Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 Results Investors' Conference Call of Dabur India Limited. As a reminder, all participant 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 the conference call, please 70 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Gargi Ahluwalia. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the management of Dabur India Limited, I welcome you to this conference call pertaining to the results for the quarter and full year ended 31st March 2023. Present here with me are Mr. Mohit Malhotra, Chief Executive Officer at Dabur India Limited, Mr. Ankush Jain, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Ashok Jain, EVP, Finance and Company Secretary, and Mr. N. Krishnan, DGM Finance. We will start with an overview of the company's performance by Mr. Mohit Malhotra, followed by a Q&A. I now hand over to you, Mohit.
Thank you for the results call of quarter four and financial year 2023. Financial year 2023 saw geopolitical issues disrupting the global supply chain, which led to steep rise in commodity prices. Inflation across the world went up to unprecedented levels. While it has started to wane during the end of the year, pockets of stress remain. To tame this inflation, central banks across the world have raised interest rates, which has led to demand slowdown and currency headwinds in our key markets especially. India has not been very different. With WPI in double digits for the majority of the year, CPI is still hovering around the upper range of MPC comfort levels. The operating environment remained challenging during the quarter. As per syndicated data, for the first nine months of the year, there has been a volume decline across the FMCG sector.
We have seen some positive growth emerging in the later part of quarter four. This positive volume growth is mainly driven by food baskets. HPC and OTC categories continue to report volume declines. Rural markets have continued to lag urban on account of high inflation and down-trading by consumers. Having said that, silver lining for the year has been the performance of the new age channels and some green shoots which are emerging in the rural markets towards the end of the quarter, indicating early signs of revival in demand. In this context, Dabur's consolidated revenue for the year crossed INR 11,000 mark to close at the year at INR 11,530 crores and registered constant currency growth of 8.2%. India business grew by 6.2% and international business registered a growth of 11.1% in constant currency.
The three-year CAGR for India business is 11.2% with near double-digit CAGRs in health care and HPC and strong double-digit growth in F&B business. Our consolidated gross margins contracted by 258 basis points in consolidated business as we faced material inflation to a tune of 12.6%. The good news is that margin contraction is sequentially reducing with moderation in inflation. During quarter four, the company recorded consolidated revenue growth of 8.6% in constant currency and 6.4% in INR. While India business reported a growth of 4.7%, secondary sales grew around 10%. In terms of categories, food and beverage business recorded a stellar growth of around 30% both during the year and the quarter.
The beverage business continued to be on a strong trajectory on back of strong execution and our initiatives towards expanding the total addressable market. We outperformed the industry significantly. Our market shares in J&N segment have increased during the year. The fruit drinks portfolio under the Réal Koolerz crossed INR 200 crore mark during the year. The Foods business also performed very well with a growth of 34%. This has been further bolstered by the Badshah acquisition, which was consolidated for the first time in quarter four. Including Badshah, F&B business recorded a growth of 34% for the year. HPC portfolio recorded a 5.1% growth during the year despite category declines. Our toothpaste portfolio recorded a growth of around 5%, leading to a double-digit three-year CAGR. Dabur Red continued to gain market share in the category.
We are the number two player in the Oral Care segment, with every second household in the country being a Dabur Oral Care household. Hair Oils market share witnessed an increase of 130 basis points to touch the highest ever market share that we've ever witnessed in Hair Oils of 17%. Shampoo recorded an 8% growth with a three-year CAGR of 15%, we saw our market shares inch up in shampoos by 30 basis points. During the quarter, secondary sales of HPC saw a growth of 7%, the primary sales were impacted on account of unseasonal rains and a bit of downstocking. For the year, health care portfolio recorded a 7% decline, the three-year CAGR a strong 9% after lapping over the high basis of the COVID year. We saw market shares across health supplement portfolio also grow.
Digestive category saw a growth of 10.4% on back of robust performance of our Hajmola and Pudina brands. OTC portfolio recorded a double-digit 3-year CAGR with a strong performance in Honitus brand. Growth of Healthcare in quarter four was flattish on account of high basis due to Omicron variant in the base quarter. Among channels, e-commerce was a standout performer with a 30% growth and now contributes to around 9% of our revenue. Modern trade saw double-digit growth during the year. We also saw market leading expansion in our distribution during the year, with our direct reach now going up to INR 14 lakh outlets, 1.4 million. Village coverage was further increased to INR 1 lakh villages. Efficiency of distribution, as indicated by the Edge score, also improved by around 20%.
International business recorded a constant currency growth of 11% in financial year 2023. While Turkey and Egypt recorded exceptional constant currency growth, INR growths were impacted due to currency devaluations in these countries. South Africa and Nepal business clocked strong growth. For the quarter, while overall inflation reduced, there is an increase in input cost of F&B basket, leading to gross margin contraction of 163 basis points in consolidated business and 74 basis points in standalone business. Sequentially, our gross margin contraction has been reducing. Operating profit declined by 9.6% during the quarter due to resumption of media spends in the quarter, which saw a 16% growth in India. Reported PAT for the quarter touched INR 301 crores, recording a 2.2% growth. This includes amortization related to Badshah acquisition.
During the year, despite facing challenges such as inflation, demand slowdown in categories, and currency headwinds, we have aggressively pursued our business growth and have successfully increased our market share across the portfolio. As a matter of fact, secondary growth in the quarter was in double digits. Also, our gross margin contraction is reducing. Inflation is abating, and we are seeing positive volume growth in rural markets. Healthcare has already lapped over the basis of COVID and should see a strong growth going forward. With this, I bring my address to a close and open the 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 their touchtone 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. First question is from the line of Mihir Shah from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. First question is on juices. From next quarter onwards, we are likely to cycle a high base. Will Dabur's entry into the drinks category help tide over this high base? You know, just like what we had seen in health supplements, there can be a sharp, you know, optical decline in growth numbers in juices, you know, from first quarter onwards.
Hi, Mihir. Good question. While we are cycling the high basis of food and beverage going forward, and majority of the business comes in Tetra Pak, which is sitting on a high base, a slight amount of moderation in the Foods growth cannot be ruled out. There will be a moderation in the growth. We will not see a growth of around 30% because 90% of the portfolio, it's around INR 1,700 crores for us, and only INR 200 crores is happening. Plus there's a seasonality impact also which will be there. I think overall, our food growth should moderate. I would say that it's really high single digit to a double digit kind of a food growth, but not a very high double digit of around 30%. We are also very careful on the food.
This, in a way, it's got a silver lining to it. Because food is a low gross margin business, if it balances across the other portfolios, our gross margin also inches up. Plus, there is also a factor of seasonality. There's untimely rains happening now, which we saw in the fourth quarter and also we are seeing in the first quarter going forward. A little moderation in the Foods growth is definitely on the cards that we see.
Right. Thank you for that, sir. Secondly, on Hair Oils, you know, well, you mentioned that you have increased market share to all-time high. It seems that versus peers, what we saw in the, you know, other commentary from peer companies, the hair oil growth has seen some kind of a pickup. Can that be a case for a delayed improvement for Dabur's brands, in Hair Oils?
