Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Coromandel International Limited Q3 FY 2026 earnings conference call hosted by IIFL Capital Services Limited. As a reminder, all participants' lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will 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 touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Ranjit from IIFL Capital. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Pari. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the Coromandel International Limited Q3 FY 2026 earnings conference call. From the company, we have with us Mr. S. Sankarasubramanian, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Deepak Natarajan, CFO. We'd like to begin the call with a brief opening remark from the management, following which we will have the forum open for interactive Q&A session. I would now like to invite Mr. S. Sankarasubramanian to make the initial remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you, Ranjit, for joining the call. I'll begin with a brief overview of the business environment during Q3, followed by Coromandel's operational financial performance for the quarter. On the macroeconomic front, amidst global uncertainties, India continues to remain well-positioned, with the first advanced estimate placing GDP growth at 7.4% driven by services and manufacturing. During the quarter, RBI reduced the repo rate by 25 basis points in December 2025 to 5.25, supporting domestic liquidity. During the quarter, the rupee remained under pressure. On year-to-date basis, the INR depreciated close to 7% driven by a widening trade deficit and higher capital outflows by FPIs. On the agriculture side, late withdrawal of Southwest Monsoon led to crop damage in select pockets of western South India, impacting agri input consumption during October and November.
This was particularly visible in lower chili acreage and grape segments, affecting CPC sprays and nutrient application. India experienced normal Northeast Monsoon rainfall at 102% of long-period average, resulting in improved reservoir levels. All India storage stands at 107% of last year and 125% of long-term average. Rabi sowings are up 3% year-on-year as of mid-January, with growth across major crops. Wheat has moved up, rice has moved up sharply by 22%, and oilseed cereals all have shown positive trend. On the regulatory side, Draft Pesticide Management Bill 2025 has been released for public consultation, which entails time-bound approvals of generics, digitization of registration process, and periodic reviews of registration for safety and efficacy. Draft Seeds Bill are also released during the quarter, which can lead to formalization of sector, improved traceability, and reduced complaints burden.
During the quarter, the Department of Fertilizers launched an integrated digital fertilizer claim process, enabling paperless transaction and prompt settlement of subsidy claims. In Q3, government released supplementary grants of INR 18,000 crore for subsidy, with this total subsidy outgo for the year may reach up to INR 186,000 crore for the year 2025-26. As you are aware, the Union Budget was announced yesterday. The budget has maintained continuity on agri-focused central schemes like crop insurance, interest subvention, commodity price support, and PM-KISAN for income support. A notable step is the proposed launch of multilingual AI-enabled platform integrating the AgriStack with ICAR agriculture best practices and focus on promotion of high-value crops. As you all know, for the year 2026-27, subsidy allocation has been fixed at INR 117,000 crore for urea and INR 54,000 crore for phosphatic fertilizers under the NBS scheme.
In the indigenous manufactured fertilizer subsidies have been maintained at current year estimates with some moderation in imported fertilizer subsidies. I think looking at the past trend, we feel the allocation of subsidies is reasonably adequate, marginally better than last year budget allocation, but as you all know, government always comes up with supplementary grant as and when it's required. So I think fair allocation, adequate subsidy allocation has been made. Recently announced India-EU FTA promise seems positive for agri input sector and can open up possibilities on export of agrochemicals, specialty fertilizers, bio-products marketing, and CDMO through. Of course, the finer details are yet to evolve. On the industry performance, commodity side, most of the key raw materials firmed up during the quarter.
Prices in the quarter beginning moved up from $1,258-$1,290, and during the quarter, we witnessed a sharp increase in the price of sulfur and sulfuric acid. Sulfur has moved up to $550, mainly triggered due to demand from LFP sector in China, nickel refining in Indonesia, and also supply disruption from Russia. Similarly, supply-side outages in major sources of Saudi Arabia and Trinidad led to sharp increase in ammonia prices as well. Overall, due to unseasonal rains and delayed withdrawal of monsoon, industry fertilizer consumption was affected. Overall consumption during the quarter came down by 7%. However, thanks to intervention from the government, the supplies have remained robust, and the production has also been good. Imports went up by 36% during this quarter.
