Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3 Results Investors Conference Call of Dabur India Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Isha Lamba, Head Investor Relations and M&A. Thank you, and over to you, Ms. Lamba.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the management of Dabur India Limited, I welcome you to the earnings conference call pertaining to the results for Q3 FY 25. Present here with me are Mr. Mohit Malhotra, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ankush Jain, Chief Financial Officer, Mrs. Gagan Ahluwalia, Vice President of Corporate Affairs, and Mr. N. Krishnan, General Manager, Finance. We will start with an overview of the company's performance by Mr. Mohit Malhotra, and this will be followed by a Q&A session. I'll now hand over to Mr. Mohit.
Thank you, Isha. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We welcome you to Dabur India Limited's conference call pertaining to the results for the quarter ended 31st December 2024. The quarter presented a challenging operating environment marked by unfavorable weather conditions and a slowdown in consumption. India experienced delayed and contracted winters, with October and November being the warmest in many years. While urban demand showed signs of moderation, rural markets remained resilient. Rural has outperformed urban for the fourth consecutive quarter. Organized trade channels such as e-commerce, quick commerce, and modern trade continue to deliver robust growth for us. Consolidated revenue for Dabur grew by 3.1% in INR terms and 5.6% in constant currency terms. India business, including Badshah, grew by 1.7%, underpinned by volume growth of around 1.5%. The international business exhibited strong growth of 18.9% in constant currency terms.
Within the domestic business, HPC portfolio performed well with 5.7% growth. Oral care portfolio recorded a growth of 9.1%, driven by strong double-digit growth in Red franchise and Meswak. The gel toothpaste portfolio has received a good response in the market, recording a 50% year-on-year growth in this quarter. Dabur oral care is now the number two brand in the modern trade pan-India. The hair oil portfolio grew by 3.1% year-on-year, with hair oils, within hair oils, both coconut and perfumed oils, grew ahead of the category, gaining market share of 125 and 236 basis points respectively, taking our overall hair oil share to around 18%, the highest ever. We remain focused on premiumization and portfolio expansion in this segment. Home care grew by 5% year-on-year. Odonil grew in double-digit in volume terms, with aerosol and gel pockets performing very well.
In the air freshener category, we gained market share of 101 basis points. Odonil aerosol is number one brand in the liquid subsegment of the category, with market share gain of 630 basis points. Odomos's portfolio was under pressure due to cyclones in South India and delayed winters, but performed better than the category and gained 574 basis points market share. Sanifresh and Home care continued its strong performance, achieving double-digit growth during the quarter. Skincare portfolio registered a growth of 5.6%, driven by strong performance in the Gulabari franchise, which recorded 9% growth. This was led by robust demand for our flagship product, Gulabari Rose Water, with new formats such as body washes, body lotions, and creams contributing more than 20% to the Gulabari portfolio. Our healthcare portfolio was flat, impacted by delayed and contracted winters.
Health supplements comprising of Chyawanprash and honey reported soft performance because of unfavorable weather conditions. However, in Chyawanprash, we have grown ahead of the category and gained market share of 140 basis points. Honey continues its leadership position with 54% exit market share. Digestives grew by 4%, driven by Hajmola portfolio. Extensions and variants of Hajmola now contribute to more than 15% to Hajmola franchise. Within OTC and ethicals, Honitus, Shilajit, and Health Juices reported a high double-digit growth. The food business demonstrated strong performance, with the culinary and Badshah domestic portfolio growing at 30% and 15% respectively. Juices and nectars category was impacted in the quarter due to muted festive season demand and price-driven competitive intensity. However, we performed better than the category and gained market share by 320 basis points. The Activ range of 100% juices and coconut water posted high single-digit volume growth.
We are undertaking several initiatives internally in our beverage portfolio to bring Real back to the growth path in the upcoming season. Emerging channels like e-commerce and modern trade posted a robust double-digit growth and now accounts for more than 20% of the India business. Coming to our international business, we recorded a strong growth of 18.9% in constant currency terms. This was on back of double-digit growth in Middle East, North Africa, Egypt, the U.K., the U.S., and Bangladesh. We witnessed currency devaluations across emerging markets like Egypt, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and they were impacted, and this impacted the translated growth. Talking about profitability, we faced inflationary pressure this quarter and took judicious price increases in our portfolio. Operating profit increased by 2.1%, and PAT grew by 1.8% year-on-year.
In light of the volatile geopolitical landscape and uncertain macroeconomic indicators, we have revised our strategic vision cycle from four years to three years. We have partnered with leading consultancy firm McKinsey & Company to refine and align our strategy for the next three years in line with evolving dynamics. This exercise has already begun, and we plan to conclude the same by the end of the fiscal year. This will enable us to capture opportunities and navigate the future with sharper and more focused vision. We expect sequential improvement in demand over the next few months on the back of increase of infrastructure investments, good harvest, and government initiatives to spur growth in the upcoming budget. We are committed to driving profitable growth through strategic investments in brands, innovations, and operating efficiency aimed at delivering sustainable value and strengthening our leadership in the FMCG sector.
With this, I'll conclude my address and open the floor to any Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchstone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have the first question from the line of Mihir P. Shah from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question, and congrats on a decent volume growth in BPC. Sir, if I can ask on health supplements, post the high sales during COVID, the segment seems to have stagnated over the past few years in absolute sales. I understand there is some impact this quarter due to delayed winter, but is there anything else that you can share which is ailing this category? And also, any update on the Ayurvedic doctor advocacy initiative and the expansion around the new category that was planned in healthcare overall?
