Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3 FY24 earnings conference call of Borosil Limited hosted by ICICI Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Aniruddha Joshi from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah, thanks, thanks, Tusharh. On behalf of ICICI Securities, we welcome you all to Q3 FY 2024 and nine month FY 2024 results conference call of Borosil. We are with the senior management represented by Mr. Shreevar Kheruka, Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Rajesh Kumar Chaudhary, Whole-Time Director; Mr. Anand Sultania, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Rituraj Sharma, President, Consumer Products; and Mr. Balesh Talapady, Vice President, Investor Relations and Business Analysis. Now I hand over the call to Mr. Shreevar for his initial comments on quarterly performance, and then we will open the floor for question and answer session. Thanks, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Aniruddha, and ICICI Securities for bringing this call. I wish everyone a very good afternoon. The Borosil team is delighted to be communicating with you once again. Borosil Limited's board approved the company's financial results for Q3 FY 2024 and nine month ended December FY 2024 on February 13, 2024. Our results and an updated presentation have been sent to the stock exchanges and have also been uploaded to the company's website. In our previous communications, we had detailed our intention to reorganize the company's consumer and scientific business into two distinct publicly listed entities through a composite arrangement scheme. The appointed date for the said scheme was 1st April 2022. We are pleased to inform you that the scheme has been made effective from 2nd December 2023, and pursuant to the scheme, the scientific and industrial products business of the company stands demerged into a company called Borosil Scientific Limited.
At this point of time, we await regulatory approvals for Borosil Scientific Limited's listing on the stock exchange. Therefore, in today's call, we shall focus and discuss the business of Borosil Limited, which houses our consumer products businesses. Moreover, for my opening remarks, I will stick to talking about the period nine months ended December 2023 rather than simply quarterly numbers because of changes in the festival season in terms of the dates this year versus last year. Therefore, the nine months makes it more comparable. Our revenue from operations grew phenomenally well during the nine months ended December 2023 at INR 713.4 crores as against INR 565 crores for the same period last year. That's a growth of 26.3%. During the nine month period, the company achieved an EBITDA before exceptional and one-time items, including investment income, of INR 124.7 crores as against INR 57.5 crores.
That is more than double of the previous period. The EBITDA margin was 17.5% for this period as against 10.2% in the corresponding prior period. Profit before tax during YTD December FY 2024 was INR 81.2 crores as against INR 63.8 crores in the same period last year. Last year, the company had an exceptional item of INR 9.3 crores, which was a receipt towards insurance claims and also a one-time gain towards sale of a non-core asset of INR 13.6 crores. The income from investments for YTD December FY 2024 is INR 5.4 crores as against INR 0.5 crores during the same period last year. The depreciation and finance costs this year are higher by about INR 27 crores, primarily due to the commissioning of the new opal glass furnace during Q4 FY 2023 .
During year-to-date December FY 2024 , Borosil recorded a profit after tax of INR 60.8 crores as compared to INR 48.7 crores during the same period last year. Coming to our category-wise performance, Borosil's consumer business comprises glassware products, non-glassware products, both of which are under the brand Borosil, and opalware range under the brand Larah. Here, we achieved, as I already mentioned, a strong sales performance of INR 713.4 crores as against INR 565 crores, which is a growth of 26.3%. Drilling down further. Sales of glassware products grew by 12.7% from INR 138 crores to INR 155 crores during this period, and non-glassware grew by 23% to reach a turnover of INR 289.5 crores during the nine month ended December 2023. We saw good growth across all our ranges as well as all our channels. Non-glassware sales on the Borosil brand now comprise about 65% of the revenue of the Borosil brand.
On the Larah side, our opalware brand Larah achieved sales of INR 269 crores during YTD December FY 2024 . That is a growth of almost 40% over the same period in the previous year. The EBITDA margin during YTD December FY 2024 was 17.5% for the overall business as against 10.2%. We have seen a softening of direct costs, including fuel and raw material prices throughout the period, and operating leverage has kicked in in many areas post the doubling of our opalware production capacity. We continue to observe margin increases due to increasing sales as well as reduction in input costs. The company continues to invest in marketing for both Larah and Borosil to raise customer awareness and increase brand presence. Our current priority is to expand our marketing sales as well as our brand across the nationwide country.