Overall, I would say it was a tough quarter for the industry as extended rains have affected the consumption in agricultural pockets, and sharp increase in raw material prices and currency depreciation put pressure on margins for the fertilizers. However, on the positive note, we continue to see positive consumption shift happening towards NPKs, which improves balanced nutrition. On a year-to-date basis, overall phosphatics, the share of NPKs stands at 60%, moved up from what it used to be 50% two years before. SSP industry has stacked well despite challenges of higher-priced sulfuric acid. The consumption has moved up during this quarter. Coming to crop protection business, the domestic industry was impacted by lower acreage of key agrochemicals consuming crops like chili and grapes and reduced rainfall due to extended monsoon spells.
Globally, channel inventories have largely normalized, and there's a good demand for some of our technical molecules, especially mancozeb. While there were lower instances of pest infestation, fungicide and herbicide applications have been steadily going up, which augurs very well for our crop protection business. Coming into business performance on fertilizers, as I mentioned, we witnessed a very challenging quarter with a higher raw material price, depreciated rupee, and not fully compensated NBS rates, and a slowdown in consumption. Despite all these headwinds, the business delivered a resilient performance supported by very competitive sourcing of key raw materials, operational efficiencies, and our plants have been operating at 100% capacity utilization and a focused market approach to offer value-added products. The company achieved highest-ever quarterly fertilizer production of 990,000 tons, which is 18% up over the last year. Phosphoric acid production also has grown over the last year.
Our backward integration project at Kakinada for sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid is progressing very well as per the timelines and will be commissioning during this quarter. The granulation train expansion is also on track, and it will be commissioned in the third quarter of the financial year 2026-27. On the sales front, happy to note that we have become one of the largest phosphatic players in the country. The Q3 primary sale at 1,120,000 tons, close to last year levels. Mainly, we have moderated the sales to improve the consumption, especially in the state of Andhra and Telangana. Of course, the company has performed very well in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, offsetting some drop in Andhra. Our consumption-based market share in Q3 is moderated to 14% as against last year's 15%, which has likely taken over channel inventory.
We do hope that this will get moderated in Q4. Our share of unique rates has improved from 33%-36% during the quarter, and also we took some price correction during this quarter by 3%-4% to offset the impact of increase in input prices and currency depreciation. In SSP, Coromandel continues to do well, be a market leader led by differentiated products such as GroPlus and SSP Plus Urea. The major share of these unique rates constituting 47% of the total SSP volume. For the full year, our phosphatic fertilizer volumes are tracking well, and on a 9-month basis, we have achieved 36.3 lakh tons, up by 10% compared to last year. Our consumption-based market share stands at 17%, showing slight improvement over last year.
We continue to work on new market expansions, and on a year-to-date basis, sales have grown to 400,000 tons, 30% growth over last year. This is all especially from the northern markets, which are not catered to in the past. We have created seed marketing, and the results are paying off, and this will be helpful as and when we commission the new plants next year. Our mining project at Senegal has established the operation and has become the largest exporter of rock phosphate from Senegal, and we are in line to achieve annual volume of 350,000 tons of rock production this year. As you all know, we have set up a subsidiary company to form a joint venture, Saccoage India Private Limited, for manufacturing and sale of phosphogypsum-based products. The project has commenced.
In the next 15 months, we should be able to get a diversified product portfolio from gypsum. The specialty nutrient business, which deals with water-soluble fertilizers and organic fertilizers, has achieved record Q3 volumes driven by improved performance of micronutrients and organic categories. The business has introduced 4 new products, and also a project that would be announced in the last quarter for setting up a MAP water-soluble fertilizer plant has commenced its activity at Visakhapatnam. Nano continues its growth trajectory in Q3, registering strong double-digit growth with a strong focus on liquidation channel engagement. The company has become a market leader in Nano DAP. The product has been very well received across the various segments, especially in horticulture segments. The business is also evaluating global markets, and has received a very positive response.
Trials are happening across the globe, and as and when the registration happens, this opens up a new opportunity for exporting Nano DAP globally. For the year, the business has marketed over 4,000 kL of nano products, which is 68% growth over the last year and leads the market in Nano DAP segment, as I mentioned earlier. On the drone spraying business, we have covered close to 200,000 acres during the first 9 months, offering scalable and efficient precision application solutions to the farmers. Retail, despite a slow start to the quarter, delivered a commendable performance with 20% year-on-year growth. During the quarter, the company added 84 new stores in Q3, taking the total store count to 1,113. The business continued to focus on new initiatives such as e-commerce, drone spraying, direct deliveries, and insurance business.