Yeah, so Mahendra, what happened in healthcare, I think the answer can be divided into four subparts. We have four subparts of the business. The first subpart of the business is the ethical portfolio, which I call the backbone of the whole business. That is doing well for us. This time, we faced a lot of inflation because of gold prices actually moving up, and because of that, while there was a price increase, the volume growth was a little muted. But otherwise, that business grows at a high single digit for us, which is the ethical and the branded ethical business, and also supported by doctor advocacy. That is moving okay. We will continue on the trajectory of doctor advocacy, and that is one piece of the business which is roughly around $500 growth for us. Then the second part of the business is OTC business.
Within the OTC business, most of our star brands are doing exceedingly well. Let's take an example of cough and cold, Honitus. Honitus this quarter actually grew by 12%. Then we have health juices, which grew by around 44% broadly. Then there is baby care. There is a new range of baby care, and there is an old Lal Tail of baby care. The new range of baby care which we seeded, which is going to be exiting at around INR 50 crores this year, has seen a growth of around 25%-26%, which is also very healthy. Lal Tail, which is a seasonal product due to winters, got impacted, and that sales was really muted because of some self-inflicted issues. I think there were rate disturbances.
We had guys that given a consumer offer on Lal Tail, which got ramped in the marketplace because of which there were some rate disturbances. But I think coming forward in the quarter, I think that should get completely ironed out, and we'll be back on the growth path as far as Lal Tail is concerned. Our market shares in the baby care segment remain flat, and we've not lost any market shares. And we feel there's a lot of headroom to take shares from an oil-driven market leader where we can take a lot of share. And the upcoming season, we'll be launching another variant which will take care of the issues which are faced in this thing. Our Pudin Hara, during the summers, I think we'll continue to do well, and it's not a season for that.
Our women care business, which is about Ashokarishta, Dashmularishta, and all women products, that has grown by around 8% in this quarter. Our [audio distortiodistortion] business, which is also a women-centric business, that's also doing well with around 5% growth. That gives you a flavor on the OTC bucket. This OTC bucket is in the range of turnover-wise around INR 800-900 crores business. So I've covered INR 800 crores plus INR 500 crores, around INR 1200 crores. Now then comes the health supplement business for us, in which the key brands are Chyawanprash, honey, and glucose. In glucose, we had some issues which we faced in the marketplace on crystallization. That has completely behind us now, and it's back on market share gains. Our exit market shares in honey are 54% market share, the highest ever.
All the competitive intensity of competition launching honey, etc., all that is already behind us. And I think the brand is on exit-wise sales growth is perfectly on track. Now comes to Chyawanprash. That is the only brand. The turnover of Chyawanprash is around INR 500 crores for us. In this INR 500-crore portfolio, which did so well during COVID, post-COVID, we had a little headwind because the Chyawanprash penetration really went down in the country to settle that problem, which is a big problem for us as we see. We are trying to come out with modern formats of Chyawanprash, like tablets, liquid, powder Chyawanprash, capsules of Chyawanprash, or format extensions. That is underway, and that is doing well. We came out with target group expansions. Chyawanprash for women in terms of Khajurprash, handling iron deficiency.
Chyawanprash for geriatric population, which is Kesarp rash and Ratnaprash, that also doing well. Total variants of Chyawanprash now and Chyawanprash for sugar-free population, these all variants contribute to around 20% of the overall Chyawanprash portfolio, which is a high margin and high growth as compared to a mainstay Chyawanprash. Unfortunately, the weather conditions marred this season. Otherwise, market share-wise, we are right there. The market declined by around 6%, and Chyawanprash decline was around 3%. Thereby, we gained shares because there's a decline. I think it's a matter of time. Also, we are trying to position Chyawanprash as an all-weather product. We are coming out with a monsoon campaign. We come out with a memory-enhancing campaign for Chyawanprash. All those actions are underway.
We will also validate all these efforts with McKinsey when they are working with us on category-wise growth and make all efforts to bring Chyawanprash back on track. So that's on the healthcare portfolio, how we are trying to handle our healthcare piece. All the new initiatives in healthcare are doing very well, whether it is a chai initiative or it is health juices that I talked about or it's food supplements that we introduced. So all the new initiatives that are 2.5% of the healthcare portfolio are doing well for us. This is about the healthcare here. Sorry for the long answer, but I think it was necessary.
No, no. Thank you for the detailed answer for that. That was very helpful, actually. Secondly, if I can check on the oral care category, there seems to be a divergent trend across players with one growing in low single digits, others in mid single digits while Dabur has grown in high single digits. Is this divergent trend due to various exposure or different exposure across subcategories, or is there something else that one should read into?
The oral care category itself is doing very well, if I ask you. So there are different vectors of growth in oral care category. Ayurvedic category is doing well, and our Dabur Red is doing well on back of a lot of tailwind coming from the herbal category. Herbal category saliency, which is 30%, has improved to around almost 31.9%, around 32% now. The herbal category has grown by 7% as compared to the growth of 5% in overall oral care non-herbal category. There are gaps in our portfolio, which we are in the process of plugging. Last year, we plugged the gap of gels, which is doing well for us, as I alluded to. It should be around INR 44-INR 50 crore brand exit this year. So that's growing by around 50% for us gel portfolio.
There is another gap in terms of sensitive and bleeding gums and whitening that we have. We are in the process of plugging that also, and hopefully, in next season, we shall plug that. We've gained market shares because we've grown ahead of the category in units and value terms, and we've gained roughly around five to six basis points market share, and most of it in the country now, we are the number two player, and we feel there's a huge headroom which is available in terms of us taking shares from the market leader who is still in the 40s in terms of market shares, so therefore we have huge potential. Even in modern trade, where the competitor is very strong with its premium variants, etc., there also, we have become a number two brand now in modern trade, which is very encouraging for us.
So besides Dabur Red, which is a flagship brand, Dabur Lal Dant Manjan is also doing well. We are talking about a complementary usage of Dabur Red with toothpaste to give power to the white through red. That campaign is doing excellent for us. Our Meswak, which is a premium variant in the toothpaste category, has also grown by around 16%. We have engaged with a celebrity called Nagarjuna in South. On the back of that celebrity, we've got great traction happening in South on Meswak also. We've got some work to be done on Babool yet. We have not been able to pick up the performance of Babool, and Babool is declined in this quarter.
