Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Britannia Industries Limited Q4 FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode, and there'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ayush Agarwal, Investor Relations, Britannia Industries Limited. Thank you. Over to Mr. Agarwal.
Good morning, everyone. This is Ayush from the Investor Relations team. I welcome you all to the Britannia earnings call to discuss the financial results of quarter four for financial year 2025-2026. Joining us today on this earnings call is our Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Rakshit Hargave, Executive Director and CFO, Mr. N Venkataraman, Chief Commercial Officer, Sales and Replenishment, Mr. Vipin Kataria, Chief Marketing Officer, Mr. Puneet Das, Vice President, Marketing, Mr. Siddharth Gupta, and Vice President, Corporate Finance, Mr. Ramamurthy Jayaraman. The analyst deck is uploaded on our website. Before I pass it on to Mr. Rakshit Hargave, I would like to draw your attention to the safe harbor statement in the presentation. Over to Mr. Hargave with remarks on the performance.
Good morning, everybody. You know, we will now go through the deck which we have shared with you, and obviously this has the details for Q4. Now also because this is the end of the year, you will also see the perspective for the full year. Let me begin with the business overview. If you take a look at the performance scorecard for fourth quarter 25, 26, if you take a look at the revenue line, you will see that we had in the last quarter INR 4,686 crores. On a 12-month basis, this was a growth of 7.1%, and on a two month rolling basis, it adds up to 16.7%.
If you take a look at the PAT line, Q4 by itself was 14.5% of revenue. The 12-month growth is 21%, and the 24-month growth is 26%. If we go to the same scorecard, but instead of only Q4, if we take a look at the full financial year FY 2025-26, you will see that for the year, at a revenue level, we clocked 18,858 crores, which on a 12-month basis was a 7.5% growth over the previous year, and on a two year basis was a 14% growth. If you take a look at PAT, you will see that for the year, at a PAT level, we were 13.4% of revenue.
On a 12-month basis, this was a 16.3% growth, and on a 24-month basis, this was an 18.4% growth. We will quickly take you through the commodity price trend. You will see that flour has been on a bit of a receding trend. We know that the wheat output has been good. Q4 saw a dip. In the last one month, we see an upswing in the flour prices because of unseasonal rains, high heat and some quality issues in the arrivals. But still flour is We see it as a positive trend for us. If you take a look at refined palm oil, you see that in the last quarter the prices have gone up. Obviously, this has also got a correlation to fuel.
For us, we buy forward on palm oil, so we are actually quite well covered for another five months. Sugar more or less behaving like as it is. Cocoa prices are down. Laminate prices, while you see that they have come down towards the end of Q4, from March onwards, laminate prices have actually gone up and they are still up in April. This is because of the war impact in the Middle East, where granules prices have gone up. We have to see how that comes out. Yes, at the moment there is an inflation. Milk prices are behaving as they do behave during this period. They are on an up. Usually they start coming down during winter.
We have to see how does that move ahead because there is expectation of El Niño and higher warming and how does that impact milk will be interesting for us to see. We have an international business where a significant portion of manufacturing for those markets happens in Oman and Dubai. Our international business revenue and profitability was impacted during the last quarter owing to vessel unavailability and slowdown in demand in those markets. We were unable to dispatch vessels, as you know, because the Strait of Hormuz was locked. Also at the same time, you know that there is significant increase in fuel costs and ocean freight rates. If we see the impact of the West Asia conflict in the Indian market.
When the war started, we initially had concerns because there was an issue of LPG shortage, etc. We have been able to manage the situation well, so there has been no material disruption to production operations at our Indian manufacturing facilities on account of these fuel supply constraints. We've been able to manage all manufacturing as it should be. We have also made other measures. We are anyway already working on alternate fuels and options. The agility of the Britannia team came to the fore, and hence, actually, apart from the fuel cost inflation, which cannot be helped, actual manufacturing has been quite steady. We obviously will need to take some mitigation measures for this, and we have initiated the mitigating measures, so there will be calibrated price increases starting from this quarter.
We are also optimizing our sourcing between India and international manufacturing facilities for key geographies to mitigate supply-related challenges. Expected to be fully operational by mid-May. Like you know, we have an export-oriented unit in Mundra. In the last few months, because of tariffs, we had moved all the manufacturing for North America to Oman, but we have been able to move all that manufacturing gradually back to Mundra so that we will now be able to dispatch towards North America. Because if we were manufacturing in Oman, we would not be able to do that. That agility has helped us. Obviously, it goes without saying that the cost optimization measures and efficiency initiatives, which Britannia has done extremely well in the past, that continues, and that has taken a new leaf because of the challenges in front of us in terms of inflation.