On the crop protection bio business, as you all see from the number, crop protection has reported a very strong performance, benefiting from favorable demand for its key molecules across export and domestic markets. Standalone revenue for the quarter stood at INR 785 crores, registering a growth of 24%. EBIT grew by 74% to INR 158 crores, resulting in margin moving from 14% last year to 30% in Q3. Export growth was driven by volume uptake and higher NRV of major technicals and addition of key customer accounts. Despite challenging business environment, domestic B2C improved sales during the quarter. The business is expanding its channel presence and has added 1,000 new dealers during the year. New product shares stood at 25% on a year-to-date basis, reflecting the company's continued focus on portfolio diversification and steady traction of recent launches. B2B segment reported a very robust performance across product portfolio.
In Q3, the company expanded capacity for mancozeb and is further looking to expand capacities and initiated activity for the same at Sarigam plant. The bio business improved realization for its AZA products that support revenue and margin growth. The business is actively working on new product development, including microbial platform and partnership opportunities on biological APIs. On its subsidiary, NACL Industries had a tough quarter. The revenue and EBITDA were, while it is better than last year, the margin trended lower as domestic B2C sales were impacted due to adverse market conditions. During the quarter, NACL has successfully completed rights issue, the proceeds of which will be used to repay all high-cost and also used for creating CapEx, which can help in reducing costs and improving operational efficiencies for NACL plants. During the quarter, the company's credit rating was upgraded to CRISIL A1+ stable.
We are working closely with the NACL team on synergy areas, including R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and registration. The company's drone subsidiary Dhaksha is at an early stage of its growth journey, and its full potential is yet to be realized. The company is undertaking a series of corrective actions and remains confident of improving the performance in the coming period. In parallel, efforts are underway to pursue technical partnership with leading organizations and improve execution across different agriculture, surveillance, and training segments. Overall, Coromandel has performed very well in a challenging business environment, with all business segments showing improvement over last years. The company continues to explore growth opportunities across both subsidy and non-subsidy business, while remaining focused on operational excellence, cost discipline, and long-term value creation. I now request Deepak for taking you through the finance-related updates.
Thank you, Shankar. Good afternoon, everyone. With regard to the turnover, the company recorded a total income of INR 8,863 crores for the quarter and INR 25,759 crores for the nine months ended December, recording a growth of 26% for the quarter and 33% for the nine-month period. The share of subsidy business for the quarter and for the full year nine-month period stands at 82%. As far as profitability is concerned, the consolidated EBITDA for the quarter stands at INR 805 crores against INR 722 crores last year. And for the nine-month period ending December, it stands at INR 2,738 crores against INR 2,202 crores last year. Subsidy business share in EBITDA stands at 62% for the quarter and 67% for the nine-month period. And this is an improvement from the previous year's number, which stands at 69% for the quarter and 71% for the nine-month period.
Net profit after tax for the quarter stands at INR 488 crore in comparison to INR 508 crore for the quarter. For the 9-month period, it stands at INR 1,784 crore against INR 1,476 crore for the last year. The company continues to collect subsidy on a timely basis. For the quarter-ended December, INR 2,571 crore has been collected compared to INR 2,036 crore last year. For the 9-month period, the subsidy collection stands at INR 7,208 crore versus INR 5,891 crore in the previous year. The subsidy outstanding as of December stands at INR 3,785 crore compared to INR 2,095 crore last year. Further, the subsidy collections continue to be robust, and we have collected another INR 1,300 crore in the month of January, which covers sales up to last week of December.
We continue to see a volatile rupee in Q3 in the range of INR 87.83-INR 91 per dollar. We continue to proactively hedge our exposures on a prudent and a conservative basis. The board, in its meeting held on 29th, has approved an interim dividend of INR 9 per equity share, representing 900% on face value of rupee one equity share. Thank you. With that, I turn it over to Ranjit.
We can take any questions you have.
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 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 Nirav from Anvil Wealth. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Good afternoon, and thanks for the opportunity. Sir, the first question is related to the crop protection business. For nine months, if we see we have clocked close to around 21% increase in the sales as compared to last nine months of FY 2025. So if you can just share how much was the volume growth out of this 21% sales growth that we have achieved?
See, I can give you segment-wise growth. Probably volume will come back. Export has grown by 30%, and domestic B2B institution segments have moved by 36%. Domestic formulation B2C business has moved up by 5%. As I mentioned, domestic industry faced rough weather. During this quarter, the growth was marginal. I would say volume and the value, more or less, it's aligned. We can take volume growth also in the same level.
Correct. So, sir, possibly the improvement of margins is because of the higher volumes, and we would have achieved operating leverage out of our plants with the increased capacity utilization. The second part possibly could be the price increase, or is it because of the launch of newer products out of what we have announced in the start of the year that we have launched close to around 10 new products in FY 2026? So if you can just share your views in terms of this improvement in margins, what we have achieved.