As far as the syndicated data is concerned, I can't comment on the results of the peer companies like Bajaj and all, but definitely we'll tell you about the syndicated data. Syndicated data shows there's still a decline. While the decline is stemming and it's becoming almost flat, we see decline of around 3% in the hair oil category, actually 2.3% in the Hair Oil category. Whereas our business has increased by around 2% in the Hair Oils, thereby gaining market share of around 130 basis points that I talked about. This is pretty secular across all the sub-segments of Hair Oils for us. Even in perfumed Hair Oils, we've gained market share, and our strategy of supporting our core brand with the flanker brand is working very well.
Our Sarson Amla registered a very, very high double-digit growth. Our Brahmi Amla registered a growth. Our Dabur Amla related products also registered a growth. Our coconut oil, which is Anmol, have also registered a high growth. We've increased our market share. We are also improving our presence in other sub-segments which hitherto we were not present, like cooling oil also in the current season. I think overall I'm pretty positive about the Hair Oil category. While the category growths are not there, Dabur has a huge headroom to grow because we are only around 17% of the overall market. The rest of the market is open for grabs. Our Dabur Almond Hair Oil is also doing very well. We feel it's got a lot of legs in modern trade and e-commerce, and that's where we're building the business.
Got it. Understood, sir. Sir, next on, Health Supplements. I actually missed the point that you made. I believe you mentioned some strong growth in Health Supplements likely because now the high base phase is over. Can you just allude to what you were indicating, please?
There are different parts of our Healthcare. I think you're referring to Healthcare for us. In Healthcare segment, there are three sub-segments that we have. First is the Health Supplements. Health Supplement is cycling, was cycling a high base. I think we've already entered a phase where last of the high bases of the Omicron quarter, which is now over and out. In the last quarter, we had an INR 90 crore of base of Chyawanprash, and we registered a business of roughly around INR 60 crore. There was INR 30 crore fall in Chyawanprash that we saw in last quarter, but now it's all behind us. On honey, already registered a growth of around 6% in the last quarter. Chyawanprash declined by around 35% in the last quarter. That's impacted our margins also.
Going forward, I think that being behind us, we will see a good growth in Health Supplement part, which is glucose we are already seeing. Honey we are already seeing some green shoots. In case of Chyawanprash, the growth has begun, which is also high margin for us. That's one part of the Healthcare portfolio. The second part of the Healthcare portfolio is the OTC business. OTC business on back of brands like Hajmola, Pudin Hara, Lal Tail is already seeing a good growth. COVID bases are now over, we should see a high growth there. Third is the ethical and the generic business for us, which is around INR 400 odd crores. That also should see a high growth.
What we've done in Healthcare business is that we've inducted and we've recruited, we restructured the whole company, and we have got ex-CEO of Himalaya join us, Mr. Philipe Haydon. I think I alluded to this before.
After the call also. He's come in, and he's announced some sort of restructuring in our Healthcare business, in which we've created a new vertical. It's called Dabur Therapeutics Limited. It's Therapeutics as a division. This division is manned by around 440 people that we have got. Fem Pharma business we had, which we had inherited on back of the Fem acquisition, that has been integrated with our branded Ethical business, and 440 people will be doing advocacy to allopathic doctors. Unlike hitherto, we were only going to Ayurvedic doctors, now we are going to allopathic doctors. There are almost like around INR 15-INR 16 lakh allopathic doctors. In the key metros we'll be reaching out to those doctors doing advocacy. They have been given a target of roughly around INR 200 crore.
Baby Care will be the one of the frontrunner portfolios which should sell through this team. We've taken a target of roughly around INR 20 crores to going up to around INR 40 crores-INR 50 crores next year, driven by this advocacy where we'll be reaching out to gynecologists, pediatricians, et cetera. Those plans are being made and also being executed as we speak. I will expect a good growth in the OTC and the branded Ethical portfolio on back of this. The third part is ethical business, which has already navigated the COVID basis, and we should see good growth in the ethical business also, which is selling generic products through vaidyas, which is business as usual for us. That's the flavor on Healthcare portfolio for you.
Got it. Thank you so much. Sir, my last question is on other expenses. There has been, you know, it seems that there's some kind of a one-off in the other expenses sequentially jumped quite a bit. Is there any cost of Badshah sitting there? Or is there any bunch up of cost that will likely discontinue, you know, in the coming quarters?
There's a one-off expenses of roughly around INR 20 crores-INR 25 crores, which is actually sitting in that other expenses, which is seemingly very high growth of around 20%. What's happened in the business is our business in terms of case sales has grown by around 11% in the quarter, and for the full year it's grown by 14%. The variable, 60% are the variable expenses here. Those variable expenses have grown in line with my case sale growth, which is around 11%. That 11% is explained. Which variable expenses includes freight, travel, processing fee, warehousing charges, et cetera. Travel, which was not there due to Omicron last year, is also coming now.
Processing charges with third party has gone up, warehouse charges have gone up, freight has gone up because the tonnage of the Foods that we sold in this quarter was very high on account of the season being there. That is one, which is intrinsic, which is not one-off. The other one-off are in the range of around INR 20 crores, which is a Forex adverse impact which we saw coming in from Sri Lanka. Last year when the Sri Lanka currency got hammered, we had booked some gain there, which is a loss coming in the current year. There was a phasing of CSR expenses which happened roughly to a tune of around INR 10 crores here. There's some distribution restructuring that we've done in international business in MENA markets. There is some cost which is sitting in that bucket. Similar expenses like that.
I think that's what should not get repeated. That's the other expenses for us. There is no Badshah related expense here.
Got it. Thank you very much. We're wishing you all the very best. That's all from my side, sir.
Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Chirag from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Hi, Mohit. I think you did a good job around explaining Mr. Philipe Haydon's role in the Healthcare business. If you can just elaborate a little bit further as to how do you see that part of the business growing over the next two to three years? On Badshah, I understand that the national rollout will be a gradual play. Are we also seeing margin pressures over there, and are there plans to get into adjacencies through that brand?
Chirag, first of all, Healthcare business. Philipe has just come in. It's already been around two, three months that he's been there, but I must tell you that we are very happy with his joining the company. I think there's been a, you know, hockey stick kind of a growth which has come in the action that we are seeing in the Healthcare space. We've created a vertical in a short span of time, and 450 people have already come in, and it's not additional recruitment. It is also relocating the resources from different places in the company. We divide the Healthcare into three parts now. One is the Ethical part, one Health Supplement part and the OTC part.
There will be a part of the portfolio which will be promoted through advertising, which is our power brand structure. There will be a part will be promoted through ayurvedic advocacy. A part will be promoted through allopathic advocacy. The portfolio will also increase there, which will be more relevant to allopathic, which will be more margin accretive. Like I told you, Baby is the space that we are initially going with. Rest is business. Slowly and gradually, I think we want to provide impetus to our Healthcare portfolio and growth here. That could not happen just on back of advertising. I think doctor support was the most critical, which we guys were missing out on. I think with his coming in, I think that will really help us bolster that support.
How to market to a doctor, what a pharmaceutical company does, all those missing pieces which were there, they are being plugged as a gap in the organization with his coming in. A lot of new recruitments have also happened, which are from the Healthcare space or pharma space that we are plugging in our business. There are three business verticals now. One is a health supplement headed by a person under Philipe. There's a person who's heading OTC. There's a person who's heading our ethical business, and a fourth person has been added who will be heading our therapeutics division.