Our endeavor is for consumers to switch from plastic and melamine to glass storage and opalware serving ware, and to increase the use of glassware for microwaveables as well as for oven-proof applications. We constantly introduce new products to diversify our offering, such as portable high-grade steel products and home appliances. We aim to make Borosil and Larah the preferred brands in the modern Indian kitchen for daily storage, preparation, cooking, heating, and serving purposes. In our previous communication, we had also mentioned that the company is setting up a 25-ton per day production capacity for borosilicate glass press ware at Jaipur, Rajasthan. I'm very pleased to inform you that the said furnace has been commissioned on January 31st, 2024, for trial production. The company expects commercial production to be achieved sometime later this quarter. We will, of course, announce this to the exchanges as and when that happens.
This will further help reduce our dependence on imports, improve our product offering, cater to the domestic as well as overseas demand for press ware products made of borosilicate glass, and will also improve margins as our cost of production will be lower than the cost of the imports. Exports, as I already mentioned, could also have a fillip going to China plus one, being followed by many parts of the world today. We continue to be optimistic about the consumer business's medium-term prospects. Even though occasionally there may be slow growth due to cautious consumer behavior, we expect industry-wide growth due to positive long-term trends. Our main priorities shall be to expand our consumer base, launching new items, as well as streamlining our supply chain and marketing channels to bolster our brand visibility.
The company is seeking an enabling resolution to potentially raise capital in any form during the year ahead. We will discuss internally with the board to see how and when to go about raising the capital. At this moment, we seek an enabling resolution which will permit us to have funds for future growth. With that, with a brief opening remarks, I would like to throw the floor open to questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone phone. 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Arpit Shah from Stallion Asset. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Yes.
Hello.
Yes, sir. You're audible.
Yeah. Congratulations on the demerger and super performance this quarter. I had a couple of questions. I'll just list down all my questions, and then we can go ahead. I just wanted to understand what is our capital employed number for the quarter and how this number is divided between working capital and fixed assets. What will the steady state of depreciation and finance cost in the CapEx has been commissioned? And is there any CapEx which is still pending in the business that needs to be commissioned in the coming quarters? And if you can help us with any guidance for FY 2025 , what kind of margins or what kind of revenues we could expect, given that market has been soft, but your performance has actually been very, very strong. And my last question, was there any one-off number in sales this quarter in Q3 FY 2024 ?
Because I do remember when La Opala had commissioned their plant, that's a very big pump-up in sales in the subsequent quarter. Do we have something similar which is happening with us as well, or is it something which is different that we have done or we have executed superbly well this quarter?
Okay. That's a lot of questions. I'll take a couple, and then I'm going to ask my finance team to answer the few others. As far as sales are concerned, I can tell you that we do have institutional sales which happen during Diwali quarter every year. These are, let's say, routine sales, meaning it's not every year to the same party. It's different parties for different years. That does play a role in improving sales during the Diwali period. As such, there have been one-offs, but it's like this every year. It's hard to say whether the one-offs will not be repeated or will be repeated. It just depends on the traction for Diwali. But at this moment, I would say we are quite comfortable that we expect to improve upon our performance in the years ahead.
As far as the bump-up of anyone else's sales are concerned, it's hard for me to comment. That you'd have to ask them. But we have five strong channels, and we have teams manning each of those channels. Each team has their own targets which grow year on year. Therefore, they are incentivized and motivated to keep doing better than the year before because the last year becomes the base for them to further move ahead. Coming to the question of FY 2025 , I would stay away from giving you any guidance on FY 2025 specifically, except as to say that we have given guidance in the past on a medium-term CAGR, which has been in the range of 15%-20%. This, of course, encompasses a period of low growth as well as high growth.
If you look at our past performance, if that's at all any indicator of future, which probably is not, but we have been kind of on the higher end of that spectrum. But whether it happens in any one particular year is hard to kind of comment on. So I would not like to comment on FY 2025 numbers per se, but to say that we look over a three to five year period, and we hope that we can do 15%-20% CGAR in that period. And this is nothing new. It's been. I've been sharing this for a long time now. I would request my finance team to talk about capital employed if they have the numbers ready, or maybe they can connect, we can upload this online at some later stage. But Rajesh, if you'd like to take this question.
