a new person joining in as the AVP Finance, Mr. Rohit Saraogi, who's come in as an understudy to Mr. Maloo, and in events in the long run, will take over as the CFO of the company.
Okay. Could you provide some guidance for the volume growth or any new products that will be launching in coming quarters?
We normally don't provide guidance, and especially on new launches, I would rather not talk on a conference call.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question, may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Shreepad Aute from Smart Investor. Please go ahead.
Good morning, sir. My first question was regarding the volume growth during the quarter. If you could throw some more light on the demand side, how do you see the demand panning out in the near term when the other industry experts have shown their concern on the demand side?
In terms of demand side, if you look at hair oil specifically, of which we're the second-largest player with a 10% market share, I don't see any slowdown in demand as yet. In fact, consecutively, the last four quarters, the demand has been improving in value terms. In volume terms also, after a low second quarter, the third and fourth quarters were much better in terms of volume growth also. I don't think that's an issue at this point of time. My concern with that, starting from the second quarter of last financial year to the first quarter of this year, rural growths were really not in excess of the urban growth. That has been reversed. Like I said, there's a 4.5% difference between the growth of rural versus urban this year.
Okay, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Darshan Malik from Ventura Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yeah.
Yeah. Sir, my question is, can you provide us any idea on raw material cost? How would it be going forward?
See, if you look at it, we have three parts of it. One is light liquid paraffin, which is directly linked to crude. If you know, the crude prices over the last 40 days have been actually going up again. We are covered till June already. What we normally do is stock up rather than sort of wait for prices to go up and buy on a spot basis. We are looking at downturns in LLP prices, and we'll keep stocking up. For this quarter, we are covered at the current rate of LLP prices here. The other part is things which are based on, let's say, agriculture, which is things like RMO, which is refined mustard oil. That has also gone up surprisingly, as knowing the importance of this as a cooking oil within India.
Normally the government does not allow inflation to hit mustard oil that harshly. I expect it to cool off in the coming quarter or so. This is also the season that the new crop comes in, so we'll possibly see a little more control on the prices. The third part are things which sporadically increase, which are things like glass, perfume, the packaging material, all of that. All of that, we have already had to take a price increase, so hopefully during this year you should not see a major increase. All of this has been accounted in the recent price increase, therefore, reduction in gross margins is not expected this year.
Okay. Fine, sir. That's it from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Ranade from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to understand the divergence between the offtake growth that we report. YTD, we have reported around 18% as per the Nielsen, whereas the primary sales growth for the year is around only 5%. Just wanted to understand why the difference is so big.
There could be two major reasons. One is the company also looks at sales from canteen stores, from exports, et cetera, and therefore, the two figures are not like-to-like in geographical terms also. The second thing is, remember, Nielsen is a sample. They work on a sample, and therefore, on short term, if you see quarters, you may see differences between our sales figures versus their offtake figures. To help you all understand, we show what we sell to distributors. We also track what the distributors sell to retailers. Nielsen tracks what the consumer buys from the retailer. There's a pipeline in between, which could possibly cause some of these errors.
Okay. The CSD and international together for us would be around what, 10%-12%?
Around 8% or 9%, sir. 8%. 7%, 8%.
Okay. Just one more question on the working capital part. I think that has kind of slightly gone up this year. Anything to read into that? Anything specific?
There are two parts of it. One, I think our outstanding with CSD has gone up because like I've been telling you, we don't give credit to our general trade people. CSD, and you probably understand why it's gone up. The government has not been paying us for the last two months. That has slightly gone up. The second is, in our thing, we get GST refund for the fact that we manufacture in the northwest and northeast of India. That refund that has not come in from the government currently is around INR 31 crores, sir. That has added to this balance in working capital. Having said that, we are basically a cashless company, so it doesn't really affect us that badly. All of this is outstanding and to be collected either from the government through GST refunds or the government through canteen stores outstanding.
Okay. Got that. Just last question on the international business. What is the outlook there since it's starting to pick up now?
I think we are very gung-ho, we have been talking over the last two conference calls that we are cleaning up the system. We called it a reboot of the international business. That has really gone well in terms of, one, the stability in distributors, the stability in our own management in handling international business, we expect much, much higher growth in the coming year. Instead of some negative that you saw this year, you'll definitely see a robust positive in the coming year.
All right, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Surbhi Prasad from Cogencis Information Services. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir.
Hi.
Hi. Actually, you had said earlier that every quarter you'll launch a new product. What products are we expecting this quarter?