The company is totally committed to continue on those CEP measures to be able to deliver what it promises. Let me focus on the strategic priorities as we had announced. We continue to drive efficiencies in our sales and distribution supply chain channels. We have very efficient networks on these, and we will keep driving them to higher levels. Our brand experiences and its investments, as you would see, will be much more stronger. I think investing more on brands and creating more experiential strategies is a way that we want to go, and that is going to reflect in what you are going to see. Also, innovation, adjacencies, and future platforms. There is intense work happening to be able to create a portfolio also for the future.
We are also, like I said in the last call, realigning the way we work in creating a team for many Indias. The agility of the teams, the startup culture, their ability to take quicker calls, customization for regional Indias, is a very big project which has been kicked on, and you will see the output of that coming in the next few quarters. Obviously, doing all this in a sustainable manner is something that we have done and we will continue. I would want to share something on our e-commerce business, which is actually growing exponentially. In the domestic business, the salience of e-commerce has moved to 6% of overall sales in FY 2025-26 from 4% of overall sales in FY 2024-25. You have to take a look at this 6% number with a different lens.
As you would imagine that for us, nearly 60%-65% of biscuits sell at the INR 5 and INR 10 price point, which don't really have any major salience in e-commerce. If you apply that filter, you will actually realize that our e-commerce contribution is upwards of 12%, which is the best in class. Also, if we look at the categories where we are fighting on e-commerce, while biscuit continues to do well, the newer adjacency categories are growing in e-commerce at a rate which is 2.7x . Fueling the fastest-growing channel through exclusive launches, premiumized offerings, and customized D2C offerings will be the order of the day, and our investments on e-commerce will grow even further. Vipin, do you want to add something to this?
Thanks, Rakshit. Hi, Vipin Kataria this side. Q-commerce has been a bright spot. We've been talking about e-commerce for the last few quarters. What we see is that we are building this momentum and acceleration for last few quarters. Just to share a few more points, almost 70% of our business today is coming from the quick commerce part of e-commerce. How we see this is further moving up to 85%, because as you know, Amazon is scaling up their quick com model as well as Flipkart. The big upside of this is that there is a big change in the assortment. While on the marketplace or e-commerce platform, we were very heavy on staples.
What's happening because of this change in Q-commerce is that we are able to premiumize our assortment, and we are able to sell much more indulgent categories, and that's the impact which you see on the right-hand side, which is adjacencies growing almost 3x. Going forward, what we are doing is we are collaborating with platforms. We are getting used to, you know, their playbook and therefore activating a lot of our brands through their playbook by close collaboration. I think going forward, this 6% you will see moving up as well as the assortment towards premium as well as impulse will keep growing. Yeah, Rakshit.
Thank you, Vipin. Let me continue with the next slide, which talks about key brands and products on air. You would notice that in the last quarter, we have been on air with the variant of our 50- 50 brand, which is Cheese Dipped. Also a variant of Marie Gold, which is the Doodh Marie Gold, which was launched across select markets, and also Good Day Butter. This was complemented along with multiple consumer engagement and brand activations, which cover Tiger Krunch, Treat, which is our wafer brand, also Treat Croissant and Jim Jam. As you would know, Treat Croissant is a very exciting category doing very well for us. If you take a look at the adjacency business, if you take a look at the cake Fudge It, this is really a Gen Z-focused brand.
We have promoted it significantly during Valentine's, and we can see that there is significant growth in that, and it becomes an impulse kind of a, you know, confectionery kind of a purchase. Wafers continued growing healthy double-digit. Cake and Rusk, high prevalence in e-commerce, driving growth at about 1.4x of biscuits. We have successfully scaled up our brownie also, very well accepted by consumers. Dairy business, also double-digit growth and fueled by ghee, which has done excellently for us in the last one year. Also, our innovations have gained traction.
The Cheese Dipped, the 50 50 Cheese Dipped, and a variant of that, the Caramel Dipped, which we launched, which has been heavily advertised on TV also during the Indian Premier League, has already become the second-biggest player in the sandwich cracker segment in three months of its launch and continues to grow month-on-month. Also, we have what we call these are signature brands, Treat, Little Hearts, and Jim Jam. They are actually outpacing the overall company growth by about 3x. As we see and we continue to see growth in the coming quarter also. Obviously, to leverage this, the teams have innovation and variants planned to leverage this portfolio.
Like we talked about winning in many Indias, what you see on the chart is depiction of our internal regions, how we classify, and what we have done. We have made regional teams supported by marketing, supported by innovation, supported by research and development, to really tackle these markets at a much more local level, and we should be able to see the output of that as we continue during the course of the year. On ESG, building a sustainable and profitable business has always been at the core of Britannia. Let me share the progress of KPIs on this over the last year. We've had 7% reduction in specific water consumption. We've had a 1% increase in women factory workforce. Actually very happy to say that many of our factories are actually majority managed by women.