That's great. All the best for that. Just on the Badshah part.
In second part, second part is the Badshah part. In Badshah part, we are still focusing on the Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh as being the key markets, we will focus there. We don't want to put pressure on Badshah to extend to all India at the moment until unless we start a national advertising there and create some sort of a pent-up demand before we start distribution there. We don't want the stocks to get stuck anywhere. The second part of your question was inflation. Yes, inflation in the Foods basket has gone up. Spices inflation is in the range of around 10% odd, around 10%-20%. 20% is the spices inflation.
There is a pressure on the gross margins definitely in Badshah, but we've done some rationalization in terms of marketing and sales margins and price increases that we have taken. Pack price architecture, you know, the grammage reductions, et cetera, all those things are happening as we speak. We've got a different structure for Badshah. One of our key people who were heading our turkey business earlier in international business, Mr. Rehan, he's now the Profit Center Head for Badshah, sitting out of Bombay and running the business. We are continuously monitoring the situation, and we are very hopeful about Badshah registering a 20% growth going forward next year. You know, Badshah is one element of our Foods business, which is what we acquired. That is a 20% growth we're talking about.
Our existing organic food business is also trending at around INR 120 odd crores. Badshah is another INR 250 odd crores. We're talking about around INR 400. Next year, we are looking at our Foods portfolio. We are targeting ourselves to reach a INR 500 crore level, which in next five years should become INR 1,000 crores for us. As a Foods business, I'm not talking about beverage business. Beverage business is separate. In beverage, we said drinks, which is INR 200 crores, will become INR 500 crores for next five years. Our J&N business is separate. We feel that our Foods business has got a lot of legs with the equity of Réal and Badshah and Hommade, three businesses here, and we are providing a lot of thrust on the Food and Beverage portfolio.
With this Food and Beverage portfolio, I think, which is in the range of roughly around INR 1,700 crore, should easily in next five to six years' time should go up to roughly around.
It should double in five years.
It should double in five years. I think 18%-19% growth has gone nowhere. We are looking at around INR 4,000 crores to INR 5,000 crores in next five years' time for our Foods vertical itself. Food and beverage vertical, which today is I NR 1,700 crores for us. Sorry?
You were also looking at a separate distribution network for drinks, you told last time, right?
Yeah. It is not just drinks. We are looking at a separate network for our beverage business. What's happening is that when we were restricted to J&N market only in the metros and the two-way towns, we had separate distribution network. One network which catered to the chemist outlet and Healthcare, one network which catered to the grocery, which is HPC, and the third network which caters to a E&D outlet with eating and drinking outlets. That team has got bolstered as the food business is increasing and drinks business is also increasing. That is happening as we speak in Dabur. In Badshah, which is a separate distribution network for spices, that's a separate business altogether.
Right.
I hope I answered your question.
You can join the queue, and all the very best. Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you so much, Chirag. Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Manoj Menon from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Just continuing with the template, which my friend Mihir had on few categories. I also have questions at the category level, sir. Manoj, the first is on toothpaste. You know, the tailwind of Naturals, let's say South India penetration or distribution. Maybe a few other factors, was, you know, let's say long-term drivers for growth in toothpaste for you in, let's say in the last five to 10 years. How do we think, you know, into the medium term, the toothpaste growth for you specifically, given that the Natural salience in my understanding is somewhere in the 30s? At an industry level.
Menoj. Natural, as I understand, you want a flavor on the Oral Care business, as far as we are concerned. I think we are in a very good space as far as Oral Care is concerned. Oral Care Natural segment, like you're saying, is 30%, and the growth has stemmed in the value terms in the Natural segment. This is essentially because sensitive is caught up in the Oral Care. If you do a fine segmenting and see, analyze the whole thing, Sensitive segment on back of Sensodyne is the one which is growing, and there's a lot of action happening in the Sensitive segment. But as far as Natural is concerned, I think the volume growth there continues to take business from the regular white, and I think value-added Natural segment will continue to grow.
We have our representation in that segment, which is our general Dabur Red. Dabur Red is doing exceedingly well for us. Before I come to Dabur Red and specific brands, I think now Dabur's penetration in Oral Care segment has gone up from 45% to 50%. Every second household in India is a Dabur Oral Care household like I talk about. Our penetration is every second person has got a toothpaste brand from Dabur in his home. You know, that is the kind of traction that we've gained over past five, six years. 5% increase in penetration over the past two, three years is absolutely a humongous effort which the team has done, and they've done pretty well.
That is as far as Oral Care for us, and we think we'll continue to take share from the market leader on the Oral Care space. Coming to Dabur Red, which is our flagship brand, it continues to do well for us, and we are looking at extensions of Dabur Red. Continue to support Dabur Red with media, which is our core brand. We, that's why we've taken Amitabh Bachchan. Amitabh Bachchan creators are really working for us, and we've seen penetration of the brand and market shares of the brand actually inch up on back of that communication. The second is Dabur Herbal Toothpaste, which has got very strong traction in South of India. It's doing well. The growth is around 23% for that brand. Meswak is doing well for us.
Babool, which was, because of rural distress, Babool has pulled us down, and market shares declined in our Babool toothpaste, so we've got some work to be done there. Even our LDM, declined on back of rural stress, so I think there's some work to be done there. That said, I think overall, Oral Care, we are in a very good space. In terms of margins also, our margins have gone up. Because inflation happened, we've been able to take the price increases and completely hedge the inflation with pricing. If you look at the growth, in our gross margins, our gross margins have inched up in Oral Care and pretty profitably so. I think overall in a good space. I don't know if you want any other flavor, then I can provide you with that.
No, no. Thank you.
In quarter four, we've already got 7% growth in quarter four in our Oral Care, and our market shares have improved secondary growth. Yes.
Fair enough. Fair enough. No, I'll take it offline because I've got a few follow-ups actually on toothpaste. In the interest of time. Sir, I have also had a follow-up on the juices business. If you in your presentation, you know, thanks for the disclosure that, you know, the new launch Réal Koolerz is INR 200 crore exit run rate. Now, I also heard you had medium-term target of INR 100 crore. I was actually wondering, you know, is it low balling or is it like kind of, you know? Can this be much higher?
Given your, let's say, distribution strength, you know, given your expertise, you know, in the Beverages segment over the last 20+ years, you know. Also the question on, let's say, rates was on, let's say, high base, et cetera. Given your opportunity for simple, placements and, you know, and that also you are actually expanding only or extending the Réal brand only, right? It's just an extension. You know, why should there be a high base issue so early?
Yeah. One thing, we are not talking about drinks as a exit. This is actually the total business that we did for the whole year is INR 200. It's not exit. Exit will be even higher.
I think INR 300 should be the exit that we are talking about. Therefore distribution, that's why we are carving out a separate distribution network for juices and nectars and drinks all together because the same outlet actually sells that. We are also intending to get into fizz market, which is even a larger addressable market, again, under the Réal brand. Which is in a sense consolidating the core brand of Réal is what we are looking at. This business will scale up for us. There's no hold barred as to the growth in drinks, juices, and nectars for us. Our gross margins were also increasing since the last quarter, we've seen now inflation inching up of around 12% in Foods.
