Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Godrej Consumer Products Limited Q3 FY 2021 Earnings Conference Call hosted by ICICI Securities 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. I now hand the conference over to Manoj Menon from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi, everyone. A very good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on which part of the world you are joining the call from. At ICICI Securities, it's our absolute pleasure to host the Godrej Consumer Products management team on the Q3 FY2021 results call today. At ICICI Securities, we have been long-term believers in the GCPL value creation story. Particularly in the third quarter FY2021, it's been a good performance, particularly in those parts of the business where we would have wanted to see growth at consensus, we have seen that. It's more important that this is given the market context in the delivery is how we see it. That said, over the course of the results presentation and the call, we would see clarity on potential for long-term double-digit volume growth in, let's say, India HI, and also the new management-driven turnaround in Africa.
That couple of things, if time permits, I would definitely want to engage with the management after we take the question queue later. Thank you, and over to the GCPL team.
Thanks, Manoj. Good evening, everyone. We hope that you are staying safe and healthy. We will be covering this evening the results for the quarter ended 31st December 2020. On the call from GCPL, we have Ms. Nisaba Godrej, Chairperson and Managing Director, V. Srinivasan, CFO and Company Secretary, and Mr. Sameer Shah, Head, Investor Relations. We will start with Nisa sharing her perspective on the business performance. Over to you, Nisaba.
Thank you so much, Pratik. Good evening, everyone. I hope you and your loved ones and families are safe and healthy during these times. Thank you so much for being with us on this call today. In Q3, GCPL delivered a second consecutive quarter of double-digit profitable sales growth. Our overall sales grew by 10%, EBITDA by 14%, and profit after tax grew by 17%, excluding exceptional items. 81% of our global portfolio comprises of household insecticides, hygiene, and value-for-money products, and had a combined growth of 14%. Hygiene continued its strong growth momentum, growing by 19%, and we look forward to strongly building on this category opportunity in the years ahead. Value for money grew by 22%. Growth in household insecticides was at 5%.
From a geographies perspective, India recorded a sales growth of 11%, led by strong growth in hygiene, including soaps and hair color, and steady growth in household insecticides. Overall, rural grew much ahead of urban. The scale-up of the e-commerce channel continues, and we've also seen a recovery in modern retail. Indonesia delivered a soft performance with a 2% constant currency sales decline. This was impacted by adverse macroeconomic factors, the gradual recovery in air fresheners, and high competitive intensity in wet wipes. Our Africa, USA, and Middle East business delivered profitable sales growth of 17% in constant currency terms. I am very happy with the strategic focus and growth mindset that Dhamesh has brought to the team. We continue to have a strong balance sheet and remain more watchful on receivables management. Net debt-to-equity ratio continues to see a reduction to 0.14.
I'm pleased to share with you that our teams remain resilient, and we continue to be agile in serving our consumers. We're using this crisis as an opportunity to digitize more rapidly and build further distribution platforms. As always, our values matter. We remain very committed to enabling the safety and well-being of all Godrejites and serving our consumers and communities with our full hearts and minds. Thank you, and happy to take questions now.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. The first question is from the line of Abneesh Roy from Edelweiss. Please go ahead.
Thanks, congrats on second quarter recovery. Recent pH controversy, how does this impact your communication? Do you see the key player making this as a serious issue medium long term? Because this doesn't directly impact you, do you see this as a venture opportunity also?
Hi, Abneesh. Thank you for joining us. I don't think it really impacts us, and we continue to be very confident of our soap quality. In fact, a lot of soaps are not grade one, and we are a grade one soap with very high oils in our soap. I think we're very confident of our strategy, and we don't see ourselves getting embroiled in this pH story right now. My sense is that it will blow over quite soon also. That's at least my personal opinion.
Right. Sanitizer sales have pulled off for almost every player except two core players. How do you see taking advantage of this? Many players are now exiting. Would you remain serious in this given two entrenched players are already there?
I think, when we talk about hygiene, somehow everyone comes very quickly just to the sanitizer category. One, I would like to say that the hygiene trend is very broad-based, whether it's on hand wash, soap, disinfectant sprays, toilet cleaners. We just had the world's largest master class in immunity and hygiene, and we'll see that play across a number of categories. In terms of sanitizers, I do think that we will play in the category, but we definitely won't play a sort of me too game. You will see some amount of innovation from us in sanitizers, and we do think sanitizers as a category, just even the basic hand sanitizer, will grow and penetration will grow. I don't think we'll play it just without innovation. You'll probably see quite a bit of innovation from us in that category coming soon.