The Britannia Nutrition Foundation has had a 67% increase in the number of beneficiaries, and this is a major cornerstone of our CSR program. A 14% increase in renewable electricity share in our own plants. Like we said, the cost efficiency programs that we have implemented in the company continue. Just to give you a scale of what we have been able to achieve in 2025-26, you will see that as compared to 2013-14, in about 12 years, we have increased the discipline of CEP 10x. As compared to 2021, you know, it has actually doubled. There is obviously a lot of focus, and the focus areas comprises alternate fuels, large efficiencies on buying, working on renewable energy, wastage reduction, lot of optimization on logistics, and a lot of work on packaging and re-engineering.
Like we said, we are also evaluating alternate energy sources as long-term solutions to mitigate fuel supply-led disruptions, so that as in India, we become much more self-sufficient to be able to manage if any shocks like these come in the future. If we take a look at the financial results, I will take you through that. Let's take a look at the revenue trends. You will see that on a 12-month growth, we clocked 7% in the quarter. The quarter before was nine, four, and 10. On a 24-month basis, it becomes 17, nine, 14 if you go backwards. You have the bar chart to show how we have progressed in absolute revenue over the last four years. You can see that it is an incline moving towards the northeast.
If I take you through the consolidated results, you will see that in Q4, we were at INR 4,686 crores, which was a growth of 7.1% over Q4 last year. Operating profit of INR 768, which was a 6% growth. PBT of INR 785, which was a 4.4% growth. PAT of INR 678, which was a 21.1% growth. Obviously, this 21.1% growth also comes, as we have observed, in the comments, because of some income tax case closures. We have had to release them. If you take a look at profit from operations, if we go quarter by quarter-wise for the year which has gone by.
You will see that we were at 16.4% in the current quarter, 18.3% before that, 18.3% before that, and 14.9% in Q1. If you take a look at PBT, we see that our PBT margin has more or less remained at a good constant line. We were 16.8% this quarter, 18.8% Q3, 18.6% Q2, and 15.5% Q1. PAT at 14.5% versus 13.9%, 13.8%, 11.5%. PAT, obviously, like we said, is also a function of the income tax case, which has been included here. If we take a look at the full year on a consolidated basis, we clocked sales of INR 18,858 crores, which was a growth of 7.5% over last year.
Operating profit of INR 3,208, which was 11.6% growth over last year. PBT of INR 3,289, which was a 12.4% growth, and PAT of INR 2,533, which was a 16.3% growth over last year. On other particulars, on a ratio basis, you will see that profit from operations this year was 17% compared to 16.4% the year before that and 17.3% the year before that. This is all in a positive trend. PBT at 17.4%, 16.7% last year, and 17.6% the year before that. All this is at a very high level of performance.
Similarly, PAT this year is 13.4% against 12.4% and 12.9% of the year before that. Slightly on our higher side because of the reason that I told you earlier. With this, I think the presentation that we uploaded for you all is done, and we will be subsequently happy to take some questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Mihir Shah from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question. Firstly, just wanted to understand on the West Asia issue, what has led to the standalone growth being lower at 6.5% versus the 12% growth that we had witnessed in November, December and 9% in Jan and Feb? If manufacturing was hit in Oman and the other region, then would that not be sitting in the consolidated sales numbers? Wanted to understand what has led to the standalone sales numbers also being lower.
Thank you, Mihir . Like we said, we did not have manufacturing issues in West Asia. We manufactured, but we were not able to dispatch. I think your answer is on the standalone India business in terms of. We have done 2 things to manage West Asia. Like we said, we have moved our manufacturing to Mundra so that we don't have to manufacture ex-Oman because the sea routes that you have ex-Mundra are much more accessible to reach to various markets. We have done that. I assume your other question is on the domestic India business and in terms of what is the reason for the sales number that we have shown. We had, like we said, a reasonable first two months in the quarter. The West Asia impact hit us in March.
If you take a look at an overall level, see, there is a certain challenge post-GST transition, and I would just like to highlight to you what happened. You see, close to 60%-65% of the biscuits that we sell are at INR 5 and INR 10. The price transition on that, because of some dual pricing in the market, has caused some challenges in our rural channels and in our wholesale channels because of some dual pricing existing. As a result of that, we have seen some kind of a transaction slowdown in those channels. With the pricing getting normalized, we can see that during this quarter they will get normalized and hence volumes in those channels will come back.
Yeah. Just to add to what Rakshit is saying, Vipin Kataria this side. If we split up our business, 75% of our business is basically retailing or B2C, and 25% is B2B or wholesale. Now, our retailing business, which is basically, you know, urban as well as e-commerce, modern trade, out of home, has done fairly well. But we have a gatekeeper effect in the B2B or wholesale, which is impacted because of this entire GST transition and the dual pricing, and that's where we saw some pressure. You know, that's, you know, normalized the growth a bit, but I think we stay at high single close to double-digit growth in domestic.