Yeah. So regarding this capital employed and all these things, I think we will upload these numbers separately. On the depreciation side, again, the depreciation numbers are around INR 52 crore. And since our another furnace, borosilicate furnace, which is at Jaipur, this is going to capitalize in this current quarter Q4. So after having this furnace capitalized, the depreciation amount may range to INR 80 crore per annum.
Got it. And the debt sits in our business, right? The INR 200 crore+ debt.
Yes. That's in Borosil Limited. That's right.
But as you see, our finance costs were on the lower end. It was around INR 2 crore a quarter. So how was that number on the lower end just when it comes to that?
So basically, most of the loans we have drawn in the last month of Q3. So that is, again, the finance costs being lower.
Given that our debt to INR 215 crore was for the combined business, which was there since a long time, so do we have investments also in this business, or that is more to the side?
Anand?
Investments in this business also.
Yeah. There are investments in this business also. So there is about INR 180 crores of debt, basically, which is in the form of your loans and your working capital loans. And then there is a cash of about INR 90 crores or investments in the books. So the net cash position is about INR 90 crores negative .
Got it. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pranay Roop Chatterjee from Burman Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening to all. Am I audible?
Yes.
So my first question actually builds upon a question that has already been asked. So if I look at the overall market, and especially the results of consumer companies, consumer durables, kitchen appliances, other glassware players, all of them and I'm not talking I'm adding up Q2 and Q3. I'm looking at it from a YY perspective. So the timing of Diwali does not really matter. Everyone has either remained flat or actually shown a decline. And Borosil has shown mid-20s, 20-30% growth, right? So number one, what would be the volume growth portion here? I'm just trying to strip out the commodity price deflation that might have happened. And what has driven this strong growth, right? Because it cannot be that the sales team is working, right? Because sales team is working every quarter.
Till the last quarter, we were seeing single-digit YoY growth rates, especially in consumer glassware. That has turned into 35% this quarter. If you could just throw some more color on some of those aspects?
Look, as far as we are concerned, I can tell you that we have huge diversity in product categories as well as in channels. That has led us to perform quite well compared maybe to others. I don't have an answer other than that, really, because when we look at glassware, since you raised that point, we knew we had this furnace coming. We had to innovate on products. We had to innovate on various, let's call it, new shapes, new sizes. Many of those new SKUs did quite well for us. As far as the, like I said, competition is concerned, hard to comment there.
But we do believe that the product innovation and the varied range of products plus the number of channels we have, each of which have dedicated teams, I think that could be maybe one of the reasons we've been able to grow. Not to say that the market has been very good. It has been very tough, and it has been very challenging. And this is something we are discussing really on a daily basis. So we have grown well in a tough situation, and I hope and pray that this can continue for us. But I'm afraid I don't have much different an answer for you than that.
I'll hold on that. Secondly, you have commissioned the borosilicate press ware facility. And just in case you have some more clarity incrementally over some previous quarters, could you give us a sense on how much increase in fixed costs we can expect? And by fixed costs, I mean simply the incremental employee costs and incremental other expenses we can expect in the next couple of quarters because of this furnace, right? Because that would slightly dent your EBITDA temporarily. So just wanted to get a heads up on that.
I'm afraid I can't share that information with you at this stage. Frankly, for two reasons. One is I can't. Second is that we don't even know it yet fully because it's just a few days since the furnace has started. So any number I gave you may be erroneous. But you're right. Directly, yes, it will impact going forward for a short period of time until the production stabilizes. This is the, I mean, this is the first furnace of this type in India. So there is no other specialist available, let's say, in India who can help us. We are learning by doing. Of course, we have a great team on the technology side doing this. But still, whenever you do something new, it's bound to have its own set of challenges. So there will be some impact on this.
I think it'll be short-term, frankly, because the benefit of the furnace, the lower cost of production, and then the higher revenue coming from higher-timing sales will more than offset it. We always do business for the long term. We don't really think of the short term while doing business. So we'll absorb that impact if it's there for one or two quarters.
Great. That makes sense. On the opalware division, you saw quite a good growth number, about 60%. I just want to understand, in this quarter, should we assume that your capacities were fully utilized? And along with that, did you also see some benefit on the realization side? Just trying to understand, is this price-led or volume-led?