The new products have helped in the domestic formulation business segment. But actually, that has to really play out. If you see overall volume growth in the domestic formulation, it still was single digit in the quarter, but on a 9-month basis, it is 15% growth over the corresponding period last year. You are right, partially it helped, but it can do much more. But for the unseasonal range we had, we expected much better growth. Our growth has come from the export segment, where we have grown in terms of volume as well as in terms of price. And being export-oriented, the currency also has helped us to achieve these numbers. So it is a combination of volume and export revenue increase, and also the new product in the domestic market, even though it has not spread out too. Combination of these.
Got it. Sir, just slightly a longer part or a longer view question. We do export to Europe as a continent for our crop protection business. Last year, we exported close to around INR 1,000 crore in total of our exports from the crop protection business. So A, with the FTA being signed with Europe, and B, with this Chinese currency getting appreciated by close to around 9% over the last one month, how does it will help us in terms of improving our exports to Europe? And as a business opportunity, how do you see Europe as a destination for our crop protection business? Thank you so much.
See, we currently export predominantly bioproducts to Europe. Not much of agrochemicals. Our export of agrochemicals is more to Latin America and to various other countries globally, not much to Europe. But I feel with our current India's export share is very marginal at 9%. And with elimination of duties up to 12%-13%, I think it will improve the export competitiveness. So we need to explore this further. At this point in time, it has not really played out for us. We need to see how best we can leverage this, especially it opens up a lot of opportunities for the bio segment to increase the share of business because of these stringent restrictions on molecules. I think bio can provide a great opportunity for Coromandel with the recent FTA.
On the agrochemical side, on the other hand, we do expect some benefits to come in on the import of intermediates and key raw materials, which we currently buy from Europe. Currently, the tariffs are as high as 22% with detariffing. I think that should also help us to access these raw materials intermediates at a competitive price point.
Correct.
I would say the export benefit of bio and the import of raw materials for agrochemicals.
Correct. What would be our share of exports to Europe out of, let's say, INR 1,000 crore, what we have achieved in FY 2025? Any number which you can share?
I don't think it will be more than 15%-20%.
Got it. And sir, last bit from my side, we mentioned in the opening remarks that we have expanded the mancozeb capacity and further evaluating to expand. So if you can share in percentage terms also how much we have expanded or debottleneck for mancozeb and how much more we are planning to add. Thank you.
We have expanded 20%, and now we are planning to expand another 30%.
Got it, sir. Thank you so much, and wish you all the best.
You too.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Soumya from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Hello. The opportunity, sir. Sir, the first question is on the fertilizer. So taking the current raw material prices, be it sulfur, ammonia, and phosphorus subsidy into consideration, so do we need price hikes? Does the industry need price hikes? And in our case, do we need price hikes to have our normalized margins of close to INR 5,000 EBITDA above them?
See, I always mentioned it is very difficult to estimate the margins on a quarterly basis. On an annualized basis, this EBITDA of INR 5,000-5,500 is still achievable for the current year as well. But there will be some drop in the margins in the current situation with the higher sulfur price and the current depreciation and not so compensating subsidy. On a quarterly basis, there may be a reduction, but on an annualized basis, INR 5,500 remains. And also, it's a function of inventory, what you carry, and what raw materials you have. And also, we have taken some price corrections on key grades, which we sell in fourth quarter. So with that combination of inventory and the product mix, still we are there to an annualized target of INR 5,000-5,500 EBITDA above this.
Got it, sir. And the phosphorus price, has it been decided for the quarter, sir, and what would that be?
Not yet. Currently, the $1,290 remains. As the industry is not keen to increase its price any further, looking at the various aspects, the industry will be pushing for cost reduction in phosphorus price.
Got it, sir. Sir, also the backward integration plant, which is expected to start this quarter, what is the kind of utilization that we will plan to have during the current?
We generally operate the plant at 100% from day one, and why not again for this project as well? So we will operate the plant at 100% capacity.
Understood, sir. Sir, also on the crop protection, you did mention about the export B2B and B2C. What would be the rough mix? I mean, exports used to be at one point 50% of the overall portfolio. So does that still remain? And B2B and B2C, what would be the mix of these?
B2B is around 25%. B2C will be 30% and 40%-45%.
40, 45.
Yeah. Exports.