There's a little pressure, and that we are watching and doing some cost optimization, if we can do that. There is no hold barred on the juices segment for us. Yeah. As far as the season is concerned, now there are rains which have come in, and if you look at the drinks portfolio, Manoj, this is basically out of home consumption. Whenever rains happen, out of home consumption gets impacted. It is not Réal drinks which will get impacted. It will be all across Cokes and Pepsis will also get big time impacted. You may see it in Varun Beverages results also, because I think the entire drink market which is available in bottle will get impacted, which is out of home consumption due to rains happening. That is what I was alluding to.
Not that we've just seen one month as yet, but, our intent is to take up the business to INR 500 crores in next two or three years roughly.
Okay. Perfect. Just one last one on this, if I may. What proportion of let's say your direct GP distribution, you know, in which let's say you'll be able to sell the beverage products?
Our direct distribution is invariably around 15%, 20% to our overall distribution. We reach out to around 1.4 million outlets, and totally we go to around 7.7 million outlets. It'll be the same proportion that direct will be there because the similar stockists will be selling that. That said, the more the direct, the better it is because you are able to sell the entire breadth of the portfolio in those outlets. Yeah.
Understood. Sorry, I didn't explain appropriately from my side. What I'm trying to understand is out of the 1.4 million direct overall reach which you have, what proportion of this, let's say realistically you can actually place a Réal Koolerz or any of these newer products which you are looking to launch in Beverages?
If you ask me, around 80% of that we'll be able to place. We've kept a separate distribution network, Manoj, from our Healthcare and from our grocery distribution. This is E&D, and it's the third person who's going and selling this to those outlets. We already have an equation to that outlet, but a new person will go and sell this because the credit extension has to be separate, payment collection has to be separate investment by the stockists has to go there. The agents have to be typically selling, or they should have a DNA of selling drinks, which is a much higher turnaround time. It's a separate network.
That said, I think 80% of our direct network can sell because rural is common and every grocery will carry a drink and, except for the chemist outlets, which is roughly around 100,000 only.
Loud and clear. Thank you so much and all the very best, sir.
Thanks so much. Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shirish Pardeshi from Centrum. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening, Mohit and team. Thanks for the opportunity. I've got 3 questions. The larger question is on HPC. Mohit, you have brought in lot of complexity into the business. There are separate teams for different verticals. Healthcare team is separate, your HPC team is separate, and there is a spread distribution which you are trying. How we should think on a base of FY 2023, the growth in HPC was muted. I'm sure you have taken a lot of initiatives. The question here is that how we should think of FY 2024 growth. The distribution piece is already stretched. You have been guiding that rural expansion is happening, and you're already touching now almost 1 lakh villages.
is the growth is going to be more of the distribution or at the back end, the rural recovery is also going to be an important factor in FY 2024?
Yeah. Shirish, I think cutting to chase on your question, I think the total why the business could not perform so well for HPC, while I will not say it's not performed, the CAGR of HPC for past 3 years that if you see has been around 10% for us. Near 10% CAGR of HPC business, which is a very good growth that you see over past three years. In the current year, we have seen the business also grow by around 5%. While the HPC categories, if you consolidate the categories where we exist in, which is Hair Oils, which is -3%, toothpaste which is -5%, Home Care which is the only category which is growing for us, and skincare also reeling under COVID. These are the four different subsegments that we have in our HPC business.
All were down. There was a negative - 4% as compared to we have grown by 5%, which is gaining market share across our brands. I will not say that the business is under pressure or the distribution network is under pressure or there is too much of complexity. I think there is more efficiency and effectiveness to be added through analytics and data. I think that is the issue which is lacking in the company and which we are building with a very strong hold. This is the history of HPC. Going forward in granularly, if I have to tell you, HPC, I told you 17% market share in hair oil is huge. If hair oil category is declining by 3%, if I'm growing by +3%, I'm actually, you know, gaining that market share there.
That was the problem. I'm getting into all the gaps in the hair oil segment also. In shampoo, our bottle saliency is picking up. Our shampoo market share around 7%. I remember when I joined the company around four, five years back, our market share was in the range of around 3%, 3%, 4%. Now it's gone up to around 7%, which we've never seen. Our bottle saliency is picking up. Modern trade basket has become very salient. The bottle saliency is going up, and there the gross margin is also very high. For last one year we've seen huge inflation, and because in sachet we are present in a 6 ml, 7 ml sachet, there was no scope of taking a price increase of INR 1 rupee price point. There was a gross margin pressure.
That said, our growth has been 8% for the full year as far as shampoos is concerned. Coming to toothpaste, our growth is 5%, category is -5%, we've gained share from the market leader. There also no problem, I've already told you. In Home Care, that is a big goldmine the way we see it. We have a Odonil brand. Odonil brand is now a 33% market share for us as compared to our competitor, which is also 33% market share. We are all already teetering on the brink of being a market leader and becoming bigger than our market leader who was existingly there. Number two brand is Aer there, Odonil is the parallel brand, we are the largest. Almost I think next month we should become the largest brand in the Air Freshener business.
Now we are calling ourselves that the India's largest selling air freshener brand is Odonil, which all the point of sale is actually changing like that. Good traction that we are seeing in our Odonil in all the formats, be it a gel format, a powder format, aerosol format. Odomos, which is our personal application cream, is getting extended into LV, which is larger category of INR 2,500 crores. That we have just rolled out in south of India. We are growing the Odomos brand in line with our strategy of increasing the total addressable market. That's doing well. Skin Fem. In Fem, because of COVID and out-of-home consumption was impacted, but gradually, slowly we are seeing that also coming back and so is the case with Gulabari for us.
HPC is in a good space. Next year, I think we should be able to do a high single- to a low double-digit growth as far as HPC is concerned with gross margin expansion. Because petroleum-based, crude-based inflation is now abating quite a bit with LLP prices now softening. It used to be in the range of around INR 100. Now petroleum prices are in the range of around INR 80-85. There is a expansion happening here. That said, because of rural pressure, there was LUP growth which was happening and because of that there was a gross margin. Because of that our penetrations have gone up. You know, there's a flip side to it. Our penetrations have gone up in Hair Care also. I think I've given you a flavor of HPC. Yeah.
That's really helpful, Mohit. My second question on the margin front. We always used to be in the range of like very tight band of 20%-21% EBITDA margin. Now what you have mentioned in the beginning that there is some cooling of the inflation which is there. Can we look back going to 20% margin in FY 2024 or you think we are still not there?
Good point. Sequentially we've seen the contraction of gross margins reducing and inflation also abating. We closed at around 18.8% operating margin. I think we will inch up definitely. Now, I can't say with confidence that we'll inch up to a level of 20% in one year, or will it take us two years, because our media spends have also gone down. Whatever upside that we get in gross margin, we want to invest in media, and we want to put it in operating margin. How much we can do that balancing is what we'll have to see through the year. I can't really comment with confidence. I think the first priority will be to putting money back on media, getting the demand surge happen.
Second priority will be increasing operating margin there to the 20% level.
Suffice to say that FY 2023 we did 18.8%. You will be able to protect that number?
Definitely. Not protect that number. Go beyond that number for sure. We have taken a target of roughly around 19.5%. That much we should be able to do. For sure. It actually situational, no. Depending upon how much inflation is. If inflation cools down, then we'll able to get it, and if the price increases happen, then. It's a mix of a lot of things, of competitive intensity, landscape we are operating, inflation, et cetera. I can't commit with confidence and give you a guidance on that. Yeah.