Yeah, yeah. So you had asked the question before. So this year, we've not taken any price increases really. So all the growth has really come from two areas. One is volume. And second could be product mix, right? I mean, so that is hard to quantify product mix. But I would say across the categories, we have not really taken any price increase. So all growth is basically volume growth. But opalware has not been operating at 100%. We have been somewhere about 85%, I would say, capacity utilization. So we still have scope to further improve this should we be able to sell the entire production.
This 85% is blended or only for the new furnace?
Blended.
Okay. Understood. What would be the peak revenue potential in that case from your existing capacity, once 100%?
I think we had also shared this in the past. With the two furnaces in operation, I think somewhere INR 400+ crores per year should be the possibility. INR 400+ crores.
Got it. Got it. And lastly, if you could also cover because the Borosil Scientific is getting demerged, right? Any thoughts on the management on how you will allocate the bandwidth?
I'll talk about Borosil Scientific when that comes up. Maybe I'll talk about it separately. Of course, it's already happened. So yes, we have a separate team altogether. I mean, just a short point is we have two separate teams which have run these two separate businesses. And there's a CEO there, and there's a board of directors. And there's a non-promoter chairman who runs the board of directors. So it's quite professionalized that business.
Got it. So thanks, Shreever.
Yeah. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jasdeep Walia from Clockvine. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Shreevar, what are your plans for capacity expansion on the opalware side given the strong growth in sales this year? It seems like by the end of this year or by next year, your opalware plant would be fully utilized. So how are you thinking about expanding capacity there?
Jasdeep, frankly, at this stage, we are not thinking of any further expansion. We would like to conclude the entire utilization of the capacity. As I mentioned before, the borosilicate plant, there is a big capacity addition compared to our current sales. There are many products, probably, which are similar, let's say, in borosilicate. For example, you have a lunchbox, which is a glass lunchbox, plus you have an open lunchbox, right? So we may then choose to focus on one versus the other depending on our capacity and see how we can sell more of one versus the other. I mean, I don't know. The point is we would like to stabilize the borosilicate operation as well as improve the capacity utilization there before we decide now what next to do.
So I think for the next 12 or 15 months, let's say till at least March of 2025, we are not looking at any further CapEx in the production because we just want to focus on what we have.
Got it. So what are the broad objectives of the capital raise which has been proposed?
When the capital raise is proposed, obviously, there's debt on the books. Also, there is CapEx to be done in the future, which, I mean, this is something that we'll have to discuss at the board level exactly how the proceeds will be utilized. But it'll naturally, broadly, be used for one of the two, one of those two purposes.
Got it. Thank you. That's all from us.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Gandhi from Gloryt ail Capital Management. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations on the great set of numbers and overall development of business. My question is more related to our domestic appliances business, like mixer grinders, cook wares, or storage range. Looking at so many brands and competition in the space, so in what terms are products different or better in terms of quality, design, and how should you look at attracting consumers towards our brand?
Okay. In terms of the quality, look, we have a product management team. This quality is determined by many factors. For example, understanding what's available in the market, understanding what customers need, what customers have a view. We do a lot of focus group studies with customers to understand what they like, what they don't like. And we also look at what's available from our suppliers because we don't manufacture these products. So we have a fairly intensive understanding of when we want to launch a product, where we want to place it. Pricing also matters. There's a price and value kind of crossover point where you need to decide where you want to place the product. So this is all done at the starting point itself. And I would say we are placed in the, let's say, in the premium range of appliances.
Therefore, we don't wish to play in the mass market of appliances. So the brand Borosil means quality. It means trust. It means reliability, performance, and so on. So therefore, any product we launch should adhere to those guidelines. So I know it's a bit touchy-feely, but that's really what it is. And then the product management team decides how to do this. And you're right. There are many competitors. But frankly, end of day, it's a huge market. There's space for many players to play. And we are also one of the players. And the fact is that our appliances business has grown substantially. If you look at it on the glassware page, that's testament to the fact that we've been able to grow or stretch our brand from being a glassware brand to including products like small home appliances. And every year, we've seen growth there.