The consumer confidence in the retail part of the business still remains very strong, whereas the B2B or the wholesale part is where we have bit of impact.
Yeah. This B2B and wholesale and rural part is anyway going to normalize, and it should get normalized in this quarter as we move on.
Understood. Actually the confidence of normalization is coming from the other competitor which had not moved to the INR 5 and INR 10 rupee packs.
Yes. The market is moving. You see also what has happened is the West Asia conflict has introduced inflation, and hence people are anyway moving to the INR 5 and INR 10 rupee price point, and hence the market should stabilize. Like Vipin said, in the non INR 5 and INR 10 rupee segment, we are growing in healthy double digits. You see, biscuits is a unique category. I'm sure that you're also looking at the results of other companies. The INR 5 and INR 10 rupee from a consumer point of view, from a price point, doesn't really get impacted. Hence, you know, that market behaves a bit differently and is also highly dependent on how the trade reacts and how the trade stocks you.
The rest of our portfolio is growing in healthy double digits, and we are very confident that in very short period of time, these channels will also come back to normalcy.
Understood. The high single, early double-digit growth that you indicated was not for March, right? It was for April, I would assume.
January and February. Yeah, yeah. It was for the first two months, then in March because of our inability to supply from West Asia had it, that low growth of that market. Actually the business from that part was actually negative for the whole quarter, pulled us down.
Got it. Seems like you've addressed both the issues or kind of almost there. Any indication of how April and May shaping up? Early days for May, but April has shaping up from that growth point of view?
You know, I would not want to give details, but we are quite confident that by the end of the quarter, the market would quite likely stabilize on the domestic front. Like we said, on the West Asia front, we've anyway taken measures to ensure that the supply channels that we have now are not dependent on the Hormuz trade. We are quite confident that we will do better this quarter on that.
Understood. secondly, I wanted to.
Thank you. We are sorry to interrupt you. We have a long queue. Can I request to come back for a follow-up, please?
Sure. No problem.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama Wealth. Please go ahead.
Thanks. My first question is on the pricing bit. You did say that Parle and other local players will now soon racket the INR 5, INR 4.5, and INR 9. In fact, I see Parle is still selling at INR 9 on Amazon, Blinkit as we speak. Maybe it is still work in progress. Specific question was, what kind of pricing you will need? If local players are racketing INR 4.5, INR 9 means you will also need price hike or maybe grammage cuts. If you could tell us what kind of grammage cut or price hike is needed as of now, have you taken some corrective action already? Because most other FMCG companies have already taken 3%-5% price hike as we speak.
If you could give that clarity, because in your case, wheat is deflationary and maybe cocoa, et cetera, are deflationary, but a lot of other things are inflationary. If you could give some sense on pricing please.
Like we said, wheat is a bit deflationary, but like we said, fuel is highly inflationary, laminate is highly inflationary. Let me answer both the parts of your question. We see that many of our other biscuit colleagues are moving towards to the full price points, and that is happening gradually as we see. On the other part, yes, selectively we will have to take price increases, and this includes both grammage adjustment and some of the packs which are above INR 10, some kind of a price increase. Both of them are factored in.
Understood. Second and last question will be on local players. Other FMCG categories are telling us because of GST rate being lowered to, say, 5% in most cases, compliance has dramatically improved. If you could tell us in biscuit this was a key benefit. Ex of whatever INR 4.5, INR 9 coinage issue is there, is there a compliance big improvement? Second is, you said, you don't sell much of 5 and 10 on e-commerce. I do see Parle, I have personally also ordered, and right now also Parle INR 9 is available on Amazon, Blinkit and some of the other Blinkit. Are you a bit under-indexed on INR 5 and INR 10 on Blinkit? Is that something you would want to change?
No, no. What I mean to say is, compared to the other channels, the INR 5 and INR 10 sells lesser on e-commerce. Obviously, I don't think any of the channel partners will come back and say that Britannia did not supply or did not run programs on INR 5 and INR 10. What I'm saying is the channel contribution of e-commerce towards these lower price points is much lesser. From a compliance point of view, I think the 5% GST rate will anyway help in compliance. I don't see an issue there. I think the issue of a compliance not improving or changing from the INR 18 to INR 5 price point is not a question for us.
Thanks.
On the first point, Abneesh Roy. See, we do not proactively push INR 5 and INR 10 on the e-commerce business because the natural disposition of a consumer is to buy premium and impulse, and that's where, you know, we have this entire game of upgrading the packs or upgrading the brands
Therefore, we do not actively promote INR 5 and INR 10. The second point on that is that it also leads to a lot of channel conflict, right? You know, for us to thrive in this omni-channel world, it's very, very, very critical that we have different assortment being focused for different channels.
Just one clarification. That is my last question. When you say you don't push, what does it mean? For example, I can't see INR 5 and INR 10 on Blinkit based on whatever I have checked, so you can correct me. Not pushing means no discounting. Is that what you mean? Because I don't see availability also.
