Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Coca-Cola İçecek third quarter 2021 financial results conference call and webcast. I will now hand over to your host, Miss Çiçek Özgüneş, Investor Relations and Treasury Director. Please, ma'am, go ahead.
Hi. Good morning and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Coca-Cola İçecek's third quarter 2021 financial results conference call and webcast. I'm here with Burak Başarır, our Chief Executive Officer, and Andriy Avramenko, our Chief Financial Officer. Following Mr. Başarır's and Mr. Avramenko's presentation, we will turn the call over for your questions. Before we begin, please kindly be advised of our cautionary statement. This conference call may contain forward-looking management comments, including projections. These should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in our earnings release. A copy of our earnings release and financials are available on our website at www.cci.com.tr. Now let me turn the call over to Mr. Başarır, sir.
Well, thanks, Çiçek. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter results. We're reporting the sixth quarter since the pandemic began. Although it has been a challenging and volatile experience, thanks to the commitment of our people, the power of our brands, and the loyalty of our consumers, CCI continues to deliver solid results. In the third quarter, we kept building on the momentum we had seen since the beginning of this year. Before moving to the third quarter operational performance, I would like to thank our people for working relentlessly as one team to create value for all of our stakeholders. I also would like to reiterate how happy we are to have successfully closed the Coca-Cola Bottlers Uzbekistan acquisition at the end of the quarter. Uzbekistan has now become part of our family.
Integration work progress at full speed. I will give more information on this operation later in the call. Looking at our quarter performance, the consolidated sales volume grew 11% on the strong summer season volume performance, both in Turkey and internationally. We have reached the highest ever quarterly performance on the consolidated basis. With the reopening of on-premise channels and our focus on growing IC share in the home channel as well, the number of transactions outperformed sales volume growth. Although not yet back to 2019 levels as a percentage of total sales, we saw sequential improvement in IC share. Net sales revenue growth outpaced sales volume driven by the price increases, better discount management, and other revenue growth management initiatives.
EBITDA grew strong in absolute terms, although as expected, the EBITDA margin declined by 415 basis points versus prior year's 24%, remaining significantly above historical averages. As guided before, the margin contraction is due to exceptionally high base of the last year. Net profit was TRY 916 million in the third quarter and TRY 2 billion in the nine months on the back of strong business momentum, higher profit, and FX gains due to hard currency long position. Let's move on to the next slide, please. As discussed in the previous slide, our performance was in line with our quality growth algorithm, except for the EBITDA margin contraction.
As you would remember, to deal with COVID-19 uncertainties last year, we cut down significantly our DME spend to an absolute minimum and substantially reduced the number of SKUs to give more flexibility to our supply chain. Now the business is back onto normalized top-line growth. Although learnings from the pandemic remain and we continue operating with a frugal mindset, the margin of third quarter of 2020 are not a realistic comparison. CCI's current 24% margin is the second highest third quarter margin ever achieved right after third quarter of 2020. On the next slide, the sparkling category grew by 10%, mainly driven by the performance of the brand Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, growing 10% and 15% respectively. Fanta also posted 14% strong growth. Stills, 9% decline.
Stills category registered 27% growth in the third quarter on the back of solid performance of ice tea and juices. Energy drinks delivered strong 23%, driven by Monster Energy, which doubled its volume in the quarter. The water category grew by 16% with the continuous prioritization of IC packs. We continue to support our consumers with our rich and diverse product portfolio on all at-home occasions, including work, education, leisure, entertainment, family gatherings, breakfasts, refreshments, and et cetera. Channel mix further improved during the quarter. Share of the on-premise channel increased by more than 3 percentage points compared to the same quarter of previous year and reached 20%. The shift was more visible in Turkey. As a result of both on-premise recovery and at-home channel performance, IC packages significantly recovered in the third quarter, reaching a 29% share of total volume.