We feel fairly comfortably placed. We have not deployed any capital in the business in terms of manufacturing assets. It's working capital. It's, of course, a team. We generate reasonable return on capital. The business continues. We're happy to be a part of it.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dhaval Shah from Girik Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello. Congratulations to the entire team for great execution. My question is on the ramp-up of the new borosilicate furnace. How do you see the ramp-up happening there given it's a premium offering to the market and a lot of new products are going to be introduced? And in order to prepare the market for accepting such large volumes coming in, did we take any price cut over the last one year in the borosilicate range? So these are my two questions.
So look, as far as the brand, I mean, the product offering, yes, right now, we may have 30, 40, 50 SKUs in borosilicate. We'll be doubling that in order to have a bigger range, which and by having our manufacturing that allows us. So the bigger range itself should expand the market. At least that's the thesis. Coming to pricing, yes, it is a premium product. And that's also one of the reasons why the revenues rather than the tag is sold slightly on the lower side. Now, having our own manufacturing does give us the leverage to reduce or to make the pricing more compelling so that more users get to interact with the product. And our clear feeling is that once people start using the product, they will always go back to buying it.
Right now, when the product itself starts at a high price, then people are afraid to enter it. But once you launch it at a price which is attractive, then you'll find that there's a lot of repeat purchase. So we will definitely play on the pricing, which is afforded to us by the fact that we are producing it from a cost perspective. So as far as the exact percentages, I would not like to comment on. But our immediate focus will be to expand the market. That's two ways. One is to give some attractive entry-level products at attractive pricing, plus also expand the product range so that customers have more choice to choose from.
Got it. Got it. And on the appliances side, I understand that we are currently outsourcing the entire manufacturing mainly from China. Now, what would be the strategy going forward? Is it going to be the same Chinese model, or are we also planning to find some vendors here given overall government focus also to have more domestic sourcing across all the industries? What is your thought, Jasdeep? Maybe some policies might come which could be negative for us in terms of importing the appliances in the completely finished form. Some thoughts on that side.
Yeah. Frankly, this was known to us some time ago, and probably the whole industry is aware of it. We have been onshoring a lot of our sourcing. It's not the fact that everything comes from China. We have increased our percentage quite substantially of made-in-India appliances. I see this increasing further and further. The manufacturing ecosystem for many of our appliances has been developed in India with high quality and with attractive pricing. Many of those, therefore, we have already moved to India. Of course, we are working with vendors to further enhance this. I would say that in the next, let's say, three years, a vast majority of our appliances would be made in India and not imported at all. We are on that path. The Chinese took 20-25 years to build their manufacturing ecosystem.
India may do it faster, but it will take some time. Let's assume that in the next three to five years, the scenario will have allowed us to onshore most of our products, not just appliances, but across our categories.
Got it. Last question is on the opalware industry. How do you see the competitive intensity? I understand it has increased. So is it coming it is really getting difficult in terms of managing the margins. How do you see going forward? Also, what new capacities are going to come on the opalware side in India? What is the existing installed capacity in India? Over the next two-year period, how do you see the installed capacity going to in opalware?
See, both are competitors who manufacture opalware in India. Both are absolutely fantastic players. They have great products, and they are very mature players. We have the utmost respect for them. They have done a great job in expanding the market as have we. I think as an industry, we have been able to successfully grow this whole we have been successfully trying to change the way Indians eat in more stylish plates and in better-looking products, which is also more utilitarian because you can, let's say, microwave it. It's tougher, and so it doesn't chip or break easily. It's stylish. So I think all three of us have done a good job over here. As far as capacity, these are all mature players. I don't see competitive intensity in a sense where margins—these are high CapEx businesses.
You need to have enough EBITDA to keep funding the business both from a maintenance CapEx perspective as well as from a growth perspective. So when you have a high CapEx business, you need to have reasonable margins. I think all the players are mature enough to understand that. New capacities, at the moment, there's been a slowdown in the market in general. So I do not think anyone would really add much new capacity today. But what happens two years down the line is hard to predict. But as of today, I don't hear that anyone's adding capacity. But again, my information may not entirely be accurate.
Okay. So overall, at the industry level, the opalware industry must be operating at nearly full 85%-90% capacity. Would that be correct?
I can comment about myself, which I already shared the number with someone earlier. I don't know what others are operating at, so hard for me to make them to make a guess.