How can I talk about the products I'm going to launch? What I did say that last quarter, we launched two products. One was the Bajaj Cool and the second was Nomarks Sunscreen. That's what we did last quarter. This quarter, as the quarter unfolds, we'll be able to talk to you about it.
Okay. Anything on the outlook for the next current FY?
I just said I don't give guidance. That's one of the reasons why we give such a lot of information in our investor presentation, so that you can actually make the model yourself, sir.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohan Samant from Multi-Act. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks. Can you give us an update on the Coco Jasmine and Brahmi Amla launches? Where are we right now in terms of what kind of growth are we seeing there?
See, among the two, I think, the better performer is the Brahmi Ayurvedic. Yeah, we do have certain feedback on the product in terms of the pricing and the positioning which we are working on. It's done better than the Coco Jasmine. Coco Jasmine, if you remember, we had launched only in Maharashtra. As of now, the feedback isn't very exciting, so we'll have to rework our metrics there so that we can sort of work and get the growth back again in this.
Okay, we are currently only selling in Maharashtra. We haven't kind of increased-
No, we launched in Maharashtra. We launched in Maharashtra.
Right.
In fact, in the last conference call, we had also mentioned that even within Maharashtra, we had restricted it to few select geographies because it was one of those launches where we were iterating basis the consumer responses. Right. We are still on the, like Sumit just mentioned, we've received enough feedback which tells us that we need to go back to the drawing board on it to make it more distinctive versus the other offerings.
Okay. You can still buy that product in that region, right?
You are taking it out of the system?
Yeah.
Okay. International business, the size would be how much as a percentage of sales right now?
It will be around now this year because of the reduction, we have declined. It will be around 4.5%-5%. Ideally, before this last year, we had touched 7% saliency of international business.
Okay. One of your peers has mentioned that the CSD side of the business is kind of stabilizing. Are you seeing that kind of a thing on your side?
No, I don't see that.
Okay.
There are swings. If you saw last quarter, we had grown. That is the third quarter we had grown well in CSD. Fourth quarter, we have declined again in CSD. I don't see a sign of stabilizing.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Darshan Malik from Ventura Securities. Please go ahead.
Sir, any guidance on buyback or something the company?
I can't hear you. Can you come closer to the microphone?
Yeah. Are we planning a sort of buyback or anything?
No, not at this point of time.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nitin Gupta from SBICAP Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to get a sense on Almond Drop Hair Oil volume growth for this quarter.
Are you talking about turnover or are you?
No, no. Volume growth for ADHO.
Are you talking of offtake or are you talking of primary sales? What are you-
No, for this quarter, our volume growth. Like overall it is around 5.5%.
It's around 7.4%.
7.4%
7.3% something, 7.2%.
Okay, sir. Thank you. Second question is on rural, since we are seeing outperformance to urban. What according to you the key drivers while we for this category, we have seen gradual acceleration in this outperformance?
I've always been saying that this category, you don't get too many new users of hair oil. What you get is conversion or up trading or down trading with you, whatever be the scenario. When income in the rural areas go up, people convert from unbranded to branded or coconut to branded much more speedily. Rural growth increasing is a sign that there is money coming into the rural areas, either through increase in MSPs or the subsidies that the government has announced and also given during the last quarter. I think all of that cumulatively has shown increase in urban hair oil consumption.
Okay, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, this is Harit. What's really changed from, say, Q3- Q4 in terms of growth, moving back to decline? The second question on that was that, versus maybe a couple of years back, how much would CSD now be for our business as a percentage of sales?
If you think, four years ago, we were nearly double of what we were in terms of saliency with these other companies. What has changed is, I think, three things. One is the government itself is trying to contain the leakages of products from the canteens to the local market. They've done it very actively over the last three, four quarters, and that's why that's going down. Second, the government is sort of taking a squeeze on the cash that is given to CSD to buy more goods. You see, the process in CSD is that the orders are placed by the canteen stores. The money that is collected from sales from the canteens actually goes to the MoD or Ministry of Defence. Ministry of Defence releases money to canteen stores.
That release is actually being constrained by the government because of whatever reasons that the government sees in terms of the liquidity at their end itself. Third is that they are actually streamlining their supplies in terms of reducing the number of canteens, reducing the stock at depots, et cetera. It is a hygiene factor. It's got to do with hygiene, it's got to do with removing the leakages, and third is the cash crunch that canteen is going through.