One good news I want to share with you guys is Dabur Red Toothpaste is the first Ayurvedic toothpaste to have been accredited by IDA, which is Indian Dental Association, which only used to accredit fluoride-based toothpaste. For the first time, they've given accreditation to a non-fluoride-based toothpaste. So now we can get into dentist endorsements also. And as we continue with the efforts of doctor advocacy, this will also get leverage, and we will reach out to more number of dentists and try to spread this across. So I think overall, oral care, we are in a good space. So you will see in the next coming fiscal year, we are in the process of revamping the entire face of Dabur Red also. The packaging revamp is going to happen to make it more modernized and make it more modern trade-centric for us oral care.
Dabur Herbal Toothpaste, which was a new entrant which we introduced last year, has also grown by around a very high double-digit. That was a gap in the marketplace. Ingredient-based toothpaste also is doing well for us. Overall, we are very excited with the oral care category. In terms of manning, also, we've done some changes in our manpower in oral care category, and we've given it to our best performer. We'll be increasing our share of voice also, which has been lower as compared to our market shares. That also will be heightened going forward in next year. We are extremely excited about the health, about the oral care opportunity. Thank you.
Thank you for that. A subpart to that question is, will this category or any other category see any one-off benefits in the coming quarter due to Maha Kumbh activations or anything?
Maha Kumbh, we are doing very exciting. If one of you is traveling to Maha Kumbh, we've got a special activation which we should dial up in social media, which we are planning to. There is something called a Dant Snan that we're introducing before anybody goes to the Triveni Sangam, which after the accident may not be possible. But if somebody is taking a bath, so we put up around 10-15 stalls, counters, basically, wherein we are dispensing toothpaste from water taps and giving toothbrushes. So consumer will take toothbrushes, take the toothpaste from the tap, dispense it, do the Dant Snan before he goes for the Triveni Snan, Ganga Snan. So those kind of activations are what we are trying to do. So that's active. If you go and if you see, please send us pictures of that.
So a lot of activations in haats, melas, and all that. Besides that, in Kumbh, we are doing LED screens, around 38 of them. We have branded all police barricades, police booths. We had 13 billboards. We are branding all changing rooms. Ladies' changing rooms have been branded by Dabur and these Dant Snan stations. So all that is happening. So rural India, which is highly salient for Dabur, we will continue to do a lot of activations here.
Got it. Thank you very much. I have one on beverages, but I'll come back in the queue for that. Thank you very much and wishing you all the very best.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the queue, we request you to please restrict your questions to two per participant. You may rejoin the queue for follow-up questions. The next question comes from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. My first question is on the McKinsey. So if you could tell us if this is across categories, across brands, or some specific categories have been given. Second is your payout to McKinsey, will it be linked to targets being achieved? Third is in some of your issues, for example, last two years, many quarters, you have faced a lot of challenges. Some are still going to continue. For example, Campa Cola will continue to remain a challenge for the entire beverage industry, and now they'll ramp up. So that issue continues to remain. And Chyawanprash, you did discuss that post-COVID, there is a challenge. So how does McKinsey help you meet these challenges in which you may or may not be able to do much because those are either competition or they are basically category linked? If you could discuss this entire thing.
Right. So, Abneesh, what we do in Dabur is we have a four-year vision plan. And as we speak, we are in the seventh vision cycle of all the vision exercises. Earlier, we used to have a four-year vision cycle. So we feel that in this volatile and heavy headwind macroeconomic environment and FMCG not doing so well as a sector, I think we require a validation of our strategies through external consultant. That's why we've kind of got external consultant on board like McKinsey. And we are truncating our vision period from four years to three years so that we are able to team up, fine-tune, align, and quickly recalibrate our strategies. Four years becomes the longest period. And therefore, we have truncated to three years. And it's also in line with the best practice in the industry, which is also around three years that we've done.
So we've tied up with McKinsey at the moment for this vision exercise to do all the numbers due to the category reviews and validate all our strategies which we've been following, which includes Chyawanprash, which would include beverages, etc., with a special double down on the beverage and the HCP piece because that is where the shoe is pinching on the business. So they will focus on that along with defining the numbers and the milestones for next three years. And this vision exercise will dovetail into the next year budgeting cycle also for us. At the moment, we've not linked them to our target achievement, but that is something that we'll contemplate after this exercise is over. So there'll be a truncated approach, first approach for their having a big picture view on the business and defining the vision exercise for next three years.
From the vision exercise, there'll be a lot of offshoots that will emerge in terms of category, GTM, pain points in the business besides big ones like beverage or this thing. Then we will get into long-term specific arrangements with them, if at all, that we will review once the exercise overview. We've already begun the exercise. This is supposed to be ending by end of fiscal year, by March end. At that time, we will see whether to extend or not to extend or to do specific projects as we deem fit.
Yeah. My second and last question is on two specific categories. So in toothpaste, you have done well. In fruit juice, you have seen a big dip in terms of sales. So in these two segments, if you could discuss in FY26, from a pricing perspective, would you expect some pricing growth in each of these segments? Because clearly, in toothpaste, market leader is delaying price hike, is happy to sacrifice gross and EBITDA margins and operate at a slightly lower band. And that does mean that pricing growth in toothpaste in the near-term, medium term looks difficult if category leader is not taking. And the trade incentives, the trade intensity is also high in toothpaste. And similarly, in the fruit juice business, clearly, Campa Cola is operating at a very high trade margin, and INR 10 pricing is also there.
So there, if you could discuss, would you need to increase the trade spend here to match up with Campa Cola because they are operating at a much, much higher level in spite of, say, INR 10 pricing parity, their trade incentives are much higher? So would you need to match up? And how do you see FY26 in terms of pricing and trade incentive for the fruit juice business?