No problem. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thanks.
Thank you. And the next question is from the line of Priyank Chheda from Vallum Capital. Please go ahead.
So what would be our institutional sales in opalware? Was it only in 0palware, or was it into other categories also? I wanted to confirm this. Would you be able to quantify that so that it becomes very easy for us to have a comparable figure down the line in the next 12 months if we have this figure in hand?
I'm sorry. I don't share the data by channel. Okay? I'm sorry. I can't share that information with you. But institutional sales are across all products. We don't drive what our customers buy when they're gifting. We show up at the customer's end with our catalogs. They decide based on budget, based on so many factors, what they want to buy. We want sales. We will not say that you only buy opalware from us and don't buy something else. We are open. We have a big range of products, and the customers buy from us. Opalware also is a successful one because you can really the price points are very attractive for opalware. You can give a gift of two cups or two mugs, anything from that to a dinner set as a gift.
It's a very wide range of pricing. So there's something for each, let's say, budget. So it is an attractive area. But I apologize. I can't share with you the numbers.
No problem. No problem. What would be our if I have to reinsert this question on another lens, what would be our consumer or tertiary sales? Maybe if you can help us on a YTD number, that would be also great.
Tertiary sales, you're saying from our customers to their customers?
Yes.
Well, frankly, we know this number for trade, for general trade. And I mean, for large format stores, we don't get the data. So the large format stores will not give us the data. For canteen stores, we don't get the data. So we will not have that information. Of course, from an Amazon perspective, we know the tertiary sales. And from a trade perspective, we know the tertiary sales. But if your question is how much stocking has happened in the system, which I guess is where you're kind of leading to, I don't believe there's been overstocking in the system of any great amount. And this is based on inputs from my sales team because we track our secondary and tertiary sales data quite closely. And we don't think that there's been, let's say, dumping from our side to the system.
No problem. No problem.
I don't have any hard data which I can share with you.
Got it. So can we get a sense on a qualitative aspect on what would have been a channel growth we have present onto our five channels? Which channel would have given us higher growth?
Whatever growth numbers you see, they have been fairly consistent across our channels. So I would not say something is dramatically off. In fact, all the channels are double-digit growths.
Any significant success on the export side of opalware or onto any of the other borosilicate part?
Borosilicate to be challenged. So it's nothing reflected in the December numbers. As far as opalware is concerned, we have been selling in exports for quite some time. And I can't say that there has been something dramatically different than before. It's growing. Like I said, along with all our other five channels in India, it's a six-channel for us. It's growing, also growing double-digit. But I can't say that there's some single order or one-off item which has dramatically enhanced our performance there.
Got it. Just a last question on a very broader industry perspective and particularly for opalware. So what the kind of an industry structure is that the market overall size remains very small. While we have matured players into this industry, our consumer kind of is yet to mature from a still melamine to opalware. So what kind of work that is required to be done in case you can help for an industry to for an overall industry perspective so that the size becomes INR 3,000-INR 4,000 crore kind of acceptance on the consumer level?
See, while you may say this, I'm partially in agreement with your point. The point is that when we acquired this Opal Glass plant in 2016, there was only one player at that time. That was La Opala. You know the revenues they had at that time, maybe like INR 250-300 crore if I'm not mistaken. At that time, when we bought the business, our revenues would have been INR 45-50 crore. And that was the size of the business. Now, today, fast forward, what, eight years, you'll see three players. And the three players from two players, one, three players. And the three players put together would have, let's say, INR 1,100-1,200 crore turnover, maybe INR 1,100 crore turnover, which is a big jump from whatever, INR 250-300 to INR 1,100 crore in eight years. So that itself is a big jump, in my opinion. Yes, so I can partially agree.
Yes, this market should be INR 3,000-4,000 crore, which is where we should be heading. But in order to achieve that, I think we have to just keep doing more product innovation. I think that's an area where I think we may not have done a good enough a job. I'm talking about Borosil. I believe that our Opal products can be premiumized much better than what we have done. The cups, mugs, the servingware which we have, we can probably add more SKUs there, which will further enhance the size in the market. At the end of the day, people buy a product when they see a variety and they see the utility aspect of it, which maybe we need to do a better job with.