The share of IC packages reached 32% in Turkey. On the next slide, let me talk about Turkey business a little bit. Turkey sales volume grew by 15% in the third quarter compared to a year ago, led by segmented marketing campaigns, effective promotion management, successful innovations in summer season, and increased availability in the e-commerce platforms. Eased pandemic restrictions, increased mobility, and favorable weather conditions contributed to strong top line growth as well. The record high sales volume was exceeded in July, and the high momentum was maintained for the rest of the quarters. We are also delighted with Coca-Cola Zero Sugar sales performance that we launched in the previous quarters with an improved taste and new look. Sparkling beverages grew by 13%, led by a 14% growth of the brand Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola Zero Sugar drove the share of the sugar-free category to 6%. The sales category registered 21% growth, led by double-digit growth in both iced tea and juices. The energy drinks continued to high single-digit growth with the sales volume of Monster Energy almost doubling. We maintained our more profitable small packs focus in the water category and registered 18% growth in the third quarter. Higher sparkling sales improved IC mix and effective pricing enabled 17% growth in the net sales revenue per unit case. However, the depreciation of Turkish lira and higher commodity prices put pressure on margins in Turkey. While cycling an exceptional high base of the previous year, profit margins contracted in Turkey. Moving on to the next slide. On our international business, we have cycled a high base of the third quarter of 2020 of 9%.
Central Asian operations and Pakistan were the main drivers of our growth. Sparkling beverages grew by 8%, with 7% growth of Coca-Cola and 15% growth of Fanta brands. Sales category grew by 35%, mainly driven by the strong performance of iced tea and juices. The water category continued its gradual recovery with 14% growth in Q3 2021. All large operations registered net sales revenue per unit case growth. On a currency-neutral basis, NSR grew by 22% as a result of RGM initiatives, including package region-based pricing adjustments, effective discount management, and improved category mix. Currency neutral EBITDA grew by 20%, delivering 28% EBITDA margin. On to the next slide, please. Pakistan is always a fascinating market. As challenging as it is, the market possesses so much potential.
The operation became much more resilient with our effort to improve execution in Pakistan by fixing the fundamentals and creating a better route to market. Despite price increases in the third quarters and a robust base of third quarter 2020, sales grew by 8%, thanks to improved route to market and better market execution. The sales volume of brand Coca-Cola increased by 10%. Top line grew by 23% on the back of solid volume performance and price adjustments. We are committed to staying on track in Pakistan to deliver sustainable value creation. On the next slide, Kazakhstan and Iraq are our other key international markets with around 20% share in our total volume. Sales volume grew 21% in Kazakhstan compared to a year ago.
These COVID-19 restrictions, effective consumer promotions with the right execution, favorable weather conditions were the main drivers of the volume growth in the third quarter. With the continued IC focus, transactions grew above volume by 28%. Cycling a solid base, Iraq sales volume was down by 5%. It is worth noting that in Iraq, the main decline is coming from the water category in line with our plans. Sparkling decline is limited to 3%, cycling 11% growth a year ago, while observing a 15% price increase in response to 23% currency devaluation at the end of 2020. Let me touch base on our Uzbekistan addition. On September 29, as you know, we've completed the Uzbekistan acquisition after obtaining all regulatory approvals and integration has started at full speed.
While integrating the operation to the CCI family, our immediate focus is on ensuring the business continuity, aligning all key activities to CCI standards, and minimizing organizational change anxiety by adapting an open communication strategy. Although we are still at a very early stage of integration, we wanted to share some preliminary figures for the first nine months of the year to give you an idea of the scale of the business acquired and opportunity in front of us. With 78 million unit cases sales volume in the first nine months, Uzbekistan would have a 7% incremental growth effect to our nine-month results had it been a part of CCI in the period. Uzbekistan's revenue per unit case is accretive to CCI's consolidated per unit case as guided before.
On the other hand, the EBITDA margin is diluted with the potential to start improving as our integration work progresses. We work very diligently in all functions of expertise, from HR to digital, from commercial to legal, to unlock a great value potential of Uzbekistan business as soon as possible. Our team is combining the expertise of CCI with the deep knowledge required to win locally in an environment that remains dynamic and opportunistic. When we announce our full year results in February, we believe we can give more precise guidance on the impact of this business to our consolidated results. I will now leave the floor to Andriy to go over the financial results. Andriy, please.