Yeah. Basically, you know, it works on algo, right? I can't see what you can see on your phone, right? Basically, the algo would, you know, be based on incentives, and if there is a discount, right, you will see them, you know, right up on your screen. We do not actively promote them, and therefore it is only through, you know, search mechanism or if you've bought it previously that it will be visible. Because there's no point actively promoting these packs. It's always better to put your money behind the premium packs.
Yeah, if anybody wants to complete a basket and also wants to buy packs of INR 10 and INR 5 of Britannia, they will be available.
Sure. Thank you. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you. A request to all the participants. Kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant, and rejoin the queue for a follow-up question. The next question is from the line of Kunal Vora from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Just to understand the dual pricing issue, competition was selling pack for INR 4.5 And INR 9. Retailers, I believe, are making higher margins on their packs versus your packs. Is that the main cause? Let's say because of that, like you could have lost some market share in the interim. Is it fair to say that now that, let's say, the prices have been reinstated at INR 5 and INR 10, let's say that situation normalizes and the benefits of GST rate cut, which are already visible in other categories, will be visible for you only in FY 2027. Just to get an understanding of this issue right now.
Okay. Kunal, you are asking two questions. You see the benefit of GST rate cut will be more visible in packs which are of a higher pricing configuration because the consumer sees that, okay, something was INR 50, is now INR 44, or as it has happened in other companies and categories where you have INR 50, INR 70, INR 100, INR 150 rupee packs, where the difference is noticeable. On a INR 5 and INR 10 biscuit, you know, it is not visible so perceptibly because usually what happens is that the consumer buys because it's selling at a particular price point. Okay? In your first question, in terms of some of the competition, you know, selling at INR 4.50 and INR 9 and some of the wholesalers wanting to give more preference.
From a market share, let me point out that the price realization is also for those players, INR 4.50 and INR 9 versus INR 5 and INR 10. From a value share point of view, if you look at that, I don't think it would make much of a difference. Our own workings on a value share say that the difference is not there. Yes, it could be from transactions point of view, some wholesalers and rural markets would probably want to stock that more because they see an opportunistic moment where they can make a higher margin.
Understood. Like, does it mean that, let's say, what was not visible in your case, which is benefits of GST rate cut in second half, could be visible in FY 2027? Like say, maybe you can share your views on how FY 2027 looks like in terms of both growth and margins.
See, in the medium to longer term, the GST rate cut is obviously going to benefit the industry. Britannia being a leader is also going to benefit that maybe even more. We know that the brand strength that we have and the portfolio that we have at across price points will have a positive impact because of this reduction in GST. As far as the INR 5 and INR 10 price points that you talked about, with the pricing stabilization, we obviously expect that the channels where we may have felt a bit of pressure will come back to normalcy. Our team is very confident that during the course of the quarter, that movement has already begun and should stabilize.
We also know that the biscuit industry starts to have a sequential growth from June onwards, when monsoon starts to hit and when children start going back to school. We expect those things to start rolling in along with this price of the dual pricing going away as a very positive for us.
I think the true barometer is this B2C business, which is 75% like I called out, which is growing at a very good healthy clip. I think that gives us the confidence that as this GST transition and the dual pricing is fading out, even this B2B or 25% of our business will start moving up.
Thank you. Kunal, I'll request you to come back for a follow-up question. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Avi Mehta from Macquarie Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity. you know, given this kind of clarification that this dual pricing is likely transitionary and the fact that price hikes are also kind of being taken not just by the industry but by you, could you share your thoughts on whether you expect FY 2027 to result in a stronger sales growth than what we saw in FY 2026 because of the pricing component? basically just trying to appreciate or understand the domestic demand environment.
You see, if we take a look at the domestic demand environment, we also have to see how does the year move ahead. As far as conditions which are not in our control, say, for example, you know, whether it is monsoon or whether it is the coming of seasons, you know, they will go on as they are. We are very confident that our portfolio, the strategy that we have in terms of creating demand, the higher advertising spend and the marketing investments we're doing in the retail trade, along with the strategic levers that I showed you of our strategy on premiumization, on future platforms, on the many Indias that we have created, we are quite confident that we will be able to generate demand and have a good year. Obviously we have to execute that as the year goes on.
The team is extremely confident that we will be able to manage the demand environment and come out on top.
Just to define and probe you a little bit more here, but, when you say, you know, a good growth, basically what I'm trying to understand is the pricing something that you believe will have a higher impact, price elasticity or your belief on how it would pan out is what I was trying to garner. That was the key bit, and that's where the question comes from. Not from a numbers perspective, but just your thoughts on how you see pricing elasticity kind of panning out and in turn kind of flowing through growth rates for the industry and for us.