Okay. Understood, sir. Sir, in B2C, what would be the volume and pricing factor? Very roughly.
14% growth.
14% growth in volume?
B2C.
Yeah, B2C alone. This time, talking about nine months. If you talk about referring to the last quarter, sir. Last quarter.
The last quarter is only 5%.
Okay. And that will be more volume-led, and there will have been some price impact there?
No, price, actually, we maintained it. It is more coming from volume only. We didn't change the price much.
Okay. Understood, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akansha from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. I'm Ankur this side. Thanks for the opportunity. First question on the growth and your margin outlook for the crop protection business, both on the standalone basis as well as on consolidated basis, given NACL acquisition, how do you look at the growth there?
See, I would suggest at this point in time to be operating as two separate entities. As a synergy benefit, there is to play in. So in the case of CPC business of Coromandel, definitely our contributions are doing good, and it is in the range of 20%, which we are confident of sustaining or improving it. For the quarter, we achieved 20%, and in the next nine months, it's 18%. And this trend will continue in the coming quarters. In the case of Nagarjuna, we had a setback last year, and after we acquired, this year, a lot of actions have happened. And the main plant of Srikakulam is operating almost at close to full capacity, and a lot of cost reduction measures are taken up. They've already moved on EBITDA percentage standalone.
They have moved to 9%-10%, which they should be able to sustain and grow further. They are also looking to improve the product mix and bring in new products. Currently, they have a challenge of lower capacity utilization of their hedge facility. So their margins will be muted until such time they find alternate use, which they are working on. Once that happens, then the margins should also move up for NACL.
Sure, sir. And just a follow-up there. One, on the CDMO or the industrial chemical side, any thoughts or any progress there considering the market also opening up a bit? And secondly, just clarification on the NACL margin accretion, this will be only led by the hedge. That's the only factor left. Or there could be more levers which can drive the operating performance here for NACL?
No, the mix change in the formulation business, which is B2C, that should improve the margin significantly. We're saying current drag is mainly coming from the hedge. So the hedge should improve it. But the business is also working on introducing new products, introducing intermediate products. So improved capacity utilization, the hedge also will add to that. So there will be multiple levers they will be looking at. And also, we will look to synergize in terms of utilizing their capacity for manufacturing some of the molecules which Coromandel intends to introduce. So it will be a combination of multiple things.
Sure, sir. Any thoughts on the industrial chemical side or the pure grade phosphoric acid or the other products that you're working on?
No, we are pursuing our interest on the projects what we talked about earlier in terms of purified phosphoric acid. And also, on CDMO play, various companies with whom we have been working for the last two years, we have moved into next stage. And they have evinced interest, and with NACL also in our fold, the global players are already reaching out to us for outsourcing some of their molecules and intermediates, including fluorination chemistry. They are all in the nascent stage. We will update as and when we progress, but it is tracking very well, I would say. A lot of interest has been shown by the global players after we have acquired this NACL.
Sure, sir. And just lastly, on the standalone crop protection business, mancozeb has done very well for us in this financial year. What's your thought on overall growth there, ex of mancozeb, given that we have launched a lot of new products historically? So just from that perspective.
See, B2C has to be seen in terms of the individual segments. Exports, mancozeb continues to be the major play, and it will remain so, and we will be expanding capacity. So we can't be seeing without mancozeb. It's an integral part of the business. We are trying to capture the value chain there by diversifying product portfolio, by introducing combination molecules, and backward integrating mancozeb. So I think mancozeb is going to be the integral part of our growth in the export segment. So I don't think we can look at without mancozeb on exports. On the other hand, in the domestic B2C, there are a lot of in-license molecules. We have a pipeline of 90 registrations, which are happening, and we have a flow of products coming in the next two, three years. That will sustain the formulation growth.
Actually, we planned for at least 25% growth in the current year, but for this unseasonal rains, we have achieved, and still we have achieved close to 15% even such a bad season. With the increased territories, we have added 30 territories in the current year. Our game plan will be to expand our market territories and synergize our operations with NACL also. We'll be looking to increase our formulation business and domestic market by at least 20%-25% going year -on- year from now on. That will be our approach on the branded business. So it will be a combination of domestic B2C growth of 20%-25%, mancozeb-led growth in exports.
But having said that, we are also expanding our other technicals, whether it is Malathion capacity expansion or Acephate capacity, or looking at new strobilurin chemistries for which we have announced CapEx last year, which held it back after NACL acquisition. We will be rating those capacities also. We are also expanding our AI portfolio as well in the global markets.