Thank you, Burak . After excellent first half, we continued delivering strong financial results in the third quarter, despite Turkish lira depreciation or inflationary challenges and high base of the third quarter of 2020. Our net sales revenue grew by 37% in the quarter, driven by the sales volume momentum, especially in Turkey and Central Asia, improved package and channel mix, timely price adjustments, and other revenue growth management initiatives. There was a 233 basis points contraction in gross profit margin due to the surge in commodity prices and depreciation of Turkish lira. Contraction remained limited, thanks to our hedging initiatives, proactive procurement management, and price adjustments we made during the quarter. When we look at the country detail, contraction comes mainly from Turkey, while there has been a 165 basis points improvement in the gross margin of international operations.
Higher Turkish lira devaluation against more stable international currencies is one of the main reasons. As we guided previously, our direct marketing expenses increased in line with the normalization and higher mobility. OpEx to sales ratio realized at around 16%, up by 104 basis points against a year ago. EBITDA grew by 17%, and we delivered 24.1% EBITDA margin. 415 basis points decline in the EBITDA margin is mainly due to exceptionally high base of the last year. As I mentioned, gross profit margin contraction in Turkey also made an impact due to significant depreciation of Turkish lira and high commodity prices. We delivered a strong TRY 916 million quarterly net income. Strong operational performance and prudent financial expense management made the highest contributions to the net income growth.
I also must mention that during the quarter, we recorded a sizable provision for slow-moving and lower per unit value spare parts amounting to TRY 205 million. This was partly mitigated by the TRY 140 million income from the land sale. Yet, on a net basis, it had a non-cash negative impact on the consolidated net income. Next slide, please. Our FX neutral net sales revenue per unit case growth was on track in the third quarter. It increased by 14% on the back of dynamic pricing, better discount management, and other revenue growth management initiatives, including prioritization of certain SKUs and IC multipacks. However, due to the significant surge in commodity prices, COGS per unit case grew by 18%, more than offsetting the positive contribution from the strong top line.
We continue to invest in marketing as our business is back to a new normal. As guided before, we stepped up our marketing expenses from 2% last year to over 4% this year in third quarter. This gradual normalization in OpEx, combined with higher cost pressure led to a 5% contraction in FX neutral EBITDA per unit case in this third quarter. Our proactive hedging initiatives and frugal OpEx mindset help us to keep reduction to a limited level. However, looking on a nine-month cumulative basis, the profitable growth momentum continued, strengthening our confidence to deliver in line with our revised guidance for the full year. To the next page, please. Let me give you more color now on consolidated EBITDA and free cash flow evolution for the first nine months of the year.
In terms of top line growth, we performed ahead of our expectations year to date. The easing of pandemic-related restrictions and reopening of on-premise channels contributed to this robust performance, while the positive momentum at the at-home channel continued. Top line growth with improving channel package mix and timely price adjustments were the main contributors to EBITDA growth. However, globally elevated demand and the supply chain bottlenecks led to a significant surge in the commodity prices, which pressured margins through COGS, especially in the third quarter. On the OpEx side, we continued our tight OpEx management with the learnings from the pandemic period. In line with the normalization, and as we guided before, our direct marketing expenses increased to their pre-pandemic levels.
We delivered 43% EBITDA growth in nine months of 2021, with less than half a percentage point of margin contraction. Our net working capital over annualized sales turned negative. Although CapEx doubled in nominal terms, it only increased by one percentage point as a percentage of the net sales revenue. Bearing in mind that last year we cut CapEx to an absolute minimum, this limited increase in CapEx is the result of our disciplined spending and is a strong contributor to 30% free cash flow growth. Onto the next slide, please. Our net leverage continued to decrease to the lowest level ever of 0.4x due to strong free cash flow generation and our prudent FX risk management. We financed the Uzbekistan acquisition with our own cash, relying on our strong balance sheet.
Even after $252 million payment for the acquisition, our net debt to EBITDA ratio remained at historical low levels, thanks to our continued cash generation. We do not expect a significant change in our leverage for the rest of the year. We remain comfortable with the strength of our balance sheet and liquidity position. Use of cash to finance the Uzbekistan acquisition increased our short currency position compared to the first half. We have short position of $350 million after deducting the existing hard currency cash balances and financial hedges. This is approximately 1x our international EBITDA, which we are comfortable to carry. As you know, on top of financial hedges, we have a net investment hedge as well.