Sure. Last question, in fact, this Manoj already asked. If you could elaborate on HI. Are you happy with this growth, given Q2 was disappointing? Customer is focusing on well-being safety. In that context, this growth seems lower than expectation. What is happening here?
Yeah.
Any comments on competition?
Sure. If you ask me, am I personally happy with our HI growth, the answer is no. I hope our HI brand managers and Sunil and all are listening in to this call right now. What I said at the beginning of the year in terms of HI, in terms of consumer demand, wanting to be more healthy. We've seen a lot of penetration growth in the category. There's been significant penetration growth higher than in any of the other recent sort of previous years. The other things that we're seeing is that our premium formats are growing well in the double digits. This would be sort of electrics and aerosols are growing well. I think in electrics, this new Flash is definitely a transition for us to a much better machine.
We'll see that also play out over the next year. The other piece that again talks about the health piece for consumer is non-mosquito. Products like in cockroaches, rats, growing very rapidly. This is in the high sort of 20s. We're seeing that sort of really take off. The real place where we're having a big issue, Abneesh, is this burning format. That business is definitely dragging our whole HI growth down. We had thought, and in quarter one, these illegal incense sticks were really very much on the back foot because their supplies and stuff were not available. They are back in the market now. I think our fight on the burning format still continues, and we still have some arsenal there in terms of what we're going to be doing in the next six months on burning formats with some other new products.
I don't think our natural incense stick strategy has. It's worked to a certain extent, but not as well as we had hoped. I think this burning format, getting a better fix on it is important, while at the same time really concentrating on the penetration and premiumization in things like Gold Flash and aerosols. We launched one of our best products ever called Smart Spray in aerosols, which is a no-gas aerosol with very long-lasting efficacy. We'll continue to drive, because penetration is still lower in the premium formats, to drive that, and definitely fight back the burning formats.
Sure. That's all from my side. Thanks a lot. All the best.
Thank you, Abneesh.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi again. A few questions on HI. Firstly, could you give some idea for this quarter, what percentage of your machine sales are the Gold Flash machines and what percentage of the refill sales are or liquid sales are the Gold Flash liquids?
Yeah. Hi, Percy, this is Sameer here. I think for competitive reasons, we would shy away in terms of dissecting within our electrics portfolio what has been the mix between Gold Flash and kind of active plus refills. As we talk, the saliency of Gold Flash has been kind of moving up. In terms of machines, I mean, just to give you some kind of data points, we have already seeded in close to three crores of machines. In very short term, we are looking at seeding in incrementally 1 more crore of kind of machines. Once the machines are in, we do expect kind of refills also
I mean to have a strong presence. By the way, I mean this quarter, last quarter three, we did see close to double-digit sales growth even in the entire electric portfolio. The build over there has been quite robust. Of course, there was a little setback, especially in the early part of COVID environment. We do believe that with the kind of product Gold Flash is in terms of its efficacy, it's a winner product, and we will see, I mean, premiumization upgrades getting driven in electric format with Gold Flash.
Sure. Secondly, on burning format, you had, I think, applied for regulatory approvals for incense stick with active molecules. If you can just give some update on where we are in the process, and when are we likely to get approvals on that. Secondly, in this presentation, I see that in Indonesia, you have launched something in the burning format, which I think is sort of an upgraded version of the Magic Card. Correct me if I'm wrong. Any plans to cross-pollinate this product into India?
Yeah. I think, Percy, again, for competitive reasons, we don't want to share. I think both these answers are pretty obvious even to our competitors. I think you could expect in burning format some sort of answer to these illegal incense sticks, and some of these things are in our portfolio, as you said.
I think just to add, Percy, as Nisa called out, the premium format, which is aerosol s and electrics, have been doing quite well. With incremental innovations as well as some very disruptive innovations, we do believe that this momentum should largely continue over there. Kind of relative soft performance in burning format, we will be tactically also addressing in very short-term. We are looking at sort of driving our micro-marketing initiatives, especially in coils. I mean, something which has worked very well for us in soaps, including some more variants, right? In medium term, of course, we'll have some disruptive launches, which should get even burning formats to move to steady to respectable levels.