Great, sir. Thanks for your input. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ahmad from NC Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. I hope I'm audible. I have a few questions. Firstly, on your comments on sulfur prices increasing. As of now, with current raw material prices for sulfur as well as rock and your procurement from Senegal and sourcing strategies, can you give some comments on current unit economics of backward integration projects, considering sulfur prices have moved roughly 5X? I think it was $100 a ton a year ago, and now it is close to $500, $550 a ton. So would you like to provide some comments on how you are looking at the dynamics and unit economics of the backward integration as of now?
See, very difficult to put any number, but all I can say is there has been a reduction in the valuation compared to what it was 6-9 months before. Obviously, sulfur has kind of cut from $180-$200 to $500 now. But fortunately, the rock prices have been moderating. While it has not gone up, and it has softened a bit. That has cushioned this impact to a great extent. Also, let us understand the fact that the phosphoric acid price also has been going up continuously. What it was, $1,050 last year, corresponding period, now it is $1,090. So if we look at the increase in phosphoric acid and the stable or softened rock prices, the value gap is moderated, but still it's not very low. And we do feel that the sulfur price increase is not sustainable. Sulfur has always used to be a disposal issue.
I think it is a phenomenon of short supply and excess demand, which should get moderated as we move into the first quarter of next year. So we do expect sulfur prices to retrace back. We have seen this steady trend in the past as well. Sulfur never sustained at this price. It generally crashes to $180-$200. We hope it happens at the earliest opportunity.
In terms of crop protection business, in terms of integrating NACL in terms of supply chain, plants, efficiencies, those sort of qualitative aspects, are we done with all those things as of now, or the integration is still sort of remaining in terms of the way you want to run the NACL business?
So as of now, it's a separate entity. It's being managed separately. A lot of cost reduction initiatives, process improvement initiative, product introduction to product expansion, brand building initiatives, all being addressed by NACL. Our previous CPC business head has moved in as managing director of NACL to the extent there is a synergistic thinking and approach in what we do in CPC business. And it's still a work in progress. We have addressed the liquidity part by raising money through rights issue and reduced the interest burden, brought in the working capital discipline, and also brought down the interest rates on working capital. So I think we are on the right track, but still it is a work in progress. It will play out in the coming quarters.
For a standalone business, mancozeb has done phenomenal for us over years and also in recent past. Can you explain what explains such bullishness from your side in terms of mancozeb for expanding capacity further after the one round has already been done? Is it in terms of sort of a demand-supply mismatch we are seeing? What presents as an opportunity to scale up further in mancozeb?
Good question. Mancozeb is actually there has been an additional spray in key crops like soybean, corn, in Brazil. And that has increased the demand for mancozeb in Latin American markets. And farmers' preference for wide-spectrum, low-price molecules like mancozeb has triggered a lot of interest for this molecule. As a company, we are rightfully positioned to address this demand. And we are also trying to enter into long-term arrangements for securing the volumes on a long-term basis. And also, it is a wide-spectrum fungicide with least resistance and can be used in combination with various other molecules. So we are also in the process of coming up with the combination products and initiating registration activities in Latin America. Currently, we are doing it on a B2B basis, and we are trying to explore the opportunity of strengthening our presence in Latin America through B2C opportunities as well.
So we are trying to see how do we convert this immediate increase in mancozeb into long-term sustainable demand, especially in Latin American markets. As Coromandel, our dependency is not only in Latin America. We are also exporting into various other countries. So considering the increased demand for this molecule, we have started expanding capacities. We are also building a strong brand in the domestic market on the mancozeb family. So we are trying to work on parallelly many things to ensure that this volume growth is sustainable in the coming years.
Sure. Lastly, on the Senegal mine business, can you give some sort of qualitative and quantitative sort of judgment where we are in terms of the production in the current quarter and in terms of profit contribution because of the backward integration? What sort of contribution we are getting at current prices? If you can give some comments. And also, a request from my side will be to give some sense of Senegal business separately because of the depreciation and amortization of the mining business. It gets a little tough to understand the operating core business numbers. So it will be great if you can sort of have disclosures around mining business in the presentation. Yeah.
While I will have the number, but what I wanted to say, mining has been seen as a strategic investment, the valuation of which has gone up many fold compared to the value at which we acquired. It has brought in some moderation in the price at which we buy rocks. So to that extent, I would say it's of strategic importance for Coromandel with 20%-25% of our rock requirements being met through our captive source. It gives us a huge advantage and reduces our dependency on other sources. So first, it ensures availability of key raw material for the expanded capacity, the new capacity which is coming up in Kakinada. So I would first take this as a supply security.