Since the Uzbekistan's acquisition is made by our Dice subsidiary, and in order to finance this, we made a cash capital increase in the DICE subsidiary. We were able to increase the net investment hedge amount by $150 million. If we include net investment hedge as well, then CCI maintains net loan currency position and secure FX gain when Turkish lira depreciates against dollar. Considering the recent currency fluctuations, we keep our financial management discipline to mitigate the negative effects of currency depreciation on our balance sheet. We may consider further hedging alternatives depending on the market conditions. We are committed to maintain the balance between sustainable short position and strong free cash flow. Onto the next slide, please. From a cost point of view, the world is certainly going through a very challenging time.
The rapid price increases in global commodity markets are coupled with reports of raw material shortages and procurement delays around the world. In this environment, our number one priority is to ensure continuity of raw material supply. Our procurement team has been quite proactive in terms of identifying potential incoming issues, engaging with alternative suppliers, preparing backup plans, and even implementing in-house solution for certain items such as CO2. Therefore, we do not expect to run into any procurement problems in the foreseeable future. However, we are not immune to the commodity inflation. This is another factor we are managing proactively. We have been successful with hedges that were put in place in 2021 during the pandemic. They help mitigating the impact of current input cost inflation substantially. However, these hedges begin to roll off by 2022. We kept adding new hedges over the course of 2021.
Although at higher levels than during pandemic, the new hedges still provide some mitigations against current spot prices and help with input cost stability for the next year. For 2022, we have already hedged 80% of our aluminum needs. However, unless we see a good correction in aluminum prices, we do not expect to increase hedge coverage substantially beyond current level and leave some exposure to the spot procurement in 2022. Aluminum is not a substantial part of our cost base, and we are questioning the sustainability of current prices. We also hedged 42% of resin requirements and are looking for opportunities to add coverage. Sugar is a regulated commodity in many of our markets. Therefore, our coverage is limited since hedging is not available or practical. We continue monitoring the commodity price environment.
Apart from hedging, we are taking proactive price increases, implementing further RGM initiatives, and accelerating productivity measures to offset some of the commodity cost pressure as we look forward to the next year. I now hand over to Burak for his closing remarks. Burak, please.
Well, thanks, Andriy. Given strong results year to date and increased visibility into the rest of the year, we are revising our organic guidance on sales volume and revenue terms. Our existing hedges protect us to a great extent, and the larger scale also supports our profitability. As a result, we are committed to keep our EBITDA margin flat on an organic basis despite the challenging commodity cost environment. As you know, since the beginning of last quarter of 2021, we have started consolidating Uzbekistan operation into our financials. The fourth quarter impacts will not be significant. Therefore, you will see only a couple of percentage points of incremental growth from this operation on the volume and revenue side. As discussed before, you will see a slight dilution on the EBITDA margin level, nothing material.
Looking ahead, an inflationary environment, supply chain bottlenecks and currency volatility will be the main headwinds for our operations.
We continue to be agile, careful in dealing with these short-term challenges. However, we are leveraging the learnings from the COVID period, applying revenue growth management initiatives, working our supply chain levers, and expanding digital enablement of execution to capitalize on the strengths of our brands. We have years of experience succeeding in the volatile environment. However, we will not deviate from our long-term roadmap of creating value for our stakeholders that we serve. We look at the future with confidence, counting on our commitment, talented people, excellent brand portfolio, digital capabilities, strong system alignment, and underlying potential of our markets. We are now ready to take your questions. Operator, please. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you for holding until we have our first question. Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you, in order to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from Hanzade Kiliçkiran from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the presentation. I have a question for Andriy, actually. Andriy, you mentioned about the hedging in major cost items. According to your current hedging level at the hedged prices, how much margin headwind are you looking for next year?
Thank you for the question. In terms of the margin, I guess I understand you're looking for the guidance for the next year. I think we will be more comfortable to provide it when we actually finish this year, and we are working on different scenarios. Obviously, as before, we are focused on optimizing the business and mitigating the impact of commodity prices by other measures that we described. We are also revising the plans for the remainder of this year and for next year to make sure that we minimize or mitigate the impact of commodity prices on our margins. I understand that you would prefer to hear the guidance, but we're not ready to give the EBITDA guidance for margins for the next year.