Right. My last question on Indonesia, the wet wipes, you said there's a competitive issue there. If you can give some idea of the quantum of that issue in terms of how much has your sales growth been dragged down by, or rather if this issue was not there, how much sales growth would you have clocked this quarter?
Yeah, in terms of data, again, Percy, wet wipes is roughly around 14%-15% of our overall Indonesian business. When a new player has sort of come in the market and is sort of adopting a price warrior strategy at this point in time, though we have seen that in the past also. I mean, players coming in, but over a period of time sort of maturing out in terms of at least not being a price warrior. We are, I mean, from our end, planning tactically, I mean, how do we address it as well as in medium term, how to get back on growth in wet wipes. My sense is the growth would be at least 3%-5% higher from what they have been had this wet wipes issue not been some there for us.
This seems to be a pretty commoditized category in Indonesia, isn't it? Because we've had, I think, two, three years ago also similar kind of heavy discounting, market share issues, et cetera.
True that. Of course, there has been innovation also, Percy, in this space over a period of time. Yeah, I mean, it's like a pretty competitive category. That's the way I would sort of put it. Yeah.
Okay.
Percy, one of our growth drivers for Indonesia is really building our GT much faster than we have in the past. I think that's a very big opportunity for us there, taking those learnings from India. That also, I think, helps with some of these issues that happen when these mini-marts and stuff when discounting gets very aggressive.
Got you. That's all from me. Thanks, and all the best.
Thanks. Okay.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arnab Mitra from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. My first question was on Africa, where last couple of quarters we've seen a good recovery in sales. This quarter margins also have recovered pretty strongly. Just wanted to understand, are there any short-term factors which have helped this? We hear about this container shortage globally, and I know a lot of your competition is imported there. I wanted to get some sense about the sustainable part of this and if there are any kind of gains you've got in the short term which could reverse as things normalize on the supply side.
Hi, Arnab. No, I think to begin with, we did have significant competitive advantage, especially in the early part of COVID. I think teams have done a good job in terms of retaining those consumers, right? Continuing to invest in terms of creating strong brand equity as well as executing some very low-hanging go-to-market initiatives. Combination of that has resulted in back-to-back two quarters of steady to strong growth rates. I think the building blocks are still kind of getting in place, will also get executed over the next six-12 months. We do believe, I mean, the growth rates are sustainable in medium terms. Some of the markets, especially West Africa as well as parts of South Africa, have been doing quite well. The point is to kind of continue this momentum and also build on some, again, kind of opportunities in medium term.
Yeah, that's the way we are kind of looking at multiple markets in Africa over a period of time, and also in some other markets like U.S. We are seeing a lot of good news with partnership which we have struck with Walmart on kind of promoting our hair extension category, which, strategically over a period of time could be a big bet. Hair extension in U.S. is more than a billion dollar size category. Yeah, I mean, building blocks, sort of getting in place, getting executed, we remain relatively confident of continuing this momentum in medium term at least.
I think like Sameer mentioned, partnership with Walmart in the U.S., I think that's an opportunity that's come because they want a certain type of partner, and they want supply chains actually from Africa for these products versus just Asia. These are actually advantages yet to kick in. We know that in dry hair there are sort of shortages in certain products, and we are actually ramping up local manufacturing to meet those. We feel that some of these advantages should also play out in the medium to long term.
Okay, fair. Thanks. That's quite helpful. My second and last question was on the India new categories that you entered this year, some of the segments in home care like floor cleaners, toilet cleaners, dishwashers and things like that. As a bucket, if you were to take all of the things, all new categories that you entered this year, if you could give it a sense of how much does it contribute to revenues today, and specifically in the home care categories, what is the initial feedback that you have in terms of your product acceptance, distribution and things like that?
I can't give you exact numbers again, but I think there are particular categories in hygiene where we are very excited about. One is the Godrej brand name, as you know, is extremely strong, which gives us an advantage. In some of them, we've really cracked a very good formulation. We also think some categories are on that cusp of penetration sort of takeoff, and that we can really, with our distribution, sort of build it well. I think hygiene. I've been watching this news or people keep asking, "Oh, is hygiene off its high?" I think sanitizer is off that fourth quarter sort of high, and there was a glut in the market. I think the consumers' awareness on taking care of their health has fundamentally shifted, and in that, their consumption basket has also shifted.