Second, mining helps us to understand the cost structure better, and our ability to negotiate rock pricing with the rest of the sources has become far superior than what it used to be. Third, we have scaled up the volume and stabilized the production compared to what it was. What we said at the time of acquisition, we will do 300,000. We are achieving 350,000 tons in the current year. And it is value accretive. I don't want to put the numbers for the sensitive reason, but we are definitely quite happy with the way the mine has played out in this year. And going forward, we will increase the volume to 500,000 tons, thereby ensuring sustained availability of this source for our Kakinada capacity. And it is profitable. And currently, there is ore recovery which is happening.
We are taking a lot of improvement efforts to improve the recovery. It will be a very profitable business on a standalone basis.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Darshita Shah from DSP Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. I had a question regarding our fertilizer volume growth. The DBT sales data that the company gives out in the presentation, we see DAP and NPK put together, sales growth was - 1% for nine months. During the same period, the growth for us was close to 10 odd percent. This is both manufactured and imported put together. Could you throw some light on where is this incremental growth coming from for us?
What is your first number? What is the second number? -1% is for the company?
No, no. So -1% was for the industry, the DBT sales data that we gave in our presentation. That was -1%. So I think 199 lakh tons of volumes consumed of both DAP and NPK put together in nine months, which was last year. This year, it is close to 197. And the same for us, say DAP, NPK imported, plus the manufactured volumes. Both of this put together, we did, I think, close to 36 lakh tons, which was close to 32 lakh tons, 32.88 lakh tons in the third quarter last year. So that's almost a 10% growth for Coromandel versus a -1% growth for the DBT sales for the industry.
See, I think you are comparing the consumption versus our primary sales. If you look at the corresponding primary sale of the industry, industry also is grown by 15%. If you look at the industry DAP, NPK sales sorry, for the quarter if you are talking about, it has moved up from 71 lakh tons to 75 lakh tons, which is 6% growth on the primary sale. Against that, our primary sale for the quarter more or less remains the same, 11.4, 11.2. It's a comparing quarter. Just wanted to get the math right. Industry has grown by 6%. We have maintained the same volume on a quarterly basis.
Actually, yeah. I was looking out from the nine-month perspective.
Nine-month perspective, industry has moved up from 190-220 on a primary sale, which is 15% growth. And we have grown from 32-36, 31.7-36.3, which is 14% growth. So we have grown in line with the industry growth. What you are comparing is the consumption, which industry has nine months has 280,000 tons, remains flat. We have grown by 1%, 33-33.4. So more or less, our primary sales, our consumptions are tracking in line with the industry for the nine-month period. If you want, I can ask my colleague to send across you the data. The industry growth of primary is 15. We have grown by 14. Industry is flattest on consumption. We have grown by 1% on consumption. That's all.
Got it. Okay. All right. And in your opening remarks, you mentioned something about the market share coming down from 15%-14% for the complex, basically the phosphatic fertilizer division. So sorry, I didn't quite catch the reason behind the fall in market share.
Yes. That is what. The primary consumption, as I mentioned, the primary consumption for the industry has moved up by 2% for the quarter. That is more the comment is more for the quarter, moved up by 2%, whereas in our case, it was degrown. That is why our market share of consumption came down from last year 15%-14%. This basically has happened because of the slowdown in consumption in southern state, Andhra, Telangana, where there has been a significant impact on crop acreages of chilies, where the fertilizer consumption came down significantly. So I said there is a drop in consumption in AP, Telangana, which has been offset by Andhra, Maharashtra, and other northern states, but still not good enough.
That is why the industry numbers are slightly higher, whereas we are at a lower level of consumption in the third quarter, mainly because of AP, Telangana lower consumption.
Got it. Okay. Thank you. That's all.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Naushad Chaudhary from Birla Mutual Funds. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Sir, what was the subsidy outgo share this quarter? Subsidy business.
Business EBITDA share, 62%.
Okay. Second clarification, follow-up on Ahmad's question on the backward integration. See, in sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid, if I'm not wrong, roughly, we are investing INR 1,200 crore in both these projects. Initial expectation was these two projects should help us roughly INR 400 crore of EBITDA benefit annually. Given the current pricing scenario, 5%-10% here and there, but do we maintain that kind of expectation from these two projects, or should it be meaningfully deviate from the initial expectation?