Got it, sir. Do you think this could kind of continue to be a little bit of an issue as the recalibration continues?
I don't know. I hope it's not. The internal news is that the government is really looking at this method of subsidizing the armed forces and trying to think of a more cost-effective and other technology-enabled methods of passing on this subsidy to the soldiers.
Got it, sir. That's it from me. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Deepak Poddar from Delphi Advisory. Please go ahead.
Hi.
Hi. Can you come a little-
Sorry, your voice is breaking.
Yeah. A little close.
Okay.
I still can't hear.
Yeah. Can you hear me now? It should be better.
Now it's better.
My question is basically regarding the rural performance, which you mentioned, which is doing well. You mentioned because of MSP and subsidy and so on and so forth. There is a counter-narrative which is going on that the rural income hasn't been really up to the mark. If we combine that with the recent Skymet Weather projections going forward, what do you really foresee in the coming quarters? How it's going to really affect all your performance? A, and B, whenever we had such predictions from Skymet or other agencies, how has that really affected the performance in the past? Thanks.
One difference that you should notice is that we are much smaller companies than the larger MNCs that you get commentary from. We are also in one large category rather than in several categories, and therefore, their reading of the situation in multiple category helps them give a more colored view to their commentary. Whereas my commentary is largely from the hair oil category. The first thing is that hair oil is peculiar that we have a very big unorganized category or unbranded play, and that is the largest reason for growth in hair oil. A large part of this unbranded hair oil users reside in the rural areas, and therefore, logically rural should continue growing much faster than urban. Therefore, sooner rather than later, hair oil like other categories, will have a very small unbranded hair oil play unlike what it is today.
Currently, it's around 22% of the users use unbranded hair oil. This is consumption data from IMRB or Kantar, like you call them.
On the monsoon part, would you really like to comment something? Would it really make any effect, you think?
You have read what I have read, and what we have read is not very encouraging. If monsoon is going to be 30% low there'll be a strain on rural consumption. At this point of time, I don't have any other data point, but just to say that, yes, everything will get affected if monsoons are really 30% lower than normal.
Can you go back to the history and say if in the past 10 years, just help us remind if there was any such situation and how was the performance?
If you go back, there were two consecutive bad monsoons. Right?
Yeah, 2016.
Each industry slowed down. FMCG segment slowed down. Right? We also slowed down. Slowdown in things like the other staples was much more pronounced than in hair oil.
My other question is on the Bain & Company, which you have, as you mentioned, they are starting the assignment only from April 1st. I understand that it is very early for you to really comment on what they really would suggest. At the same time, I think in the past, we have considered buybacks. We have given high dividends. Going forward, do you think at least dividends will be affected?
This is more for the current assignment with Bain & Company is more to do with the brand rather than the company strategy. Things like buybacks, acquisitions, getting into other categories will be the second part of their engagement as and when it happens. Currently, we are only looking at hair oil and what can we do to increase the rate of growth in hair oil, which we are currently around 10% market share. If I can increase that, I think it's much faster growth from a huge category, which is currently at INR 13,000 crores in India.
Okay. Fair. Understood. Thanks.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Pritesh Chheda from Lucky Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Sir, just a clarification. You mentioned the ADHO primary volume growth at about 7.4% in quarter four FY 2019. Is that the number you mentioned?
Yes.
What it would be for FY 2019 full year?
It's 5.8%.
This 5.8% would be after CSD would have declined this year and international would have declined this year, or international would have grown this year?
No, declined.
Okay. What would be India growth rate, direct market growth rate for us?
For the year?
For the year.
India growth rate would be around 7.37%.
Okay, 7.37%. You mentioned international grew 56%. That was specifically for quarter four.
Yes.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vishal Punmiya from EMKAY Global Financial Services . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. I have only one question. Sir, what is the likely income tax rate for FY 2020, FY 2021?
It will remain at MAT plus.
22% kind of range?
Yeah.
21.5%.
The reason is very simple. We now produce around 1/3 of our production from Guwahati, which is still at least for the next seven years
10 years. Nine years.
Nine years now will remain under zero tax.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manav Vijay from Essel Finance Management. Please go ahead.
Yes. Sir, thank you for the opportunity. I just want to ask you two questions. First of all, the divergence of the sales that you report and what the Nielsen data report. You gave some reasons for that. I just want to know if we go back to the history, would the data ever converge, or this difference has always been there?