I think for a company like ours, that can be really advantageous. Another example of that I'll give you, in Indonesia, which has been a sort of difficult year. They've built this new brand called Saniter, and they're doing a fantastic job with it. It's actually nothing, not really built on hand sanitizer. Correct? The biggest category that they've built is these sanitizing sprays, because we have an advantage both from HIT aerosols and from Stella sprays. We have a cost advantage, and they've done a great job there. Now we're going into bar soap, a category that's very big. We know well in India, we see an opportunity in the market there. I think hygiene as a category is in brand well positioned. In hygiene, there's a very strong opportunity going forward.
Okay, thanks so much, Nisaba. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vivek Maheshwari from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, everyone. My first question is, can you just talk about the gross margins and EBITDA margin, the way in which you see it in the next few quarters?
Hi, Vivek. Yeah, in India, we are seeing gross margins decline, and that's largely driven by contraction in soap's gross margins, which in turn is driven by the high palm oil derivative prices and the lag between increase in input cost and increase in end consumer pricing. We are quite calibrated in terms of our pricing approach, and that has paid off very well. If you look at our performance over last two to three quarters, the growth has been in double digits. Over last two quarters, the growth has been in mid-teens, we continue to gain significant market share. This is in the context of category generally seeing uptick in consumption because of higher hygiene needs.
There has been increase in frequency of bathing, there has been increase in frequency of hand washing, and also very small players are quite stressed because of increase in commodity costs, and they're normally operating on very thin margins. We would definitely continue with this strategy in very short term. What we will also do in parallel is something what we did in last quarter itself. Right. This gross margin kind of contraction will be sort of mitigated through cost-saving programs. We saw that in India, wherein the overall EBITDA margins declined by 70, 80 basis points. By leveraging our global portfolio, we sort of ensured that at global consolidated level, the overall EBITDA margin expands. We will continue to have that strategy wherein we sort of prioritize growth over margins, especially in soap category.
At overall profitability level, there should be multiple levers to ensure that we do see at least margin maintenance, if not expansion in short term.
I see. Just a follow-up here, Sameer, in the context of, let's say, the low A&P base that you have starting fourth quarter last year, and of course, some part of that is understandable. Let's say in the context of A&P expenses, I would imagine will move up. Do you still think that margin should sustain?
We'll see, Vivek. In very short term, if there is a very serious trade-off in terms of growth over margins, we will skew more towards growth. At this point in time, there are no such very serious sort of trade-off, right? We will continue to invest because medium long term, investing on new product launches, investing in creating kind of brand equity has always paid off, right? Through sustainable growth. That's the way we will continue our approach even on A&P investments. In very short term for margin maintenance, the last thing which we'll do is kind of tinker around with A&P sales.
I see. Okay. The second question is on HI. The burning format, what Nisaba mentioned about, it hasn't worked out as well. I remember that you have had done a lot of work on the product and the value that you were giving to the customer, et cetera. What is the reason you think? Is it the pricing which was an issue? Is it, let's say, active ingredients not being there? What is the issue? Why would you say today that the product has not worked out despite you taking all the efforts at that point of time, at the time of launch and thereafter?
Yeah. I wouldn't say the product. It's a natural product. Some people who've used it absolutely love it. A natural product does not give you the rock star efficacy of seeing your mosquitoes fall in front of you. We did know that that was against an active incense stick. That was the challenge, but that was our best option at the time. We will now go in with other burning formats that sort of take on the illegal sort of incense sticks with efficacy head-on. We know, look, in a way I tell people that we launched Fast card. We had such an amazing run with it, and it did really well. Then this illegal incense stick is almost like Fast Card 2.0 to the consumer. It's a better version. It works better for them, right?
We will have 3.0 and 4.0 and 5.0 of this version. We are restricted a little bit by the Indian government in terms of registration timelines and stuff. We have been below our own expectations, and I think this is something that we will not give up on till we get sort of right. We have a lot of confidence both in our product prowess and our distribution to get this right.
I see. Sure. Is there a challenge from a HI margin perspective? Is there also a challenge that on one hand you have to target the illicit market and where price points will be far lower, and on the other hand, you have your own, let's say, priorities on the margin. Is that also what makes?
You know, the way I think about it, no, because see, almost like 75% of our portfolio is-.
Hi, Sameer. Sorry to interrupt you. Ma'am, your audio is not coming clear.
Can you hear me now?
Yes, ma'am. Little better than before.