Maybe not the guidance, but I'm trying because you already know your cost base now because you are already hedged 80% on aluminum. Sugar prices are regulated mostly in line with the inflation, and the rest is mostly hedged. So I'm trying to understand if you increase the prices in line with the country's inflation, I mean, the margin headwind should be clear, I think, right? I mean, or how much price increase do you need to cover these hedge prices? I mean, because I don't know your hedging price on the aluminum or other raw materials. Your hedging prices are lower than the current prices or compared to 2022, I mean, so far on a year-to-date average, how does it stand?
Why the hesitance to provide guidance because our 2020 numbers, particularly third quarter numbers, in terms of the commodity prices, were extremely low, right? This was probably the bottom of the pricing for very, very long time. Right now we sort of ran out of hedges that we made during crisis, during COVID last year for this year by sort of early Q3. In Q3, we were on a more normalized procurement and added hedges this year. Therefore, if anything, the Q3 is sort of a more sustainable situation than the previous year. Therefore, we are looking at how much price we already took and how much price we need to take to cover that input.
All right. Thank you very much, Andriy.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you, in order to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We have a question from Cemal Demirtaş from Ata Invest. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the presentation, and congratulations for very good results. My question is about your guidance. I think you just include the effect of CCBU. Could you give anything about excluding that to see the trends? As far as I understand, you are only gonna record it for one quarter, right? It's not gonna be just backwards. You are gonna just include the fourth quarter to your consolidation. Thank you.
Yes, thank you for the question. Yes, we include only for the fourth quarter impact of CCBU since it's the smallest quarter. You understand that impact overall is fairly small, particularly that CCBU has only 7% volume impact on overall CCI. Yes, it's a fairly small impact on overall guidance.
Thank you. As a follow-up, when I look at your numbers, since I see that the stills side is performing better recently compared to sparkling side, do you see any, you know, just fundamental thing or change in trends, or it's just, you know, cyclical or, you know, the nature of the business?
Good question. Thank you. I think we talk about it fairly often on our investor calls and presentations to investors. If we look at this cycle, economic cycles and sort of crisis in the past, sparkling usually goes to decline last. It declines less, and then it comes out of the crisis earliest. This is exactly what happened in COVID. This was sort of sparkling performed relatively better, significantly better than stills. Now, when we get to economic improvement overall climate, consumer confidence increasing, newer categories, they tend to grow relatively faster. That's nothing unusual. We expected that.
Obviously, we are very focused on continue to develop the full portfolio without forgetting continue to grow Sparkling as a core of our business. We don't see any unusual trend in this. It's a normal dynamic of sort of cyclical performance in our industry.
Thank you. One last question about your effective tax rates. We see some decline in third quarter versus second quarter. Part of it could be related to changes in corporate tax in Turkey. That was why second quarter was high. What do you see for the following quarters, just average thing constraining your, you know, combined results, consolidated results?
No, there should not be any significant deviation going forward in terms of the tax rate.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Charlie Higgs from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Hi there. Thanks for the questions. The first one is on Monster Energy, where you doubled volumes. Can you maybe give a good bit more color on what's going on there? Is that underlying consumer demand or is it a change in their execution or a combination of both, some line extensions perhaps? Just maybe a bit more color on that strong performance. The second question is on Pakistan, where you said you've changed your route to market. I'm just wondering if you had a bit more color there and your thoughts going into Q4, where you've got a pretty tough volume comp on Q4 2020. Thank you.
Thank you for the question. First is energy and then Pakistan. On energy, I think it's all the factors that you mentioned. One, the consumer demand is there and very evident. It's a high growth category overall. Two, we said it multiple times, we are committed to grow in this category. This is one of our strategic categories, and we will continue improve. That's why we are actively driving the business. We continue to improve and streamline our relationship with Monster and working with their strong portfolio and winning portfolio from our perspective. Yes, there were some line extensions and other actions, but nothing unusual. Just a focused and very good execution by us and Monster together. Now, Pakistan.