I get you. So overall, I think the inflation is picking up in the country. Last full year, the inflation was 3%. We passed on the entire inflation to the consumer. Because the inflation was too high, we had to give trade and consumer inputs to buffer it up. And I think going forward, the inflation is inching up across the buckets of business. We expect a 5% inflation to actually hit us. So whether it's SLES, SLS, oral care. So inflation will hit us in fruit concentrates also that we are purchasing because Indian currency will depreciate. Some of the imported fruit concentrates will also become expensive for us. So A, price increases will happen in toothpaste also and in juices also. But we'll have to take very calibrated price increases, observing the competitive intensity in the marketplace so that not to become uncompetitive in the market.
As far as oral care is concerned, there's still a headroom of taking a price increase growth in oral care, especially in the avenues of premium oral care, where there's a huge delta which is available between what the market leader is having and between what we are having. So there's a huge delta margin available. So I don't think in oral care, taking price increase will ever be an issue for us while growing volume. So there'll be a part volume and part price increase in oral care that will be easy for us to handle there in oral care. And also, we are coming out with premium variants. So in terms of mix, that premiumization should take care of the inflation which might hit us. And we expect the best growth to come in from oral care only going forward next year.
As far as juice portfolio is concerned, yes, there are headwinds in juices, which is basically price-driven to reduce the relative price differential between the colas and us. What we are doing is we've already planned it for the next season. We are planning to give consumer value to now. Again, beverage business is not very simple. It has to be divided into, again, three, four parts for us. First is Active juices. Active is a pure 100% juice. There is no problem in terms of business growth. We are having 110% growth on the business. But this business contributes to around 10% of the overall beverage portfolio. So there, we have resilience of taking price increases, and we'll continue to take price increases. And we'll be introducing health-based juices also here, which we have the ability to take the price increases here.
The second part of the portfolio is drinks. Drinks has done well on back of distribution expansion. We are very small players on back of distribution expansion. We continuously are taking inflationary price increases, whatever it warrants the inflation. And on back of distribution, we'll be growing that portfolio also. As far as coconut water is concerned on Active, there also, we've invested in an Aseptic PET line and coming out in a PET bottle besides Tetra Pak will give us huge growth in the beverage. Now, the big part is the nectar business. Nectar business, yes, there is a pressure in terms of RPI. So there, we are proposing or we've already designed to do consumer offer to reduce the prices from INR 130 to around INR 100, but that will happen by way of consumer offer, not by reducing prices.
Also, we are coming out with a range which will be a relatively economical range with a Relative Price Index of around two to the colas. And that will also hit the marketplace in the season very soon. So that is our game plan for the juice business and to fight the colas, etc.
Mohit, one last follow-up, and I'll end there. So essentially, on toothpaste, you said you expect that to be fastest growth. Now, rural is recovering for every company and every category. For toothpaste, for you, how much is rural? So if rural does well, is that a benefit for you? And second, the market leader is doing all these AI programs wherein they're connecting customer to the dentist. Would you also need to look at this, or it doesn't really matter too much?
See, as far as we are concerned, this our rural contribution to us in oral care is in line with the overall company contribution. It will be around in the range of 45%-50% for us also will come from rural for the overall oral care franchise that is. As far as our intervention in the business concerns, it's a great thing for us to do. And if there's a best practice in the industry, we will absolutely follow the best practice the way we've done advocacy now on oral care. So we will do that. But I don't think it will make any material difference to the business volume of AI-based connectivity to the dentist. I told you that we've just got an endorsement of IDA, the Indian Dental Association.
I think that introduction and doctor endorsement for us will go a long way in building our overall oral care business. Yeah.
Sir, I'm done. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, sir. Thanks, Abneesh.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Again, a question on beverages. So just wanted to understand why we are getting affected so much by the cola wars. I mean, our product is very, very different in terms of its proposition, taste, composition, etc. And in fact, if I look at the second largest player in this business, which is a listed company, and they report, in fact, despite having an exact like-for-like product versus Campa, they are not getting affected much. So why is this happening?
Yeah. So Percy, a couple of issues. I'm not attributing this exact performance on the price index or the cola wars. There are a couple of more reasons. I think the first reason is the season last summer did not favor us. In the peak of summers, there were unseasonal rains. And because of unseasonal rains and we doing a little bit of season loading, I think that impacted and post that the festive season has also not been very conducive to, I think, all the categories and because of urban contraction. The third is it's a very urban-centric consumption of juices, and urban India has been dealing under pressure, and the growth rates are actually muted. That is the third reason. First is season. Second is urban not performing. And third is this a little bit of RPI getting worse.
We used to operate at a relative price index of around two. If Coke and Pepsi, one liter is INR 50, we guys are INR 130 for a liter. So that RPI has actually gone worse from two to around 2.7. So that is impacting. And in the out-of-home consumption, which is good, around 30%, 40% of the business, it is more impulse purchase. So anything which is cold, whether it is fruit juice or it is a refreshment drink, that gets taken. And there has been a slew of new brands also, which have actually made an entry, whether energy drinks or these colas. So that has impacted the business. So I think it is again a three-pronged attack that we are doing. First is communication revamp.
We are wanting to educate the consumers that colas, which are nothing but sugar-flavored waters, are not great, and they are more thin products as compared to juices, which Active, especially, which doesn't have any added sugar content in. It's only natural sugar content. That's one. Second is offering value for money to the consumers by reducing the price from INR 130 to around INR 100, introducing a new range thereof, and also offering a little bit of extra margin to the distributors so that distributor ROI improves when they have to distribute a beverage where the case value is lower as compared to our HPC case value. So all these three efforts are ongoing for us to capture the season better. So those are the attempts to revive the beverage business for us.