No, no. That's wonderful. My last question on the NPD. Over last five, six quarter, you have entered into mustard oil, you've gone into dry fruits, and you have done lot of actions into the juices and nectars and also dairy Beverages. If I look back, I mean, you always maintained that 3.5%-4% contribution which should come from the new product. Tell me, Again, I'm using the word complexity. What is the success you see in those experiments? Is there anything materially you will be able to share that you look at the growth in the new product is looking promising or if the experiment is done?
See, I've shared a couple examples already in my commentary. The first example was juices. Juices, if their drinks have already become INR 200 crore, we are scaling it up to INR 500 crore. This is a NPD. This never used to exist around 2 years back. It's a complete pure new business which will become INR 500 crore. Now, Hommade chutneys, pickles, et cetera, I told you that we have exited the year at around INR 110 crore-INR 115 crore, which will be scaling up to the Foods along with Badshah to INR 500 crore. This is all new product business that is generated. This is Food and Beverage which I talked about. Now coming to Healthcare portfolio. We launched Tea and Vita here and also a lot of honey extensions.
They have done very well for us. We launched Baby Care. Baby Care scaled up to INR 20 crore. We are taking it up to around INR 50 crore level in the current year, and we will all watch how Baby Care actually does in GT. Because we are creating a separate team through advocacy, like I talked about. Hajmola's extensions have done well for us. Pudina Hara fizz has done well for us. Shilajit extension that we did in a form of a gel on e-commerce has pretty much done well for us. E-commerce 7% business is coming out of NPDs, which is doing well. On Tea, we are seeing a lot of green shoots. Wherever we've launched tea, it's doing well, but I think we have to provide some advertising support to tea and Vita.
That is what we are in the process of, doing. In HPC, we have NPDs in Amla that we did. I think our Sarson Amla has done exceedingly well. Our gel that we rolled out in Oral Care, it's already become INR 20 crore. We are taking it national now. In Home Care, we launched aerosol extensions, which have done very well. I just told you our market share is 33%. We are already number one air freshener brand in the country. That's done well. LV extension to Odomos is what we've done. It's increasing the addressable market for us and using the Odomos franchise, which is what the same thing that we did in Réal also. I think across the board, we've got great examples of NPD doing well.
Some of them have not done well. Like I've been telling you, sanitizers have not done well. Some Tulsi Drops, Haldi Drops has not done well, and we've culled it. Just to tell you some numbers, we culled around 180 SKUs in last six months. Already the brands are not doing well, just to cut. It should be a weed and feed strategy. You keep weeding out SKUs that are not doing well, but you keep feeding within the guardrails of your core business, which is it'll be Réal, it'll be Amla, it'll be Red. We will launch extensions which are only feeding into the equity of the existing core brands. I've been alluding in all my calls the same thing. This power brand strategy is working well for us, and that's what we'll keep doing.
Wonderful. I'll just leave you to last one question on the Nepal investment. Maybe you can answer at later time. What is this INR 900 crore is going to get us? Is it pure manufacturing? What are products we are going to manufacture there?
Sure. Also, yeah. Hi, Shirish. Yeah, just about this news about INR 900 crores of Nepal investment. Let's clarify that the approval for this was made to the Nepal government around four years ago as an enabling permission to go on investment over next five to six years. As per law of Nepal, you know, you need to get an in-principle approval beforehand, you know, five to six years as an enabling provision. However, having said that, in the current year, our proposal is to invest only INR 90 odd crores as our juices capacity is coming out of, you know, the demand is increasing in juices capacity. There is a shortfall. For that, this approval was only an enabling provision only.
Yeah. Thank you, Ankush. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Shirish. Yeah.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Arnab Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Also, participants, I request you to please limit your question to two per participant. If time permits, you may join the queue for any follow-up.
Yeah. Hi, Mohit.
Arnab Mitra, please go ahead with the question.
Hi, Mohit and team. Mohit, you started by saying that there was a 5% gap between primary and secondary sales. Wanted to understand what drove this. Why did you have to correct the pipeline here? Also wanted to understand that from here on, do you expect secondary, primary to track, or there is some more pipeline correction that you need to effect, which is why primaries could be lower than secondaries even in the next couple of quarters?
Arnab, so it's the right correction. We did not do any pipeline correction, and there is no pipeline correction which is intended to be done. This pipeline correction or downstocking or loading not happening, I think different semantics can be used here, but it is actually rains. Demand seasonal rains in the month of March and April, as you were seeing, and in north of India, where Dabur is very salient. Usually in the end of the quarter, we do loading of the season. There's a beverage loading, there is a Healthcare loading of Pudin Hara which happens. There's a glucose loading which happens. There's a Hair Oil loading which happens, which is the nature of the way we do business. That loading, because of rains, could not happen this year.
The automatically the stock in primary with the distributors went down, but the secondary growth is intact. This is around 10%. In a way, I would say it's a one to twos day of correction which is happening. It's like a blessing in disguise. That said, we are not very happy without for this because there could be in other regions where competitors have loaded and there could be a market share fall because of that which has happened and which we've seen in some categories in the quarter four also. This is just by default. Rains, I think, and non-season loading, season loading has not happened. Basically that. It is not a pipeline issue.
Okay, understood. Thanks for that clarification. My second question was on margins. I mean, even if I do adjust for that INR 20- INR 25 crore one-off that you mentioned possibly in the other expenses, your margins are still way below where it was in the first nine months of the year. Just wanted to understand incrementally what changed significantly in the fourth quarter versus the past nine months. Will some of those factors very quickly reverse, or it's going to be a slow recovery from this 16% to, let's say, the, you know, 19%-19.5% that you mentioned you possibly would look for for next year?
Yeah, Arnab, it is one-off an issue. One is the one-off expenses that I just explained. I think the big picture was that, the mix of the products. Like I told you, in Healthcare business we were cycling the Omicron variant basis. As I told you, Chyawanprash INR 90 crores versus INR 60 crores we missed out, so high margin portfolio did not sell. Foods portfolio sold, which is actually low margin. The product mix and the portfolio mix that we sold was not very favorable. That was first. The volume of the business that grew, it actually grew by 11%. 60% of our expenses are variable. The processing expenses, freight, travel, warehousing, all those increased by around 11% in line with my volume cases. But in terms of the volume that you see, which is value-weighted, is around 1%.
The expenses were disproportionately higher as compared to what the profitability came in. I think this should get corrected going forward. Gross margins should increase and all that. There's some distribution changes that we have done in international business. On account of that, there were some expenses which come in in the quarter, and that has also hit the business. We are doing distribution rearrangement in our MENA market, which is a high growth market and high profitable market. That impacted the margins. There was a phasing of some expenses like CSR. INR 10 crore of CSR came in extraordinary in the phasing in the last quarter, which I think will not happen henceforth. I think we should be able to take it to the level of what the other expenses used to be in line with the business growth.
Gross margin contraction, which is sequentially improving as we are going on, that will take some time, to your point. Therefore, 18.8% will not immediately go up to around 20%. It will just take some time as media investments have to be also, there has to be recovery for that. Our total media today is around 5%-5.5%. We want to take it up to roughly around 7%-8%, and support our brands with that. We'll have to balance it. Ankush, you want to add?