It's always been there, sometimes plus, sometimes minus. Because ours is authentic money coming into our system, whereas Nielsen is a sampling exercise. That's why I've always been telling all of you to look at Nielsen in terms of trends rather than absolute. If you spend time in converting Nielsen into a number of pieces sold and then match with our number of pieces sold, you'll go crazy.
Fair. Second question from me, sir. On the number of outlets that you provide in the PPT on the supply chain overview, there is a slight decline if I compare on a quarter-on-quarter basis. I would say in every quarter, whether it's urban outlet, rural outlet, urban redistribution, rural stockist. If you can just tell me, I should read into something into it or just maybe kind of one-off phenomena.
You should read the source of that data. That number of outlets, urban, rural, is basically from Nielsen.
Okay.
Not my direct sales. If you read the investor presentation, we have a slide on our direct coverage. Right?
Correct, sir.
That is a much more robust data than Nielsen data because these are the outlets that are visited by my own people.
Correct.
If you look at it's a little over 5 lakh outlets in this season.
Sure. That's all from me. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hiren Dasani from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Sir, if I look through the quarterly volatility-
Hiren, sorry to interrupt you. Your voice is breaking. May I request you to repeat your question once again?
Can you hear me now?
Yes, better.
Yeah. I was saying that if I look through the quarterly volatility, do you think that over the medium term, the hair oil category which you are in is capable of delivering double-digit kind of a volume growth? Under what kind of macro environment you think that is possible?
In terms of volume growth, double-digit on a total hair oil is difficult in my opinion, right? The reason is very simple. It's a very large and highly penetrated category, and therefore, what you see in smaller categories that you see a double-digit volume growth is largely due to increase in number of people using our penetration. In this case, penetration of the total hair oil will be difficult to increase because the only source for increasing penetration will be unbranded. Having said that, value growth double-digit is definitely possible.
For ADHO as a category or for overall?
We're talking about total hair oil. I thought you were talking about the total hair oil category.
I think for you as a company, total hair oil
Hair oil is in the total oil. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. What kind of macro environment is needed for that, sir?
I think largely, if you look at it, rural gives us, at least for our brand, 40%-odd of our sales, and it's around 68% of the population. Obviously, as rural wellbeing goes up and consumption goes up, that will drive this conversion from unbranded to branded, and therefore, total hair oil will continue to grow fast.
Okay. I know you don't give the guidance, do you think 2020 is such environment where it is a possibility?
I don't give guidance.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jay Modi from EMKAY Global Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Sir, you just mentioned that Bajaj Almond for the year, volume growth has been 7.4%, is that right?
This is domestic, huh?
Sorry, ex of IB.
Ex of international business.
CSD.
CSD.
Okay, considering international and CSD business, how much was the volume growth for Bajaj Almond?
I said 5.8%, no?
5.8%. Okay. Sir, secondly, I wanted to understand whether the Almond Cool Drops was launched PAN India or the launch was specific to certain states?
No, it's PAN India, largely cooling oil is a mix of, largely concentrated in the Hindi-speaking area. We have launched it everywhere.
Okay, the organizational revamp that we were undertaking, sir, is that complete? If yes, are we meeting the benchmarks, the goals that we set for ourselves?
The reorganization was completed more than two years ago, so that is not-
The supply chain distribution, the exercise that we were undertaking.
Efficiencies keep on going up. That is it. The major revamp happened more than two years ago. Right? Efficiencies that you should see it coming in has continued to show in bits and pieces. You'll see more of it as we go along.
Okay, fine. Thanks a lot and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Devasis Sampat from YES Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Just one question. There was a 24% increase in employee costs on a YOY basis if I look at the full year. Can you just provide an idea as to hiring plans or how should we look at this for the next one, two years?
Actually, you should understand one thing. This is not actually only the salary that has gone up. There is also an element of the new ESOP plans that we had announced last August, and that added to our wage bill by around INR 2.8 crores. That is it. In terms of employee plans, I do not see a major increase in number of employees. Obviously, April being the month where we give increments, you will see a normal increment being an increase in the absolute cost.
The senior level hiring that you want to do, everything is pretty much in place?
Yeah, pretty much in place.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Ranade from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the follow-up. I just wanted to understand the salience of the new INR 10 pegged bottle that we had launched in ADHO.
It's currently the fastest-growing part of our Almond portfolio. Like I said, it's currently around 5% of our total volume. Right. It is up from something like 2.8%, which was there three years ago. It's definitely getting into larger number of households now.
Okay.
It is still a smaller size.