Okay. What I was saying is that a lot of our portfolio in HI is really in the, 75% above is in the sort of premium format, where I don't think margin is an issue. In India, you have to play both the premiumization penetration for the premium product, but you have to play the mass volume by a mass player also. We have to get this burning format right. Don't forget, we're also the biggest coil player, and that's also something where you will see some innovation and strategy from us on coils.
Got it. Wishing you all the very best. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prasad from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. A couple of questions. Firstly, the balance sheet is now almost de-leveraged with net debt to EBITDA at about 0.1. Historically, we have built businesses at such times through inorganic routes. In this context, would you like to comment as to if the company is exploring such routes again, and if so, what are the criteria this time?
Sure. I think I've mentioned on a few calls before, one, at the current stage, my focus and the company's focus will definitely be on organic growth and making sure that we're in double digits organic growth.
Hi, ma'am. Sorry to interrupt you once again. Ma'am, your voice is coming a little distorted. Please stay connected. I'll call you back.
No, can you ask other people to hear me?
Yeah. I think, Nirav, we can hear her very clearly. I don't know about others.
Yeah, Nisa, I think you are audible.
Nisa, I think you can go ahead, please.
Oh, is it okay? Am I still on the call?
Yes, ma'am.
Okay. Like someone's trying to drop me off because my answers are not good enough or whosoever it was. Anyway, coming back to M&A. Definitely organic growth is our focus. We do know that inorganic, and we did grow five years ago very significantly with inorganic growth and we have a lot of learnings from that time. In India and Indonesia, we definitely look at interesting acquisitions. We might look at interesting acquisitions say in a place like Bangladesh. We see markets like Bangladesh, Nigeria, Indonesia. No, sorry, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and South Africa with the potential to be like our Indonesia business. In India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, we will actively look and we are actively looking organic growth.
In Africa, like I sort of mentioned before, I do feel that the right to do inorganic, before that happens, the current business sort of growth and margins need to be stronger. Yes, we are always looking at M&A.
Okay. Second question on Indonesia and Africa separately. How much of the revenue was from direct retail in 2020?
Sorry, Prasad, your voice. Prasad? Sir, this is Sameer here. Can you just repeat your question, please?
Yes, there is an echo in some other lines other than mine. The question was more from Indonesia.
Sir, one moment. Sir, go ahead.
Yeah, hello. There is still the echo.
One moment. Sir, you may go ahead now.
The echo is still there, but anyway. In Indonesia and Africa, what % of direct?
Prasad, the echo is coming from your end.
No, I'm okay.
Please join the queue. Hello.
Yeah, I can answer.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Sachdeva from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi. Is my voice clear?
Yeah, Amit, it is clear, but unfortunately, the echo is still continuing.
Yeah, echo. I could hear myself also.
Yeah. Can I request operator or ICICI Securities team to just revisit this and correct this, please?
Sir, one moment. Sorry, echo is coming from your end. Ma'am joined. I will call her now. Participants, please stay connected while we rejoin the speaker back to the call. Participants, please stay connected. Ladies and gentlemen, please stay connected. Ladies and gentlemen, please stay connected while we rejoin the speaker back to the call. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience and I'll hand the conference over back to Nisaba. Ma'am, please go ahead.
I've totally forgotten what question we were on. What was the question, Sameer? Does someone remember?
Yeah. I think we had Prasad asking one question, but he was requested to go back in the queue.
Yeah. Amit is still on the line.
Yeah. I think we can go in with Amit's question first, and then-
Yeah
we'll have Prasad coming back into this. Sorry, guys, for the glitch. Yeah.
Yeah. My apologies since it seems to be me causing it.
Yeah.
Amit, please go ahead.
Thanks so much, and thanks so much for taking my question. A very good set of numbers in Africa, congratulations for that. Just one first question is on soaps business. Obviously there's a clear inflation, which is necessitating price hikes and constraining some amount of gross margin expansion at the domestic level. Having come this far in terms of marketing mix, the entire soap business, how do you feel, conceptually, whether this inflationary environment suits you better or some out of deflation helps you more, as you maximize, optimize EBITDA growth and gross margins and also volume growth? As a strategic construct, why I'm asking this is that given that the base of this year will be very high and we are going into the next year with some amount of inflation building up, how we should anticipate next year for soaps?