Got it. Got it. So just a question, since you mentioned out-of-home is a major component, would it be right to assume that your 200-300 ml packs are like 30%-40% of your total beverage sales?
Yeah. Broadly, around 40% of the total business will be Tetra Pak 200 ml, which is an out-of-home consumption pack. To your point, that is the most impacted. Our one liter is not as much in-home. It's out-of-home, which is most impacted.
Understood. And so you have, of course, the 100% juice, which is not impacted, but you have the nectars and you have the fruit drinks. So between the nectars and the fruit drinks, which is the more impacted one?
It is the nectars, which is the most impacted. Fruit drinks are not impacted. Fruit drinks is giving me double-digit growth. Even my coconut water is giving me double-digit growth. Active is giving me double-digit growth. It's only the nectar portfolio wherein our market leader with 70% market share is where I am getting most impacted, and that too in a 200 ml pack, and that too in metro cities, which is where the major impact is coming to us. As far as the market leader is concerned, you talked about the second largest player. In the category of nectars, JNN, which we call a juices and nectars category, the category is declined by around 16%, and our decline is around 8%-9% in Nielsen terms. We have gained market shares of around 320 basis points in juices and nectar category.
All other players, the players that you named, their like-for-like product like ours has declined by 400 basis points there. And they have declined. So we have consolidated our position. As far as their, 80%, 90% of the portfolio is colas. So therefore, they are not impacted. Plus, they are not impacted because of the geographic growth that they're getting, which is more inorganic and not really organic. If my guess is right, you would know better.
Understood. Understood. Also, I wanted to understand on the rest of the consumer care, or rather the consumer care portfolio, if I leave the foods and beverages aside. There also, the growth has been a little lackluster. So what is really needed for the growth to improve? Is it just consumer sentiment, or is it something else that can be influenced at your end, even if the consumer sentiment remains poor?
So again, we have to bifurcate the portfolio and see. I just talked about the healthcare business. Healthcare business was impacted by only the winters being contracted and Chyawanprash only suffering. The rest of the business verticals, we are completely on track, and we feel the growth will come in. Our CAGR for about five years in this business is around 6%-7%. So I don't think the issue there, except for this time winter was a really short and delayed winter. So this is Chyawanprash got impacted. There also, we are having plans of making Chyawanprash all season, etc. Rest of the product categories, we are really not concerned. If you look at HPC, HPC has grown by 5.7%. Then category after category, whether it's hair oils or it's shampoo or it's oral care, skincare, everywhere we've gained market shares.
And we've gained market shares by a mile. In oral care, we've gained market in hair oils, for example. Overall hair oils, we've gained 150 basis points. In coconut oils, we've gained around 120 basis points. In perfume oil, we've gained 236 basis points. Home care, we've gained 110 basis points in all subcategories. And air fresheners, we are now the number one brand in the country. 600 basis points is where we've gained. In gels, which is a new entry for us, there also, we've grown by 88% in that new format. So I think format after format, Gulabari has done very well for us. Bleaches, we've gained market shares by around 55 basis points. So I think everywhere we are doing well. So I don't think there's any problem as far as home and personal care is concerned. And healthcare, this quarter is impacted by the season.
I think that should get corrected. Beverages, I talked about to you.
So then would it be fair for us to assume that, I mean, if no one-off events, then Q4 at overall company level, or at least excluding beverages, your growth should be in the region of about 6%-7% if basically the healthcare is the only thing pulling it down, and that was seasonal. And if, let's say, that normalizes in Q4, do you see any other moving part where something which did well in 3Q could sort of come down in 4Q because of any specific reason that you can foresee as of now?
I don't think so. There's any specific issue that I want to highlight or anything that comes to my mind, not really. I think overall, you're right. The growth will be in line with that. So we expect a mid-single kind of a growth coming up, except inflation is picking up now. So I think that's a little concern. But I think that inflation should be mitigated by price increases and cost-saving initiatives that we are embarking on. So we expect mid-single, if not high growth to come in, and there will be a sequential improvement. Definitely, the business will be much better than quarter three for what we have done.
Got it. Got it. Thanks a lot, Mohit. That's all from me. All the best.
Thank you, Percy. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Avi Mehta from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team. Hi, Mohit. Thanks a lot for this. Mohit, I just wanted to kind of pick up from the last participant. You did allude to a pickup in the sales growth trajectory. That's appreciated. But would it also be fair that the margin profile also should logically be relatively buoyant? The flattish expectation that we were hoping to achieve in second half is something that we could still gun for?
Yeah, so I told you that inflation is actually picking up. We had an inflation of around 3% in YTD, and we've mitigated through price increases, etc., and going forward, the inflation will be in the range of around 5% or so. Inflation mitigation should happen by way of price increases. That's what the attempt of the business will be. We should be in a position to maintain margins going forward. Whatever margins that we have, we'll maintain our margins. Next year, going forward, margins should only improve from here by way of price increases and cost savings. That identification is an ongoing process as we are making the budgets and working with McKinsey how to improve our operating margin going forward next year.
Mohit, just the last bit, which is the next part on when you look at FY26, you have historically been able to achieve 20%-21% margin levels. Given that you are focusing on providing value, reducing RPIs in beverages, what are the potential offsetting factors that could help us achieve that in FY26? Or is that really something that you would target more beyond that? How should I look at the margin profile for the business from a more medium-term perspective?
Yeah. So I think our attempt will be to go to around 20%, obviously. That's what we were aiming at. I think the levers to achieve that would be changing the mix of the product portfolio that we sell. So I think selling a premium mix is what we want to target, and that's how we will be incentivizing the team moving forward. Oral care is one initiative in the mix that we are trying to double down on and invest the money to gain market share and therefore volume tonnage on oral care, which is quite profitable for us. Besides hair oils, other areas which are more margin accretive, healthcare is what we will target. So mix is one definite area is what we look at. The second space will be premiumization across different categories wherein we would want to innovate.