Yes. What happened, you know, in the first nine months, if you would have seen, our media investments were contracting by almost 18%-20%. However, in India we have increased it by 15%, point number one. You know, overall also it is flattish, not contracting on a nine-month basis as it was nine months ago.
Okay, understood.
We have started reinvesting behind our brands. Yeah.
Okay, thanks so much. That's it from my side. All the best.
Thanks.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Percy from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi. Couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on this, allopathic doctor advocacy, this is not new. I've been hearing even Mr. Duggal saying this 10 years ago. Just wanted to understand if there is anything really changing versus what attempts we have made in the past. That is one thing. Secondly, in terms of the volume growth, I believe it would be approximately flat for the quarter. If I look at other companies which have reported or given their pre-quarterly results till now, most of them are showing some low to mid-single digit kind of volume growth.
While it is true that we have grown faster than the industry as reported by Nielsen, but that is a fact which almost every listed company can boast about. It really does not give too much of information. I think we should compare ourselves with large listed peers rather than the entire industry. The question here is that do you see some kind of timing mismatch? We should see that if basically other large listed peers are showing this kind of growth, it's just a matter of one or two quarters. You think that's not the right way to look at it? Yeah. These two questions from my side.
I think so, great, Percy. I'll take your second question first, which is the more tricky one. First thing I must assure you, the Dabur mix of the portfolio that we sell is very different from the other company mixes that you're comparing with. Some companies are secularly a single portfolio and some are a mixed, which mix is pretty different. Dabur's got a Healthcare mix, it's got a food mix, and it's got a HPC mix. Our Healthcare and, you know, it was cycling a very high base, unfortunately, because of in COVID, it did very well. Like I explained to you, INR 90 crores or INR 60 crores, our Healthcare had a growth of more than 20%-25%, so it will normalize over a period of time. That is one area.
Our food business is a beverage business which is little diluted to our portfolio, and this was season time and Healthcare was cycling a high base. Therefore, the food became very pronounced, which is margin dilutive a little bit, and our high margin business got depressed quite a bit, which is declined by around 6-7%. Our HPC business categories per chance have not grown and we have gained market share there, and which is getting reflected in our secondary, which I was telling you. Ideally, secondary and primary should be moving in line. If the unseasonal rains wouldn't have happened, I would have seen a 10% growth in primary also.
Had I seen a 10% growth in primary in my overall business in HPC while Healthcare was cycling base and of Foods, the margins would have improved and you would have seen a high volume growth also because volume growths are value weighted for us. If a high K sale, which is HPC toothpaste will sell higher, then obviously my volumes will inch up and the volumes would have been mid-single digits. I hope I've been able to explain you.
Got it. The second question?
One more for untimely impact, which has happened. The first, please, allopathic doctor advocacy. I don't know what Mr. Duggal talked about 10 years back. I wasn't around, but I've been here for five years. One year overlapped with Mr. Duggal also. Here it was very clear that we will only go to ayurvedic doctors because ayurvedic doctor universe is 5 lakh and until unless we cover up 40%, 50% of the ayurvedic doctors, we can't spread out our resources too thin to ayurvedic and to allopathic. We decided that because our products are either ethical, which are mentioned in the text of Charak Samhita, which a allopathic doctor doesn't believe in, it's no point barking up the wrong tree and don't go there and therefore focus only on ayurvedic only and be core to your knitting.
That is what the mantra that I learned from Mr. Duggal. When Haydon has come in, he has said, while Himalaya is also a company which is ayurvedic in nature, selling Lip Cares, but going forward in the country ayurveda, for ayurveda to become mainstream, you have to take the allopathic doctor, which charges you INR 100 to see a patient. He has to say, "It's good to take Chyawanprash. It is not bad to take Chyawanprash." If you don't take him by your side, then you will not be able to grow this category. That is what Ministry of Ayush is also talking about. That's why Ministry of Ayush is saying that it's a complementary system of medicine, not a alternative system of medicine. Therefore now we are very strongly. That's why we created a separate vertical.
Earlier, a ayurvedic sales promoter was going to a Ayurvedic and maybe to your point, if you're saying 10 years back, Mr. Duggal used to say maybe if he was making 10 calls to a ayurvedic med, one call would be to a allopathic doctor also. Now there is a focus team which will only cover allopathic doctors for us, like you have any other pharma company. I hope I've been able to clarify the change.
Got it. Got it, sir. Got it.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vivek Maheshwari from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, Mohit. A couple of questions. One is, you know, as an outsider, my view is that, you know, there are, like, too many things happening at Dabur, whether it's your portfolio expansion or what you're trying to do with Healthcare or, you know, even in case of Foods where you have given the guidance of, you know, that's 80%-90% growth. Can you just. You have had, like, hectic launches in the last few years, particularly through the course of pandemic. While you have mentioned and always maintained that a lot of those are part of, you know, either narrow in terms of being only on e-commerce modern trade or part of power brands. You know, this time around we have not seen any, you know, new launches slide, which you typically have been putting every quarter.
From a next 12 to 24 month perspective, do you think you will take a pause and basically consolidate and move forward after that? As I said, as an outsider, it looks like too many things happening at Dabur.
Yeah. That's the outside in view. I think insider view knows how simple or complex it is, Vivek, if you ask me. It's not that difficult. I think the second part of the question is, while it may be simple or complex, I think the key is to drive growth and volume tonnages and increase penetration in the country. We all drive businesses for the future and sustainably so. That's why we are trying to do bigger, larger, bolder bets within the power brands and make them larger. To your point, will I give it a pause? Answer is not really. Focus only on the core brands. I think that's the singular message that I want to drive to the analyst community. That is core brands, which are 8 core brands, and we are doing things only around those to make them larger.
Like Réal will from INR 1,700 crore to move to INR 5,000 crore. Amla will become a INR 2,000 crore brand. Red will become a INR 2,000 crore-INR 3,000 crore brand. Chyawanprash will become a INR 1,000 crore brand. Honey will become a INR 1,000 crore brand. That's how the business of Dabur will go from INR 10,000 crore to a INR 20,000 crore. By driving mega power brands with some extensions around those brands, which will strengthen the core of that brand. Like a Healthcare brand will only have a Healthcare extension. We have not launched a new brand with a new name, et cetera, that we are investing money behind. No.
Okay.
Nothing like that.
In addition to this, we are also doing a lot of culling where the smaller entities have not worked. We are culling them and rationalizing other scalable entities which are going to be bigger bet for us and put investments behind as we go forward.
Okay. Okay. You know, again, just to, you know, just to, let's say, follow up or at least add my perception, you know, whether it's, let's say, you know, it's a narrow one, but nonetheless, let's say an edible oil to pickles to, you know, now you're thinking about LVs. You know, while some of this could be under the core brand, but these are new formats altogether, right? And at the time when your distribution is changing in a way, or the process is underway and then, you know, on the Healthcare side. I take your point. Maybe, maybe it's an out-outside view and it's not as complicated from inside. The second point is, Mohit, you have, you know, very well articulated, you know, you know the food numbers, and, you also mentioned a bit about HPC in FY 2024.