Thanks, Amit. I think on a lighter note, we would love both environments to be beneficial to us. Historically, we have always gained significant market share, especially in high inflationary environment because that's where a lot of the small local players take it on the fence because they typically operate on very thin margins and in high inflationary environment, they just move away temporarily from the category. I think first, guys, we have always called out that we are a distant number two player. We continue to gain share and this is not phenomenon last two, three quarters. This is something which has been going our way over last 18 to 20 months. The micro-marketing initiatives have worked very well for us. I think continuing steady state performance in soaps even next year is the way we are planning for at this point in time.
Despite having a base that we've called it out, we don't expect any mismatch between what should be a normative volume growth, value growth in soap category for us even in the next year.
Sure. If I read correctly, maybe you're looking for still a double-digit soaps growth, maybe like a mid to mid-teen type of thing or I'm not asking for guidance, but I'm just thinking of how we should think about domestic business and maybe a flat margin. That's a good scenario for you?
I think, not getting into guidance, Amit, but there will be some carry forward pricing also, right? It's not going to pause. Definitely next year there'll be some carry forward pricing impact. We will continue to gain market share, that's for sure. Right? That's the way we are planning on multiple initiatives within soap category. I did call out earlier that in very short term, if we have to prioritize growth over margins, especially in soaps, it's a no-brainer. We will prioritize growth. We will mitigate this soap cross-margin hold through other revenues, whether it be driving favorable category mix, whether it be costing programs or even leveraging our global portfolio. That way we will think of overall profitability and balancing both growth and margins in this way.
Okay. Very clear. Sameer, thank you so much. Second, very quickly, if I may ask on Latin America. The growth has been very impressive. If I may observe on the constant currency terms, this looks like a structural business on a roll it seems. We get to sort of discuss less of it, but why margins are so volatile in that business? If the business even in local currency is structurally growing it so impressively, why margins are all over the place for that business? What could be the sustainable margins and how should we think about this? Just help me understand that, please.
Sure. No, I think Latin American business has been very robust for us over last year to year and a half, right? Typically, this used to be the cluster or bunch of countries which were in mid-single digit EBITDA margins. It's actually an inflationary economy, right? Argentina.
Sure.
That's where you do see some part of growth also driven by inflation, but there is also very robust volume growth, right? I think the intent is, again, on average annualized basis to have double-digit margins and we think we're very much on track. There is scale leverage playing in our favor. There is also change in cost saving program which is playing in our favor. We should continue to see again this steady to strong performance holistically in Latin America and global business, even in medium to long term.
Sure. No, that's very helpful. Are you planning to bring any more products from there other than the cream soap that was inspired by LATAM, but are there any more cross-pollination opportunities exist from that business?
Yeah. We continue to explore, I mean, multiple cross-pollination opportunities, honestly, not just from LATAM to any other country within our kind of fold, but across kind of countries, right? We very much continue to work on this potential cross-pollination and in turn kind of growth opportunities.
Yeah, I think in hair color, there's a lot of sharing on formulations and different types of sort of innovations and stuff, which go from different teams to different teams.
Sure. Okay, great. No, thanks so much and all the best, Nisa, and thanks so much, Sameer.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Shirish Pardeshi from Centrum Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. I have two specific questions. In the domestic market, we have reported 14% growth on soaps. Can you help me to understand how much is the price and volume, if there are any price increases have happened and affected in the quarter which is gone by?
Yeah. I mean, good part of growth, I would say two-thirds would be sort of volume and a third would be price, Shirish. I mean, that would be the composition, I mean, the overall soaps value growth.
What I wanted to understand for the follow-up on that, we all know that the inflation is inching up because of palm oil and PFAD. Has it covered the price increases what we have expected or it's not yet covered, or you will take some more price increases going forward?
No, Shirish. Even if you look at category level, the overall increase in PFAD, PKFAD has been anywhere between 30%-50%. We would be theoretically looking at 30%-50% price increase on soaps, which is not practical. We'll have to be sort of calibrated. We'll have to have pack price mix architecture through which we play this pretty smartly. Again, we called out earlier, we would want to gain market share. We want to continue this momentum. We are seeing kind of tailwinds in category, opportunity to gain shares even from small local players. We'll have to balance both. Such that we continue on this strong growth momentum as well as in parallel, have an eye on how the overall margins are shaping up for the global business.
Sure, Sameer. My second and last question on the Indonesia business. I see that there are challenges, and we have come over and every time we have some other issues crop up. What I really want to understand now we have gone into Saniter health soap. Is that the growth which is the formula which one can look at growing Indonesia business? More specifically, how big is and what is the winning thoughts we have about launching Saniter health soap?