Like I was telling you in hair care, we always focused on stabilizing our Amla because the competitors had taken away all the market share from us. And I think it's taken us some four, five, six years to consolidate all that, and now we've got all-time high market share of around 18%. So now we'll embark on premiumization as far as this is concerned, and so premiumization mix and some cost-saving initiatives is what we will take in some risk. That's third initiative, and price increases. Wherever we have a price increase, I think these four levers should help us inch up our gross margins from in the current year. And what happened in the current year, we've also taken a correction of INR 200 crores in quarter two, as you are aware of. So a lot of percentage gross margin went down because of that.
That deleverage happened from scale. Hopefully, that will not happen in the next year, and margins will inch up because of that also.
Okay. Perfect. And the Namaste also should be moving out now.
Yes. Sorry to interrupt, Avi, but you are not clear right now.
Sorry. I just wanted to just understand the Namaste bit. I'm sorry. I thought that was also a headwind. And if you could quantify how much that would be, that's all from my side.
Yeah. I think I got you. So therefore, Namaste rightly said. Last year, we spent roughly around INR 100 crores on the litigation cost in Namaste given to advocates and attorneys. As we speak, we've changed our agencies in Namaste. And therefore, the cost has come down by 25 percentage points from INR 100 crores to INR 75 crores in the current year. Going forward also, and there's some bit which we've got back from insurance agencies. So there will be a definite leverage on cost which will happen in international business, and we expect the profitability to be better. So in international business, one lever is obviously legal cost going down for us, which is overlapped. The second will be the dollar-denominated currencies are doing better for us. Namaste business is doing better.
Middle East, North Africa is doing well. All the big currencies are performing well, and we expect them to perform well. Depreciating currencies will also offset the currency depreciation next year. As we speak, we have INR 81 crores of translation loss, which I think will go down going forward. That should be another lever which will add to our international business profitability.
Perfect, Mohit. That's all from my side, and look forward to hearing back from you on how you look at the strategic vision going forward. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Disha Giria from Ashika Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I just wanted to understand that in your presentation, that you have mentioned that the rural has outperformed urban by 140 basis points. But you mentioned in your opening commentaries as well as over the discussions that the urban has kind of slowed down. So if you could give some number to be able to better understand the rural and urban bifurcation because in hindsight, the rural outperformance looks like the gap might have increased because of the urban slowdown as well.
Yeah. So let me give you more detail on the syndicated data. Syndicated data overall, FMCG market is growing at a rate of around 7%. That's what they indicate, in which rural is trending at 10% and urban is at around 5%. There's almost a difference. So urban has corrected by 40% going forward. It used to be 10, and now it is in the range of around 5 odd. And rural is actually doubled in terms of what the Nielsen growth rate was, which was in the range of 5, has now become 10. The difference between urban and rural in terms of retail itself is around 490 basis points. So that's the retail, what retail stocks and Dabur is growing ahead of the category for urban and rural.
If Nielsen is talking about 7% FMCG, Dabur is trending up, and that's why the gain in market share is happening across our categories for us. That's as far as the retail audit is concerned. There's a trend in the market that the retail is moving ahead of urban sorry, rural is moving ahead of urban by around 490 basis points. The same thing is getting reflected in our business also, but a bit with a lower 140 basis points. If the overall India business has grown by 1.7%, urban business has grown by 0.6%, and rural business has grown by 2%. The difference between the two is 140 basis points for us. That's why the rural performance is better than urban performance. Going forward, we think this is also inch up going as the rural saliency really picks up and things.
So it will only go up from here. And this is happening on back of real wage growth, which is higher in rural India. This is growing real wage growth in rural is moving up by 5% as well as urban is coming down by - 7. So there is more money today in the hands of the consumers in rural as compared to urban. But these things might change because food inflation is very high. It's at around 8%. So if rural also starts prioritizing food as compared to discretionary, this thing could change. But the situation is pretty dynamic in the marketplace, and we need to watch that out as we go on.
Thank you. That was a very nice answer. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening. So just on the advertising spends, Mohit, just wanted to get your sense on how do you see that trend moving because you have mentioned in the past that that's something that you want to ramp up year- over- year to get in line with the double-digit levels at some point. Last two quarters, you've seen it come off. This quarter, the India standalone piece looks like a sharper decline year-over-year. So is it that in the current context of the market, below the line is a higher share for you right now? If you could just break that up and give an outlook on how you're thinking about it.
Yeah. Absolutely, Harit. I think, again, I say keep saying horses for courses. Different times, different strategies. One strategy doesn't become the same through the year. So I think as the consumption story is not great at the time, I think there's a pressure on the category growth rates at this time with the buyers not expanding. I think it's a futile effort to spend so much money on advertising. It's important to consolidate your position. When the buyer remains the same, the growth is hard to get. That's what one is trying to do. We are trying to prioritize more BTL spends to increase our market shares than to get more trials, innovation, and getting more consumers in the room. When the market growth happens, that's when we double down on advertising and doing. So advertising has come down.
Our overall advertising and promotion expenditure has increased by around 10%, but advertising expenditure has gone down. That said, that is still more than 7% of the overall consumer care business that we have in India, which I think is an optimal level given our diversified portfolio and too many pockets of spend. But the endeavor is always whenever luxury is available in terms of margins. At that time, you want to invest money behind advertising to grow your brand. But when luxury of spends is not there, then you have to have a balanced approach between margin. And because top line is not coming over, it's growing by mid-single digit. Top line is growing by low single digit. So you have to conserve money to maintain your margins. So that is the mindset that one has. And that's how we're calibrating. So yeah.
And then you have to also see your India business because some of the businesses like smaller businesses like Dam, Guar, Expose, etc., they don't have any different spend. So if I were to, or even some of the ethicals, so if I were to gross it up, then it would be around 7.5%-8%, which currently is reflected around 6.7 or percent. So it gets subjected by 10 percentage points.