On the Healthcare side, if you have to, you know, again, take that view from a next two to three year perspective, what is your expectation of growth, like food 18%-19%? Let's say HPC probably high single digit to double digit. Where do you think Healthcare business will be the growth rate over here in your view?
We are cycling now low bases, Vivek, and we've lapped over the high bases in Healthcare. I think the trajectory will start and we are doing a little bit of reinvigoration also in our Healthcare portfolio. I think again, a high single to a low double is what we are looking at Healthcare portfolio. Healthcare portfolio is a little slow burn portfolio. It's not as high burn as it because category penetration is an issue here and especially post-COVID. I will say a high single digit growth is what is expected in Healthcare for us. I think negative is out of the way. If you look at the CAGRs of past three years, our Healthcare portfolio is also 9%-10%. HPC is also 9%-10%.
Food is actually 20% for us because that market is intrinsically a tailwind of category growth. That is the CAGR that we want to continue at. Yeah.
You know, in that context, basically food will grow the fastest and Healthcare, HPC, you know, give or take, should grow around the same rate, right? Which means that the excitement is much more around Foods in a way.
I will not say excitement is around food. I think food is a larger total addressable market. If you look at the total FMCG market also, Vivek, food is the one which is 60%-70% of the overall market. I think that's the way the nature of the business is. Food will be the larger. If you look at the contribution of the business, we want to keep Foods at around 20% and Healthcare at around 30% and HPC at around 50%. That is the salience of the whole Dabur mix to be. That's what we are planning and that's why a new vertical and a focus and a thrust on Healthcare.
Sorry, Mohit, mathematically that's not even possible, right? If Foods grow at about 18%-19% and other businesses, high single to early double, that's not mathematically possible, right? On the food side, you are already at 21%.
No, I told you, no, that Food is a tailwind. When a category is growing at around 15%-16%, then if you want to increase shares, then automatically you will grow. This food tailwind will not last for long. The beverage has been growing at 15%. If you look at last five years. Two years the food was the one which was dragging our business and now food is the one which is helping our business come in. I think that's the magic of having a diversified portfolio, that if one portfolio doesn't do well, the other comes up. In COVID, Healthcare was in the cusp and Healthcare did well during COVID, food wasn't performing. Now post-COVID, food is performing, Healthcare is in a cusp. That's the diversified portfolio, and you need to have the diversity.
Had we been only a Healthcare company during, post-COVID, we would have been dead because of flat growth.
Got it, Mohit. Got it. I'll separately, you know, reach out to you on this any which ways. Wishing you all the very best.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Vivek.
The next question is from the line of Avi Mehta from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mohit. I just wanted to clarify this point that the divergence between case growth and volume growth that we saw in 4Q, that should reverse and, I mean, that would kind of mean they should be in the similar trajectory going forward because this was more one-off. Is that the right understanding or is it gonna take some more time?
Yeah. I think it should even out. Ideally, I think it should even out. What's happening, Avi, I'll tell you, because of the rural pressure, what happens, there is a down-trading happening by consumers, so low unit price point is the one which actually sells higher. As the rural business recovers, I think this should even out. If the rural is lagging behind urban, and if we sell in rural with the rural infrastructure growth of Dabur, then this may continue. Our case growth may be higher as compared to our actual volume growth because we valuate it and larger packs don't sell as much as the smaller pack sells. While the flip side is the penetration goes up, Ghar Ghar Dabur of our vision comes up and Dabur is available in 80% of the households in India.
Those things happen and people eventually upgrade from a low pack to a high pack as the penetrations move up. That's the silver lining to this whole thing. Till the time, you know, urban growth and rural growth parallel each other, this anomaly may continue for a while.
Mohit, doesn't it also mean that, you know, other expense growth will be ahead of your sales growth? Obviously, you know, when you have a such scenario, you know, wherein case growth is stronger, as you rightly alluded, costs will move at a sharper pace. What you also said is gross margin pressures will also continue. That, is that the right framework that I should be looking at? Is there something that I'm missing from a margin story point of view?
Yeah, you're right. That's why we're embarking on efficiencies happening in manufacturing, warehousing and indirect overheads. Variable expenses are only around 50%-60% of the total other expenses that you see. The rest is where the leverage can definitely happen. We generally so embark on Samriddhi program and saving initiatives to manage that cost.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your question to one per participant. If time permits, you may join the queue for any follow-ups. Thank you. The next question is on the line of Prakash Kapadia from Anved Portfolio Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Mohit, to, you know, help us understand the gross margin impact, you know, if it'll be helpful if you could, you know, break it up into downgrading, product mix change and, you know, input cost inflation. Also, you know, if I have to assume a scenario of gross margin improvement, will it be mix change, as, you know, you've alluded food will not grow as it was growing in terms of, you know, the pace of what we've seen? Are there any price increases or some cooling of inflation which we would expect to change gross margin?
Right. First of all, I think let me talk about inflation. Inflation is around 6%-6.5%, and we've taken pricing increases also of 6-6.5%. I think gradually, slowly, our gross margins here should improve on account of input costs. As far as downgrading is concerned, I told you, as the rural goes up, the will sell and the penetration will go up. Eventually people upgrade. That is there. Also there's a mix change. Mix change is very quite a bit dependent on the season. For example, if in summer season we sell juices more, in winter season we sell Healthcare more. That evens out each other. That's when, s pecifics I will request Ankush, you wanna answer?
Sure. Ash, I think, just on your specific question, if I can just break this 74, at least of India. If you see India gross margin complexion is 75 basis points. Our estimate is that around 35-40 basis points is coming because of mix change in the quarter. Rest 35-40 basis points is coming because of, let's say, higher consumer promotions and certain paid interventions. But on a pure cost-to-cost basis, good news is that at least in this quarter, a pure product-to-product basis, we have been able to mitigate all our inflation. As Mr. Mohit said, 6% inflation and 6% price increases.
Okay. Okay.
I hope I've been able to answer your question.
Sure. That is helpful. That, you know, would mean there is more pressure on the international side. That is why the overall gross margins are lower.
Yeah. Because international gross margins declined at a higher rate. The contraction in even international business has almost half. It used to be almost 500 basis points, but this time it is almost 200 basis points only, you know, the contraction.
Yeah. The inflation is cooling even in international, because the petroleum prices is impacting them. Also the country mix is impacting international business because the country mix in favor of MENA is reducing because we are doing some distribution changes in the MENA market. The MENA saliency has gone down in the last quarter, and that business went down and declined by around 10% odd. In other markets where the currency depreciations are impacting the India translation, those have actually shot up. That is the issue. You're absolutely right, international margins are under pressure. While you see a constant currency growth of 11%, margins are under pressure because of country mix being a little unfavorable.
Sure, sure. Going forward, mix change as well as this cooling inflation will lead to gross margin improvement.
Yes.
Just one data keeping point. Honey, if you can, you know, give us the value growth in 2023. You know, we launched, various variants, Tulsi, Ashwagandha, Organic, Himalaya. Any meaningful contribution from these launches in honey?
Honey category, if you see, is actually declining. We've grown honey by around 7% and our market shares have actually gone up. We see very high competitive intensity in modern trade because a lot of players wanting to get into the honey market as the honey prices are cooling and the margins are going up. That is where the competitive intensity is. That said, our counter data is actually showing increases in our honey market share in modern trade and also in GT. The new launches are more premium launches. By virtue of those, our gross margins have inched up in honey. That said, we are expecting a lot of private label play happening in honey also with Reliance Retail getting into a lot of their own private label brands.