In terms of Pakistan and route to market, we have been talking about route to market in Pakistan for the last 2.5-3 years. This was a very deliberate change that we started 2.5 years ago or so. Now it's given the results that we wanted, that we planned, that we expected from that change. What we have been doing in Pakistan over the last 2.5 years is simplifying and streamlining how our product gets from our factory to the hands of the outlet and finally to the consumer. There was a fairly archaic and multilayered system of how product was moving from multiple participants.
This was a standard for the industry, for FMCG more broadly in Pakistan. We decided to change it to what we are more accustomed to, much more efficient and effective system where participants are in that value chain only if they truly, clearly contribute to the advancement of our business and our product and adding value to the chain. Therefore, that simplification in addition to just normal route to market expansion, sort of horizontal expansion, adding more outlets, reaching new areas, improving cooler placement and in-store execution is giving the results. Again, this is not something new. This is very deliberate plan for the last 2.5 years.
Cool. Thank you.
We have a question from Can Yurtcan from WOOD & Company. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the presentation, and congratulations on the good set of numbers. My question is related to the Uzbekistan operations, which we have recently acquired. Could you please elaborate on the areas in which you see room for improvement, and what are your medium-term targets on the operating lines of Uzbekistan operation? I'm referring more to the EBITDA margin guidance for Uzbekistan operation. Thank you.
In terms of Uzbekistan and what are the areas of improvement, as Burak Başarır said, we are very excited that CCBU became part of the CCI family. It's a well-established operation when it comes to manufacturing and basic policies and procedures of the Coca-Cola system. However, the biggest opportunity we see in Uzbekistan is sort of commercial area and in market execution and commercial capabilities. This is where we believe we bring strengths, particularly in emerging and frontier markets. This is a very significant part of our focus, how to create value and accelerate value creation in Uzbekistan. Particularly, the market continues to demonstrate a tremendous growth, naturally with our execution capabilities, that we'll be able to step change in what CCBU has been doing so far.
We believe we can add a lot of value. Second, the business was sort of optimized and run on a very, just limited capacity, and essentially they have been selling until now what they can produce from the factory floor. There is a tremendous unaddressed demand in the market, and therefore adding capacity while improving in-market execution could provide very significant growth potential for foreseeable future in Uzbekistan. In terms of the guidance for the next year on Uzbekistan, again, I'm afraid I will disappoint you, as Burak Başarır said, that probably by end of the year when we have the next call for the next quarter, we'll give a clear guidance on how Uzbekistan will be performing.
At this time, we just would like to share with you the nine months actual results. That's pretty much what we have as we took control of the operation since basically the last day of the third quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Hanzade Kilickiran from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Andriy. I have a follow-up question on pricing. Did you start increasing prices in Turkey? How much price increases were done in the third quarter, including Turkey and also other markets? Thank you.
Yeah. We have been taking prices regularly in all our markets. This year was no exception as we have been communicating for last few years regularly that we are committed to monetize value of brands we operate better in every market we are present. We stick to that strategy. In terms of increases in Turkey in this third quarter, we made approximately 10% price increases on average in Turkey specifically, right? That's just in this quarter. We will continue to look for opportunities to sort of continue on our strategy of realizing is on a sort of better.
Value and better pricing. For example, as you may recall, in the first half of the year, we already increased average price in Turkey by about 17%.
Thank you. Is there any other significant price increases in other markets, I mean, that you may flag?
Yeah. As I said, we took pretty much price increases pretty much in all markets we operate, and therefore, I think you can see the results in terms of NSR growing significantly ahead of volume in international operations and in Turkey. In Pakistan, for example, we took pricing in the third quarter in high single digits again, and this is on top of the previous price increases that we already realized there.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions. I will now give back the floor to our speakers. Thank you.
Well, thank you, everybody. As a system with The Coca-Cola Company, we are very excited and very happy how we are gonna close the year at CCI and the Coca-Cola system. We're also very happy and optimistic about how the 2020 will turn out to be. We know, and as discussed, there will be a lot of headwinds that we have to deal with, but we're extremely confident that with our system, with our strong capabilities and skills, we're gonna able to deliver another strong year for next year as well. I would like to thank all of our employees and thank you as well supporting us on every front. I'm wishing you all the best and hope to see you next time. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.