There are lots of pockets of businesses which don't have advertising for us. For example, HPC Marketing doesn't have advertising to Ankush's point. Exports doesn't have advertising. Guar business doesn't have advertising. So there are commodity businesses. So if you apportion advertising on your core consumer business, which has advertising, that is in the range of around 7-8%. But that said, I think we have to prioritize advertising spend. There's no shying away from that fact.
Got it. Got it. And the second question was on pricing. So you have mentioned a few times on the inflation inching up. When do we see this start to kind of go into the market? Could there be a little bit of lag effect because market competitive intensity is high in some of the categories? So because if you look at quarter three, the difference between volume growth and revenue growth is 50 basis points. So I just wanted to get your sense of when do we start to see incremental pricing kind of going into the market from here on?
As Harit, while there is an incremental pricing, but there is also, to your point, there's some time lag, right? But our procurement strategy is also to take certain long positions when we anticipate certain inflationary trends. And that helps us catch a bit of inflation, and then we can plan our pricing accordingly. So while you see over the last five, six quarters, our trends has been that by and large, our pricing has been in sync with the inflation. And our guardrail is very clearly that at least either at a healthcare level or in a health HPC level or beverages level, we try to compensate. Even one of the subcategories, there's some time lag, then the other category helps mitigate that. So that is by and large our endeavor, the procurement strategy combined with market intelligence and taking those calibrated price increases.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Thanks. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tejas Shah from Avendus Spark Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mohit. Thanks for the opportunity. Mohit, just on the consultant part. So over the past five to six years, especially after COVID, we have seen FMCG companies have repeatedly turned to consultants for growth solutions. Yet we have seen no sustained or standout success. So what drives the reliance on this external validation despite no, I would say, big success or results that we have seen from that approach?
No, I think you got answered in your question only, so I think because what happens is despite our strategy, best attempt, hard work, if the results do not reflect our ambition and aspiration, then you start sometimes questioning your strategy. Are you on the right path or not? That is where you require to do that introspection. You require some validation from outside experts, and these consultants have got varied experience of working in many FMCG companies and got best-in-class practices exposure, which we may not have because we've got one company, two company exposures, etc. So while what we think is right for the business is what we do, and sometimes this validation really helps, and it's a global benchmark. They don't operate only in India. They operate in America, Europe, across continents, so sometimes some practice or overseas market can be very relevant for an India market.
Every market has a different level of maturity. What happens in China might come to India very soon. What's happening in the US comes to India. I've worked in overseas market, and a lot of formulas for international business have been very successful in India, from my point of view, like winning in many Indias. It is basically an international concept that we saw working very well in India because there are smaller countries with populations of 1 crore or 2 crore. Here you've got states which are 20 crore, etc. Therefore those things work. These best-in-class benchmarks help. That's why you do a dipstick with a consultant and not really ask them to run the business. You ask them to validate your strategy once in three, four years.
And that at least gives you that confidence that, yeah, you're on the right path and this validation works. And sometimes it was stakeholders also. So one is for ourselves that we do the strategy. Sometimes the stakeholders also get a better validation that the management who is making the strategy is a maker and not a checker. Checker is somebody else. So that's a making and checking validation actually happens from the stakeholders who are looking at the company management to deliver the results also. So it's outside external management or also internal validation is where the consultants really help.
Sure. So is it more of a process validation, or is it more of solving the growth problem and delivering on numbers there?
No. It is not process. Process already entrenched, and processes don't change except if there is some gross error happening in the process. It's more strategy. It's more strategy, and we still validate in execution because the market is so dynamic. So you have to tailor-make your strategy to the dynamic environment, which is perpetually in flux. So as the flux happens, you have to keep tailor-making your strategy. And these guys come and help you to customize your strategy to the environment which is changing. Beverages was fantastic. Suddenly there's a cola war happening, and the Reliance is disrupted. So a validation of a beverage strategy by a guy like McKinsey who got exposure, who's worked on food with Coke and Pepsi and everybody globally will only help us to fine-tune the strategy.
Okay. Second, Mohit, for the last two, three years, we are seeing that FMCG companies, including us also, are pivoting towards science and efficacy-based innovations to tap urban consumers. Our IDA recognition of toothpaste is also kind of validation of that. So last time, you spoke about in detail that how we are also going in a direction where the focus will be on efficacy and science-based launches. So any update on that and any, let's say, clinical trial or clinically tested product that you would have launched?
Yeah. I'll give an example of Khajurprash. I will give you there are many examples, but I'll only talk about Khajurprash, Shilajit that we guys have rolled out, 100 variants that have come in. Khajurprash, we have commissioned a clinical trial which is promising 30% RDA of iron, which is required by a woman, 30%. If you have two tablespoons of Khajurprash every day, 30% of the RDA is fulfilled by Khajurprash. So that's a clinical trial that we've done. We've done another clinical trial for Pudin Hara. It says that Pudin Hara starts acting in 15 minutes. In Pudin Hara also, it starts acting in 30 seconds once you are able to consume it.
We have very recently rolled out a range called Science only for e-commerce, only exclusively for Amazon, which is all science-backed in which you've got the collagen powders, and you've got foods of multivitamins for women, multivitamin for men, collagen powders, and gummies. So this range of four products we rolled out is called the Science. I think the samples will be sent out to you very soon, but it's available on Amazon as we speak. So that's all backed by scientific claims, and scientific claims are all not analytical, but more clinical.
Okay. So this is Oziva Wellbeing Nutrition kind of portfolio that we are developing?
Not as vast as that. We just got four SKUs. We are doing a proof of concept check on e-commerce, and we'll scale it up a little bit later. Yeah.