That's something we are working on to enhance our ranges and to improve the utility for, say, drinking tea, drinking coffee, snacking. I don't think we have done good enough a job there. That's where we are working on, at least from Borosil's perspective.
A more SKU expansion and a category expansion is what can drive a faster consumer acceptance, correct?
100%. 100%. Yes.
Got it. And just to add to a perspective onto this industry aspect, would imports or unorganized players doing unbranded part would have a significant role to play in this industry? And if you can also add to why HoReCa remains a kind of an underserved industry for organized players like us?
Well, as far as HoReCa is concerned, I can tell you that we have not focused too much on HoReCa just because pricing is quite challenging over there. And therefore, when we can speak to the end customers and sell branded product, why should we go and sell? Because brand does not really matter for HoReCa except for very few hotels. So the vast majority want pricing. And that's not something we are not the low-cost producer. The low-cost producer could be in China or somewhere else, for that matter. So therefore, HoReCa has not been a naturally strong segment for us, and we are not focused much there. Coming to imports, you see, opalware imports themselves may not be that high. They are there, maybe 15%-20%, maybe there. But the fact is that there's a lot of unorganized competition from many other materials.
When a customer goes to buy a dinner set, they necessarily don't look to buy an opal dinner set. They go and buy they want to buy a plate. They want to buy a mug. They'll go and see what's in the market, and they'll choose. So in essence, it's not opal that's a competition. It's all these other, let's say, materials or other products which are competition. And there, you'll see huge including steel, by the way, you'll see huge unorganized competition. So it could be 30%, 40%, 50% of the market size. So that's something that if we do a better job, like I said, with better design, with more utility products, with more shapes and sizes, I think we can start eating into that unorganized space.
That's, let's say, a blue ocean, as they call it, which all the industry can kind of get benefited from.
Perfect. Thanks for clarifying all the doubts. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aniruddha Joshi from ICICI Securities Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah. Two, three questions from my side. Let's say if we manufacture one glass bottle in India versus, let's say, if we import same bottle from outside, let's say, China. Or in case of opalware, let's say, we manufacture one plate in India versus we import same plate from China, then what will be the difference in the cost considering all the freight cost all the way from importing as well as the customs duties, etc.? So what will be the ballpark difference in the different products, let's say, in glassware as well as opalware both?
So in my opinion, production versus manufacturing, if you look at the cost now, again, the question of how do you define cost? You take interest and depreciation, or you take just the cost of— so there's some background noise. Hello? Yes. Yes. So I was saying that it depends on how you define cost, whether you want to include interest and depreciation or not because a lot of the Chinese guys have fully depreciated plants which have been operating for 20 years. So there, on the interest and depreciation, we take a big hit because of that. But if I was to remove interest and depreciation and look at operating costs, which are raw material, power, and fuel, and look at product costing on that basis, then I think we would be 15% lower than China.
But if we were to compare a fully depreciated plant of China with interest and depreciation at very low levels versus a brand new plant here, then definitely, our costs are higher. And also, with China, it's never a question of cost. They sell below cost because they're subsidized. And they are able to sell this product artificially low because of various export subsidies, CapEx subsidies, OpEx subsidies that they get. So it's not really a level playing field. It's very opaque. So we believe that these guys are routinely selling product below cost and just getting back money from the government to compensate for the losses that they made. But again, the data from China is very hard to kind of understand because it's quite opaque.
Okay. Sure. Sure. Understood. In terms of the growth rates across the regions, let's say, east, west, north, south, or even if you break down between, let's say, metros, tier one to cities, or rural markets, so how do you see the demand outlook across the multiple geographies that we operate?
Frankly, Borosil, let's say that the story is top 100 cities of India. We are not in the rural markets yet. We would like to be there. And maybe now, as we expand our product portfolio, we get items which are more relevant to the rural consumer. Maybe we'll start seeing some distribution expansion there. But frankly speaking, our main products are top 100 cities in India. And region-wise, I'm not seeing, again, a dramatic difference. I mean, the difference also depends on our penetration. For example, in south, we're the lowest penetrated, whereas north, we may be the highest. So I'm talking about relative to us only. I'm not talking about relative to competition. I'm talking about just relative to our own penetration versus the market potential of that region. So growth has been quite attractive, for example, in south this year, but the base is low.