That migration largely is happening from the sachets, people upgrading to the INR 10 price point?
That's the whole idea.
Okay. All right, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kashish Anand from Allegro Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks for the opportunity.
Kashish, sorry to interrupt you. May I request you to speak a bit louder?
Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yeah, better. Yep.
Yeah, sure. The first question was an extension of, I think Hiren question earlier, where he'd asked about volume growth for the industry. I understand that the overall hair oil industry, it'd be difficult for it to grow double digit in terms of volumes.
Yeah.
Because of premiumization, if you look at the ADHO segment, do we believe that it's possible for the ADHO segment to grow double digit?
Yes. Yes, it is.
Okay. Any specific circumstances or requirements, as in does kind of copra, relative pricing to copra, et cetera, make a difference, or is this a kind of a growth rate we should look at in terms of the underlying potential?
It's very amateurish to say that the variation or the gap in prices between almond and coconut doesn't play a role, but the more premiumization or the more premium you make your brand, the lesser the effect of this difference. It does play an effect there.
Okay, excellent. The second question was with relation to Bajaj Cool Almond Drops. As I understand, it's basically concentrated in the Hindi-speaking states. How strong is our distribution in this particular belt?
We obviously are the strongest in the North in the Hindi speaking. Our weakest is the South, and South fortunately, except Andhra Pradesh, is not a cooling oil market.
Okay. Just want to confirm, you mentioned that our pricing is similar to competition.
Yes, that's right.
In cool oil.
In cooling oil.
Okay, perfect. Thanks a lot, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pritesh Chheda from Lucky Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Just a clarification. International and CSD contributes about 8% of our sales.
Not this year. Normally it used to, but if you remember, International, we have been doing a reboot. From around 5%, it dropped to around 2.5%. Ideally, it should be that much.
Okay. Ideally it is 8%, but this year it dropped a bit.
Yeah, it's around 6%.
The cash in the balance sheet is around INR 400 crores.
No.
No.
What did you just say?
266. Okay.
It's there in our-
It was
It's there on page 34 of our investor presentation.
Okay. Sorry for that. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijeet Kundu from Antique Stock Broking Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. My question was on the inventory part. When you look at the inventory on a year-on-year basis, there has been a good amount of increase. What has been the reason for the same?
Inventory. You're talking of total inventory, that means RM plus.
Total inventory as well as even if you look at inventory outside in DFC, there has been.
I can't hear you. Inventory of what? Are you talking only RM or you're talking of total? What?
Total.
Total. After that, the last part of that is the LLP that we are stocking up.
Okay.
For the coming quarter.
Yeah.
We see that the prices are likely to go up, looking at the crude prices rising, and therefore, we have been stocking far in excess of our monthly requirements there.
Okay.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Lalaram Singh from Vibrant Securities. Please go ahead.
Sir, I wanted to confirm the number for the loose oil percentage in the overall hair oil market. I think you said 22%. Is it correct?
The line for the management got disconnected. We'll call them back. Please stay connected. Thank you for your patience. The line for the management got connected back. Sir, please go ahead with.
Yeah. My question was that the reported market size for the overall hair oil segment, including coconut oil, this excludes the loose oil or the unbranded, or does it include that sale?
See, what is unbranded is actually people using their cooking oil as hair oil.
Right.
Measuring that volume is next to impossible.
Right.
All this is Nielsen, which are branded hair oils only.
Okay. When you mentioned that this unbranded is around 22%, that is the additional potential market for us going forward.
I mentioned 22% users of hair oil use unbranded. Volume, you can't do an extrapolation because you don't know how much they use.
Okay, fine. Got it. That is in terms of users, 22%.
Yeah.
Secondly, in terms of your cost structure going forward, can you give us some sense of what kind of growth we can see in the advertisement and promotion, given we have launched one new cooling oil segment brand, and secondly, Nomarks, we have a sunscreen. What kind of growth should we assume or expect in the A&P?
I would venture to say that the percentage will remain the same. Absolute will go up, but the percentage we will be able to manage within the 16%-18% that we have been actually spending on A&P.
Okay. One final question. The other expenses line item for the full year, we see that the absolute number has gone down.
Yeah.
Any particular reason for that?
I think we have started cost saving. The first impression you are seeing on this, possibly as we go along, you will see it in other line items also.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. A reminder to all the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Manoj Menon for closing comments.
Thank you, Bajaj Corp team, and all the best.
Close Bajaj Consumer Care team.
Yeah. Thank you.