Yeah. Very, very clear. Thanks and all the best for coming forward.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditya Soman from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Just one question for me. So this work that you're doing with McKinsey, will it involve any sort of strategic decisions on any category or sector, or it's more of sort of a tactical review on how to, as you mentioned before, where you're shortening the review period and then just thinking on strategy?
I think it's a strategy exercise and a long-term exercise. Three-year vision is being planned. They will debate and question all businesses which are non-performing or even performing, which have got a right to win for Dabur. Anything which doesn't have a right to win, they will be questioning, and there'll be a debate happening between management and them to retain or to size down or to reduce investments or what to do. It will be a very strategic exercise that we'll do. It's not a very tactical exercise at all. For tactical exercise, we had done a similar exercise with McKinsey on RGM, which is revenue growth management on oral care and hair care. That is done; the dust has settled, which was around six months back.
But now this is more of a strategic exercise and questioning various businesses, prioritizing ROI and investments in different buckets of the business, what we should double down, what we should not focus on. Since COVID, we've done a lot of initiatives. Like you remember, we've done sanitizers, we hived it off, we've done home care range, and we hived it off. But there are a lot of portfolios which we had launched at the time, which are still there in the business. Tulsi Drops has fallen off. But Health Juices is doing well, which is growing by 44% and has become a very big bucket. So they will question. And from a right-to-win standpoint, from is it a sizable category, is it a profitable category, is it where we have a capability and a competency to exist?
So they have multiple models and different prongs on which they evaluate the business.
And maybe just to add on, there'll be a tactical. Yeah. While it's a very strategic exercise, but what might happen is that at the end of the exercise, some offshoots will come out, which will probably be some of them may be tactical.
Understand. Very clear. Just to, maybe, so if the outcome is that, let's say, one of the categories does not fit in with the overall strategy, then you would even go up to the extent that if it doesn't work out, then that you'll get rid of a category or even that can be an outcome, whatever the problem is on that.
Absolutely. M&A could be one outcome of it, of a strategic category where Dabur is not present. There could be divestment. There could be no investment. All those kind of decisions which will happen, and this will be at the top level.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Latika Chopra from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you. Hi, Mohit.
Hi, Latika.
Thanks for helping. Yeah. First one, domestic volume growth in the quarter was 1.2%. Just wanted to check this does not carry any impact of any kind of channel restructuring, inventory restructuring that we saw in the previous quarter. Are there any ripple effects which have been present in this number? And just trying to also check with you, in an earlier question, you talked about mid-single-digit growth in the coming quarter. Were you referring to volume growth expectations, or were you referring to value growth? Considering that most of the companies sound very cautious in urban consumption, rural is improving, which is good, but it seems the pace of improvement is also probably not as much as companies earlier thought it would be. So in that context, presuming things on macro remain where they are.
Latika, we can't hear you clearly. Latika, we can't hear you clear.
Is this better now?
Yeah. We'll attempt.
So let me come back separately then. I'll come back separately later.
All right.
It's clear now. [crosstalk]
You can try again.
Yeah.
Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can. Yes.
Okay. So my first question was on the domestic volume growth of 1.2%. Did it have any negative impact or follow-on impact of the channel correction that we did in the prior quarter, or this was the underlying proper volume growth that you saw in the market?
Yeah. There was no one-off impact of any stock coming back, etc. No. That wasn't the case in this. This was the growth that we've seen in the marketplace, yes. So that's one. There were some elements of honey stock, which we cleaned up. I think there's a minor return sales was there. Barring that, I think nothing major, nothing consequential. The pipelines have been maintained. We reduced the pipeline to 21, and 21 is the pipeline now also. So that was not the case at all.
The second bit was on your volume growth expectations going ahead. Assuming macro remains where it is because most companies are sounding cautious in urban, there is a rural recovery which is there. Do you think this is going to go to mid-single-digit volume levels, or what you were earlier alluding was mid-single-digit value levels?
We were alluding to mid-single-digit value level. It'll be a part price and a part volume because what happened in the current quarter also, while we had taken a price increase of 3% or so, that got nullified by giving extra schemes, trade schemes, which got netted from gross, and therefore net remained where it was. So while the price increase was there, but that did not accrue in terms of the net sales because of netting out of the consumer promotions which you had to give because the consumer demand was low, and you had to fight the competitive intensity in the marketplace. So I'll give you an example in home care. We're just analyzing. My volume growth of home care comes out to be around 15%-16%, and my value growth of home care comes out to be around 2%. So 5%. Sorry, my mistake. 5%.
So between 5% and 15%, there's a 10% delta which got consumed in fighting competitive intensity with the market leader. So when the pie is not growing, I think it's a fight, and competitive intensity moves up. Except for oral care in hair oils also, we saw the same thing. Hair oil secondaries grew by around 6% for us, and what we realized is only around 3% kind of growth rate in hair oils also. So therefore, going forward, I think I'm alluding to around a value growth of around mid-single, looking at where the market is.
Understood. No, this is clear. The last one was probably I missed hearing. Did you give any guidance on margins? Did I hear 20%+ ? I think there was a question, but I could not hear you clearly. If you could just clarify, how are you thinking about margins for the consolidated business in FY26? Any range that you would like to share? Thank you.
Before I get into quarter fully and next year, at least for quarter four, I'll intend to tell you that a mid-single-digit top-line growth. We'll try to maintain our margins for quarter four. For next year, we are still in the process of making our annual budgets. However, having said that, we see a bit of inflation. We'll try to mitigate those intentions again to maintain it, and we'll take appropriate price increases, cost-saving initiatives, some leverage will also come, so intent is to maintain or slightly improve, and if there's a significant improvement, then we'll also try to reinvest it back into advertisement.
Very clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Latika. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have no further questions, ladies and gentlemen. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Isha Lamba for closing comments. Over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. Thank you, and have a good evening, guys.
Thank you. On behalf of Dabur India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.