Say, for example, if the players are having to take a price increase, there has already been a price drop which has happened because of GST. I think you are coming back to a situation which is somewhat equal to what was there maybe six to seven months back, and the demand situation at that time was quite good. I don't think that pricing, either a bit upwards or either a bit downwards is going to have any major impact from an elasticity point of view. This category is vibrant. There is a lot of action, and we are confident that, even with the small increase in price which is being necessitated because of the conditions, the demand situation will remain fairly strong.
Got it. Got it. Just a bookkeeping, I mean, what is the volume growth that we saw in the last quarter? Hopefully that's all from myself.
We had a volume growth of close to 5.5% upwards.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Siddhesh Deshmukh from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi sir. This is Percy Panthaki here. I just wanted to again talk about the top line and the demand. Two sub-questions in that. One is, you mentioned that the dual pricing, especially in wholesale, et cetera, has been the problem area. Would you be able to give us some kind of rough idea, had that problem not been there, how much, I mean, how much has that problem dampened the sales growth by? Is it like a 200 basis points, 500 basis points, 700 basis points? What's the order of magnitude of that? That's first part of the question.
The second part of the question is that the large food companies that have reported the other snacking categories like chocolates and noodles, they have sort of shown close to about 30% kind of sales growth in that. Is it that the consumer behavior is shifting, and the type of snacks that they want to sort of consume, there is a little bit of shift in the market share of snacking activity between different categories? Because even if I assume that the biscuit category overall has grown a little faster than you have, it would still not be close to that 25%, 30% kind of mark that these other brands are growing at.
Okay. Percy, thank you. You basically have two questions.
Yeah
the wholesale and the rural channels where this dual pricing has had an impact. Obviously it would have impacted our sales. It is hypothetical for us to say whether it impacted by 200 or 300 or 400 basis points. Yes, it did have an impact. We also see transactions, and we can see that there has been impact on transactions. What we are very confident is that with this price stabilizing, that 200, 300, 400, whatever you are saying is that real number will come back to us.
Maybe, Rakshit, if you can call out what is the kind of growth. Apart from this affected portfolio, what is the growth in the rest of the portfolio? That also could give us some idea of what the growth is tracking at.
The rest of the portfolio which is not impacted. For example, if I take at rest of general trade, if I take a look at key accounts where I'm growing in healthy double digits. Okay? If I take a look at modern trade, I'm growing even stronger.
Yeah.
Okay. You're saying e-commerce is, you know, 50% growth. Upwards of 50%. Modern trade is upwards of 15%-16%. The, you know, where the consumer is interacting directly, as he used to interact directly also in these channels before GST, our growths are very healthy, which is why we are very confident that this is just a temporary blip. Now, for me to put a number of 2%, 3%, 4% will be a bit challenging, but whatever is that loss or shortfall will get recovered. On your second question-
Okay
I don't think snacking consumption shifts happen so dramatically that chocolates will start growing at 30% and biscuits will slow down. Obviously, what has happened is that the price elasticity of sales for these categories, they have benefited more from the GST reduction. If GST reduction is showing a noticeable drop in price because many of these categories are independent of the INR 5 conundrum, obviously growth will go up. We can also see for ourselves where we have packs which are still at higher price point, where some price drops have happened, are showing a higher transaction value and a higher traction. I don't think that the consumption shift over 1 quarter is anything to be read. I think it's a function that the true benefit of GST as it was supposed to be is reflecting on those categories earlier and much faster.
I don't think it has got to do anything with a biscuit category versus a different snacking category or a chocolate category.
Got it. May I be permitted to squeeze in one more question?
Well, from our side, you are welcome. Up to the moderator.
Yeah, just a quick one. The other expenses growth of 18% on a top line growth of only 7%, what is driving that?
You know, like we said, we are gradually also upping the investment in brand and advertising. One of the reasons for that is that we have upped our advertising expenses from last quarter, and we will be investing more vigorously in our brands.
Thank you, Percy. I'll request you to come back.
Okay. Okay. That's it. Thank you.
Thank you. I request to all the participants, kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant and rejoin for a follow-up question. The next question is from line of Anand Shah from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions. Firstly on this, the dual pricing and the Jan, Feb, March growth split. This dual pricing, did it not have any impact in Jan, Feb, and then particularly only impact in March, is it? Also, I mean, if you remove the West Asia impact completely, that's on your international business, then would the Jan, Feb, March, the core India business, that would be steady or that was just, throughout the months dragged by this dual pricing?
No, Anand, I think there's an echo from his end, from his side.
Anand. Sir, sorry to interrupt. Anand, can you mute your line, please?
Yeah. Right.
Anand, I think you missed what we said. The impact of the dual pricing has existed through January, February and March. In March, we have to add the specific challenge coming from West Asia. That's how we read it.
If I split it, just purely if I remove West Asia, then a normalized growth would be 9%-9% for January, February, March, let's say for example. I mean, it would be a more smooth curve.