So that's something that we have to consider. Absolute growth may still be higher in north because the base is higher, even if the percentage growth is lower. So our goal is that we should cover the length and breadth of the country. And we've expanded our retail presence to, I think, almost 25,000 retail outlets. We believe we can still expand this further at a reasonably good pace and even expand distribution because of the new ranges. We are seeing specific distributors for specific product ranges, also, which gives focus to the sales team as well as to the distributors themselves. So there are many ways to expand the base, which we're doing them. Of course, some we succeed and some we fail, but that's part of it.
Okay. Sure. Understood. Last question, if you can indicate the profitability, the EBITDA margin that we get if we do sales from different channels, let's say, exports, own website, general trade, B2B, modern trade, e-commerce. Means, I don't want numbers, but just wanted to check if the profitability across all regions, across all channels, is same, then it really doesn't matter whether we sell it to GT or MT or ec om.
If you look at a gross margin perspective, there's a very small gap. There's a very small gap between the various channels. Very, very small gap. So we are happy to sell in every channel.
No, no. I'm saying in terms of EBITDA margin, per se.
EBITDA is a little bit harder to calculate because then how do you allocate some costs, especially overhead marketing costs, for example, very difficult to measure because marketing costs are fungible. If I market something online, should I only double it to my online sales as an example? But I'm, for example, on WhatsApp or on YouTube because those are all influencing purchase offline also. So it's a bit ad hoc for me to allocate that expense. I'll just say an example. Same story goes on, let's say, management, the senior management fee. Very difficult to allocate them by channel just because every month will be a management is spending time in different areas. So how do we allocate those expenses? So while we do try and do it, frankly, it's a guess at best.
I can tell you that based on our data, all our channels are profitable for us. Therefore, we continue to invest in them. That's the reason also why we didn't do HoReCa because we saw HoReCa was not really profitable for us.
Okay. Sure. Sure. Very helpful. Many thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please press star and one to ask questions. The next question is from the line of Vipulk umar Shah from Sumangal Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations for a very good set of numbers. Sir, my question is, with the commissioning of this glass furnace, what will be our capacity? And what was the previous capacity? What is the capacity addition in tonnage?
The capacity is 25 tons per day of the glass furnace. Normally, these furnaces operate at 70%-80% yield utilization or yields. You can do the math. But this is the first furnace of its type in India. Earlier, we were importing this product and selling it. We can't really compare it with any previous capacity because we were not manufacturing this product. Yeah, that's the answer to your question.
What type of cost saving we can expect with the commissioning of this furnace? Is it to do with cost, or it has to do with the quality? We get better quality with this?
I would say the quality will be comparable to we were importing from European producers earlier. The quality will be absolutely comparable. Cost is where we get two benefits. One is the cost benefit, maybe 15%-20%, we should be able to have benefit compared to importing this from Europe. But on the flip side, the bigger benefit is really the product range and the availability of product because now we have to have the supply chain time is very long. When we have our own production in Jaipur, you can make products more or less on demand if needed. You can also make a much bigger range. You can do a lot of trial and error with new shapes and sizes. That also helps expand the market.
I would say the product range and availability at short notice would be really a bigger benefit compared to cost because the cost benefit, we will have to pass on to the end customer in order to expand the market.
Okay. So we will pass on the entire benefit to the consumer just to expand the market?
Yeah, in the short term also. Yes.
Okay, sir. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Monish Ghodke from HDFC AMC. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, in opalware category, is our pricing at par with the category leader?
For a similar product, yes. For a similar product, yes. But the category leader does have some premium offerings, which we don't have at the moment. So overall, probably, if we look at just the net realization, they will probably be higher than us because they have premium products which we have not yet launched or which we are in the process of launching.
Okay. And sir, are gross margins, are they comparable with the category leader? They have some 80% gross margin and 40%. So are we also operating at similar levels in opalware?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. That was the last question. I will now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Well, thank you for engaging in the conversation and many good questions. I hope I was able to answer them to your satisfaction. Thank you for your support. The company has been trying hard to expand, and we've been doing a reasonable job of achieving this objective. We believe we have a very strong medium to long-term growth story, and we'll continue working towards this end. I look forward to, again, interacting with you at the end of quarter four. Thank you.
On behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.