See, it will be more or less the same. I don't see any challenge because it is not only because of sulfur is going up. When sulfur goes up, PA price also goes up. So as far as the valuation is concerned, I don't see any major significant shift which is happening. Plus, the power generation of 24 MW, what we talked about, that will also accrue. So our valuation is coming from one is the valuation on manufacturing of phosphoric acid, another one is the power generation. On the combination of these two, I don't see any major deviation compared to our real estimate. We should be able to sustain that.
Perfect, sir. Thank you so much. All the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vipul Kumar from Sumangal Investment. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So, sir, can you share the revenue and EBITDA for our retail business?
We don't put this out as a separate segment, sir. We are constrained to put this number separately.
Is it possible to share the financials of our drone subsidiary?
It is too insignificant at this point of time. As and when we reach the size and scale and commensurate with operations, we will be able to put out that number.
And lastly, when this phosphoric acid plant comes on stream, what kind of EBITDA increase can we expect per ton?
We talked about it, right? In fact, as against the current annual average EBITDA of INR 5,500, we said we should be able to increase it to INR 6,500 on an annualized basis. We talked about this earlier as well, and that we are maintaining it.
On the entire capacity or only on that particular plant?
On the entire capacity, obviously.
6,500, you said, right, sir?
Correct. Correct.
Thank you very much, sir, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Nagraj from 360 ONE Asset. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, on the crop protection export segment, you indicated that there has been a good amount of volume growth as well as some pricing elements. In terms of the volumes, is there any element of restocking because of which during the last 3 quarters, there has been material improvement as far as the export volumes are concerned? Thank you.
See, we are not such a big player to restock for Brazil. We are a very small player. This volume growth has triggered mainly on account of mancozeb. The application has got expanded, as I mentioned, in my earlier response. So more driven by the demand for this molecule, which has improved the volume; it is not the inventory stocking up because ours is actually more for consumption and that year's phenomenon. We are not a very sizable player in the Latin America market.
Sure. And second question, in terms of BMCC consolidation, although we are still in mode of integrating certain elements of it, when do we see a sizable benefit coming from the integration? Will it be from, say, Q1 FY 2027 onwards or maybe second half of FY 2027? Thank you.
The integration would be in terms of the management practices, taking advantage of the best practices what Coromandel is following. You can see that numbers are improving in BMCC itself from loss-making last year to profit-making, and EBITDA is getting expanded. Capacity utilization is moving up. And we can see these improvements coming in from first quarter of next year.
Sure. That is helpful. Thanks a lot and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Falguni Dutta from Mansarovar Financials . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, sir. I don't know if I missed listening to this thing of yours. So what was the DAP consumption for nine months and also for NPK? I mean, not in absolute terms, how much was the directionally, what percentage increase or decrease?
For Q3 or nine months?
Nine months. Also for Q3, if you can mention, for both these, NPK and DAP for the industry?
Industry, NPK is overall -2% compared to last year corresponding period, 52 lakh tons versus 50 lakh tons. DAP moved up by 13% from 26 to 30 lakh tons.
DAP was up from 26 to?
30.
30. NPK was down?
52-50.
Okay. This is the fertilizer consumption for nine months.
This is Q3 you asked for, right?
This is Q3.
Correct. This is Q3.
What about nine months?
Nine months is 280,000 tons.
Sorry?
2.8 lakh tons, both DAP and NPK put together. It's 2.8 lakh tons.
No, but how does it compare with same time last year?
It was same, 2.8.
Flat?
Yeah, flat. It's almost same amount.
Okay. Both DAP and NPK were flat?
Yes.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. That's all.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rishabh, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
The question is referring to the byproduct we are getting from the captive capacity. Can you give us guidance on what margins we are making on selling those phosphogypsum that we are getting as a byproduct?
I'm not able to hear you. Can you please repeat your question?
So, sir, the question is referring to the phosphogypsum that we are producing as a byproduct. So can you give us any guidance on what margins or what realization we are making on that product?
We don't disclose it as a separate segment. We'll not be able to give the data at this point of time.
Your earlier comments were that your payback period of this new plant is around 2-3 years. So do you consider this realization from this product also part of this realization?
We are not putting this CapEx looking at gypsum realization. So gypsum doesn't play such a significant role in the overall economics of this project.
Okay, sir. Thank you, Bobby.
Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand over the conference to management for closing comments.
Thank you all for your continued interest in Coromandel, and thank you for joining this call today. We look forward to this future interaction. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ranjit, for organizing this call.
Thank you. On behalf of IIFL Capital Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.