Yes. Yes. Yes. That would be the impact of dual pricing. Like in the earlier question asked by Percy, if hypothetically there is an impact of that dual pricing, then if you add that, then that becomes a real growth.
Okay, perfect. This clarifies a lot. Just lastly on the, on the RM inflation you are seeing and the price hikes you have already taken, if you can just give a color on that?
I didn't hear you. On RM inflation. Like we said, Can you repeat your question?
I was just asking on a broad view, you gave color on the overall RMs, at the index level, what kind of inflation you are seeing and what hikes you have already taken?
Like we said, wheat is a positive for us. Although, like I said, in the last one month because of rains and some poor quality of wheat arrivals, the price has gone up. About one month back, it was good, but it is going upwards. Wheat is going upwards. Palm oil is also higher, although we are covered, but we know that palm oil has a connection with fuel prices. Sugar is more or less normal. We told you're talking about raw materials, these are the three most important raw materials for us.
Fuel, of course.
Yeah, fuel, of course. Fuel is a challenge for everybody. You know, we use LPG, we use PNG, and the inflation on that is openly available in the market, which is also what we are having to pay.
Actually, what kind of prices?
Sorry to interrupt you, Anand. Kindly come back for a follow-up question.
Yeah, I mean, this is just part of the question. I mean, I just asked that.
Sorry to interrupt you, Anand. Please come. Request you to come back, sir. Thank you.
Okay.
Next question is from the line of Arnab Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. My first question was actually on the GST impact on price point packs. Rakshit, what we have seen in many other foods categories is because of the mathematics of an INR 5 and INR 10 pack, when the GST goes down, your net realization per pack obviously goes up as a company, of course, assuming transactions are same. In my understanding, in noodles, chocolates kind of categories, there has been a significant uplift in value growth because of that. Could the same logic not play out in biscuits also once this pack price issue is over? Or do you think biscuits are a little different and therefore if you give higher grammage, the transactions can actually drop in terms of the number of packs?
No. I think biscuits is also a bit impulsive and is also a bit planned purchase. If you are giving a bit more biscuit or a bit less biscuit, I don't think from a consumer transaction point of view it has a bigger impact because it's a part of routine shopping basket. People, you know, keep buying it regularly. For the biscuit category, the GST change I think is very silent. Unless there is a dramatic shift where you have to reduce the grammage so much or something which becomes noticeable to the consumer, which is not the case here.
Got it. My question actually was, should you then not see a significant increase in value growth once the transition has happened? Because as a company, you would realize lots higher on a per pack basis, given the lower GST. Therefore should we not see a much faster acceleration in growth as the things stabilize? I'm not saying going back to normative levels, but should it not be significantly above normative levels given this dynamic?
You see, we are also positive that, you know, we will have a good realization. Because of the issues in the market in the last four or five months, we have not been able to see in what way this trend will move. If it happens like that, we are happy that you brought it to the fore.
Got it. My second and last question was on margins. Given the cost pressures and also your initiatives on innovation and [VMI] strategy, is there any implication for EBITDA margins for FY 2027? Could you have some impact as you invest in these and also face cost pressure? Or do you think you have enough, you know, cost-saving efforts to mitigate these investments?
You know, Britannia has a history of being very tight in its operations and very strong cost-effective program measures, which obviously have been put into force. Obviously, when we spend, we will also be selective and try and put our marketing mix model in such a manner that while we invest more, we invest where our returns are better. I think there are some learnings that we have from the past, and we will apply that. While, yes, the operating environment is tough, the fuel inflation, the laminate inflation is there for us, but the team is confident that within a certain band we'll be able to manage it.
Okay, thanks. That's it from my side. All the best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nihal Jham from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir, Rakshit. Good morning. I have two questions. The first was a clarification that, when you mentioned ex of West Asia, is it that the growth of the domestic operation was 9% or-
Nihal, sorry to interrupt. Your voice is breaking. Can you come in a better reception area, please?
Is it better now?
Slightly.
Hello. Rakshit, my first question was a clarification that, could you clarify that when you mentioned the 9% number, was that the growth for the domestic operations for the Q4 quarter? You know, the impact on the consolidated growth of 3% was because of the international impact of West Asia.
Like we said, the domestic business was growing at more or less close to 9.5%, which we have said. The small pressure that we had in the month of March was only because of West Asia. Going back to, you know, the questions two previous back to this domestic growth of 9.5%, you have to add whatever basis points we have lost potentially because of this dual pricing in these particular channels. I hope that answers your question.
Understood. That does. The second was that obviously in your presentation you are reflecting the costs, based on the current inventory that you're holding. Just to understand based on the current inflation, because obviously the spot prices are much higher than what the raw material may be holding, what would be the ballpark inflation that we are facing right now?