I don't rule out the option that the space will become very competitive and we will have to have a solve for the modern trade Reliance also.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sheela Rathi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mohit, thanks for taking my question. My first question was, you know, Mohit, in the last quarter, you had made the remark that, you know, the rural slowdown, particularly for us, is coming from central India. Just wanted to get some sense from you how things are changing. You did say that green shoots are emerging, if you could just elaborate a little bit more, how the trends have been and how should we think of it in this quarter, that is the first quarter?
Right. Sheela, good question, actually. I think, central India is where the reliance of Dabur is quite a bit. Actually, north, where the reliance of Dabur is quite high. We are a north salient organization. In central India, what we've done is north, we've broken up into two parts. One is called central, and one is called north. Our central business wasn't doing well, which is basically UP and Bihar. There was a lot of pressure, but we've seen a secondary growth of 7%, and we've seen a revival in Center. Center will mean basically Bihar and UP revival. UP was also marked by elections.
Post the elections, I think there's a recovery which has happened in UP, and also there's been a change of manpower which actually has happened, and we've changed our leadership in the central region also. On back of this, we see the central doing far better as compared to the last quarter in the current one. South is where we see a little bit of pressure. As far as west is concerned, that's also doing very well for us, and east is also doing pretty well for us. South is seeing a bit of pressure, which also we are in the process of correcting.
This would particularly benefit our HPC portfolio, right? This is not optical. It is actually improvement in demand.
That is improvement in demand and also execution. I think execution plays a big role. I think our execution has improved in Central India and also the rural comeback, the green shoots that we are seeing, they are more visible in Bihar and UP for us, which was very pronounced decline in rural in UP and Bihar. That's showing definite green shoots.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ajay Thakur from Anand Rathi Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I had just one question on the hair oil segment. Just wanted to understand which hair oil category would be, you know, showing the most growth for us in terms of the hair oil where we would be getting the most market share in the hair oil category, which brand or which segment?
Right. Ajay, basically perfumed oil segment is where we've gained major market shares. In coconut oil, we've also gained market share, but that market share is a little muted, a 1 basis point. 130 basis points is coming majority on back of perfumed oils. In Sarson Amla, we've gained market share, and all the flanker brands of Dabur Amla also we've gained market share. Perfumed oil to your question.
Okay. Just one additional question. Can we get to know what would be the size of coconut hair oil now for us?
INR 300 crores, I think it should be.
Okay. Quite helpful. Thanks. Thanks for taking my question.
Yeah.
Thank you. Next question is from Tejash Shah from Spark Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Couple of questions. You spoke about that we culled out some 80 SKUs and some NPDs also. Just wanted to understand the technicality of accounting here. How do we account for unsuccessful NPDs which are still in the pipeline and are unsold at the channels?
Yeah. First of all, Tejash here. As a process, you know, we review our performance with the NPDs, and whichever are below the performance standard, which we have said in terms of either the resiliency of sales or the growth parameters, we decide to cull it off. In terms of the specific question of accountancy, accounting, you know, when we have decided to cull off a SKU, we give it a time, you know. Till the time raw material and packing material is in the system, we allow it to be produced but hold the procurement of fresh raw material and packing material so that, you know, the losses in terms of inventory don't come, point number one. Point number two, also the finished goods which are lying in at our CFA or warehouses, they are allowed to be stored.
It's only the fresh production, is stopped or curtailed to minimize the losses. You know, it takes out. The sales happen only to the extent of stock which is there.
Yeah. I think, to reiterate what Ankush is saying, it's basically a metric of top line and the bottom line. If the top line is not happening or the bottom line is also not happening because of whatever reasons, then we cull out the SKUs.
Sure. The second question is, Mohit, on rural distress that you spoke about, and most of the FMCG companies have also spoke about it in last four quarters. If I just see FY 2023 in review and something like tractor actually grew 15% this year. Even if we see commentaries from microfinance company or banks, there is no major distress in rural portfolio. In fact, they are doing very well on rural side as well. Where's the disconnect between when we pick up evidences beyond FMCG, then rural is not in as much distress as we are picking up in FMCG sector?
I think what we are seeing is actually a recovery of payments is really not happening in terms of our servicing the rural. Be it at a super stockist level or at a sub-stockist level, at the retail level, I think that is where the problem was on payment recovery. That's why the stockist is not selling out in rural. While we try to facilitate funds also there, but that is the problem that we are seeing in our business in rural across the board actually. I think it's more accentuated in FMCGs because the allocation of funds by rural household happen to a durable like for tractor, et cetera, and they cut back on expenses on the larger packs. Down trading is a big time.
If somebody was buying 100 ml, now he's buying a 50 ml SKU. Number of purchases maybe is going up, but the larger packs is down trading to the smaller packs there. Sachet sales are the ones which are actually picking up. That's what I can say, you know. Exact answer, you know, I really don't have. If other companies and other industries are doing well in rural and we not. That's not what we hear. I think rural stress has actually been echoed by most of the companies at our board meetings also where people are representing different industries, so be it Maruti or others. We hear that rural stress is pretty much there and it's all on back of inflation.
Inflation is there's a pressure on the purse strings of the rural consumer and that is what is selling on discretionary products. Maybe durable is something which is essential and therefore in tractor sales it is not showing. In other discretionary it is pretty visible.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manoj Menon from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mohit. Just a academic stroke accounting question? I understood Ankush, you know, the response you gave about what you actually, let's say which are futuristic, you know, thought process on once what the culling et cetera means. What exactly happens, let's say if you had launched a product which has got a 12 or 18 months shelf life, and what is the timeframe in which you look at the secondaries and tertiaries, quartiles and, you know, decide what you need to do? Well, that is futuristic. What exactly happens to the, you know, stock already there in the pipeline, you know, whether distributor, whether it is the retailer, et cetera? What exactly happens to those?
On a, let's say, logistical basis. The second aspect is how do you account for this? Thank you.
Manoj, just to build on what I initially said. Initially what I said was for the stock which is currently in our system, but now I think you're asking for what is what has already been sold. As a normal process, anything which has which the retailer is not able to sell, we take it back as a goods received, GRN, to our stockist and they are accounted as, you know, sales write-off or they are netted off from the sales as a sales return. We will compensate back our stockist and the retailer eventually for anything which has not been sold in the stipulated time.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Stock returns are pretty much in line with our historical averages, that's the way to do and it's pretty much in line with our industry standards also. That we are benchmarked against the industry, so it's not alarmingly high in terms of our stock take back. That's what is generally in the range of around INR 20 crore a quarter is what is the historical average that we have for, which is 1% of the business. India turnover is 1% of return sales and which is the best in class. It changes from category to category, but average for HPC, HC and Foods is roughly around 1%. In Foods it's generally higher because shelf lives are lower and, but on an average it is in the range of around 1%.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that would be our last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Gagan Ahluwalia for closing comments. Thank you and over to you, ma'am.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in this conference call. The webcast, audio recording and transcripts will be available on our website. Thank you and have a nice evening ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any questions please, you can contact us offline.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Dabur India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.