You see, in terms of palm oil, we are covered for the next five months, and I think we have a favorable rate against the market. Also on wheat, we are one of the most proactive and aggressive buyers, and we have a good reading of the market. Also on wheat point of view, the inventory that we have right now for the next, I believe we are now already covered for about five and a half, six months, is also at a price which is attractive even if you add the carrying and the inventory cost. The inventory that we are holding right now is a favorable one.
Thank you. The line for the participant dropped. We move on to the next participant. Next question is from the line of Vivek Maheshwari from Jefferies India. Please go ahead.
Hi, Rakshit and team. Two questions. My first question is again on the volume growth bit. Rakshit, this volume growth number 5.5% is in terms of grammage, right? In terms of total grams or whatever, kgs, tons.
Yes.
If you look at, you know, price point packs 65%, and you know the fact that GST rate was cut quite a bit, that itself would have given like more like 7.5%, 8%. In terms of number of packs, basically there would be a reasonable decline in this quarter. Is that fair?
Like we said, a lot of the INR 5 and INR 10 rupee packs sell in the wholesale and the rural channels, and we can see a result of stress in number of transactions. Your observation obviously is correct, which we are very confident will get corrected as we go ahead in the next few months.
Okay. Is there anything on the competition side, Rakshit? Because there was an interview, you know, in the media from number two player which said double-digit volume growth and all. Do you see, I mean, if you have to, two parts. One is on the competition side, what are you seeing? Second, difficult choice, but if you have to make between, let's say growth margins for you versus market share, how will you know, design your strategy from a next few months perspective, if there is something like that?
You see, if the number two player has said that they are experiencing a double-digit growth, then obviously it could be that they have had a certain, you know, volume advantage in these particular channels. Which could have happened.
Our understanding is.
The 25% for us is as close as 40% for them, so they would have got that advantage.
Yeah. Secondly, choice between market share and margin. I think we have to, you know, keep going stronger on market share. Like we said, that we are also adept at managing margins, so it is a careful orchestra which we will play very nicely is all I can tell you. You know, we don't want to compromise one for the other. We will be much more smarter in our allocation, funds, marketing, where it makes an impact. You know, there's a lot of work happening and we have growth ambitions, but we will also be able to manage the margin profile.
Got it. Got it. Thank you. Wish you all the best.
Thank you, Vivek.
Thank you. Next question is from line of Tejas Shah from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Hi, Rakshit. Thank you for the opportunity. Rakshit, on the strategic pillar that you have called out and then you partly answered the question, but the hallmark of Britannia for last 10+ years was relentless focus on cost efficiency, and then that consequent was margin expansion. The sense that I got from your commentary so far is that we have reached to a stage where we need to reinvest in brands and operations. Should we say that the band that we are currently is very comfortable band and from here on, the non-linearity that we saw past decade won't be at least in the near future?
You know, let me answer the question in this way. The relentless focus on cost and efficiency is now ingrained in the DNA. Even this year, we have a very aggressive plan to do that. We also realize that we have to create new pillars for growth. This includes, again, investing in our brands, premiumization, creating new verticals for growth, readdressing India in the way we would want to address as many Indias. All that will get added to the fact that we will be very sharp on our cost and the efficiency programs. It's not, but yes, like we said, as we move ahead, you will need to see new growth vectors for us as we also want to move towards a more complete foods company.
Perfect. Just the extension of the point that you made, and that's a part of the strategic pillar also, that innovation adjacency and future platforms. Should we interpret that Britannia will be adding more platforms, or you believe that because this ambition has been there for a while, but scalability has not come through. All the adjacencies that you need are already on the table, or you'll add more platforms, in terms of expansion?
No, no. We will be adding more platforms, and you will hear about that because I think we have to broad base ourselves and there are new opportunities, and I think we need to address those new opportunities in the way that Britannia would want to address them. You would hear about them in the future.
I think we also spoke about some of the signature brands that we have, and those, you know, are certainly underleveraged, and that's what we will also need to amplify along with the new platform.
Do you believe that this can be done organically or like many of your peers, you will also go an inorganic way to bridge the gap?
Can you come again on that?
No, sir. Sir, sir.
No, no, sir.
Sir. Yeah, sorry.
No, no, sir. Inorganic play is a part. We have not done that, but there is active scanning and there is a very serious intent. Like we said, what we want to acquire has to tick a few boxes for us. Number one, it has to help us do something new. It has to help address a consumer need which we are not addressing, or it has to get us some skill or technology or capability which we don't have. When it ticks some of these boxes, we will be ready. Like we said, we also have created a new platform on health. It also keeps, you know, that also would be an active consideration as we will expand this in the coming months.
Thank you, Tejas, for all your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, with this, I now hand the conference over to Ayush Agarwal for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone, for spending time with us on the call today. We look forward to interacting with you again in the future. Thank you, and have a good day.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Britannia Industries Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.