Yeah. I think there are multiple growth vectors to Indonesia. Again, to kind of set the context, I mean, the overall FMCG space in Indonesia over last two, three quarters has sort of declined by high single digits to low double digits. In that context, I think the performance is kind of not that bad. Of course, there are some areas which we need to sort of double-click upon. In terms of growth potential, I mean, as Nisa called out earlier, the entire hygiene scale-up has been phenomenal, right? I mean, the entire kind of play which started eight, nine months back has been pretty kind of interesting and meaningful now in terms of being kind of key growth pivot over a medium, long-term period of time.
There are opportunities in terms of white spaces even within the existing household insecticide category, because that plays largely into aerosols and electrics and not in burning format. The long-lasting kind of paper, which we have launched recently gives us a meaningful presence, right, in the burning format, which will be more than a fourth of the overall category in Indonesia. We need to sort of tactically navigate through the challenges in wet wipes and then continue to, last but not the least, build on the go-to-market opportunity, especially on the General Trade, which is only a third of our overall business. For the industry, this could be anywhere between 50%-60%, thereabout. There are multiple kind of growth pivots. We remain extremely optimistic in terms of medium to long-term growth vector in Indonesia.
We have seen Indonesia over last decade also has been a home run for us, whether it be kind of strong sales growth, whether it be kind of margin scale-up. We remain quite kind of confident. In the very short term, we would work towards kind of getting it at least in positive kind of growth zone, right? I mean, from what was a very marginal decline, at least in the last quarter.
On Saniter soap, is that to improve the distribution? I guess healthcare is a bigger opportunity and there is a penetration which is happening. Is that the thought?
Yeah, I think there's a I think it's a large bar soap and soap in general is a large. The bar soap is not the only launch. We have some others also happening in the personal wash category. We feel that there is a space for a brand like Saniter, and we believe we have the strength as a company to go into that market. That's where the thinking has come from. We see that the demand for health soaps is quite high.
Okay. Thank you, Nisaba, and thank you, team, for the presentation.
Thank you. Thank you for being with us.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star 1 to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Alok Shah from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good evening, everyone, and congrats on a good performance. I have two questions.
Thank you.
First is on the Africa cluster. Can you elaborate if the strong growth is essentially backed by distribution-led initiatives, whether the range selling now is happening versus the prior three years? Or is it purely market share gains led growth that is coming? That is number one.
I think it's a mixture of a number of things. Correct. Definitely, I think distribution has been a big push across the different geographies, and we are looking very closely to how much direct distribution versus wholesale distribution. We have had market share gains, although in dry hair, Nielsen doesn't cover it, so we do our own sort of market share estimation. We've also had some good success, especially in West Africa with new category development, whether it's in dry hair with the restylables, with HI. I think it's a mixture of factors playing in.
Got it. My second question is on the India HI business. Wanted to check how is the innovation pipeline now? What would be the timelines for the launch? Specifically, I would ask if there's some breakthrough innovation that you are closer to launching.
Are you guaranteeing that Jyothy, Reckitt, and SC Johnson are not on this call? I'm sure I'm happy to share it with all 200 of you.
In the past you have shared that.
Yeah. No,
About the broad innovation pipeline, at least.
Yeah, no, I think the innovation pipeline is pretty strong, correct. Innovation for us is both on the active molecule side and on the product delivery side. Whether it's on naturals or on active base, I think one thing we can be assured of is the product pipeline, and you will see more stuff coming from us next year also. We've actually had a number of launches this year also. Correct? I don't know if people have picked up on it, we talked about Smart Spray. We've done roach bombs in cockroaches. Like I said, this non-mosquito portfolio, given the health concerns people have, is really moving fast. We will double down in all these. One sort of big pivot for us was this personal repellent. I've mentioned many times before that in other markets, personal repellent tends to be 25%-30% saliency.
In Indonesia, I think it's close to 30% saliency, where in India it's 3%, 4% saliency. This year, that business has taken a real beating because of people not going out of home and stuff. That's something that we really need to resurrect. Again, we feel that as kids go back to school and people go out fully, I think the kids back to school really will be a good opportunity to reignite that business.
Right. No, I was just trying to ask because if till now we have been talking about competition from the illegal incense sticks, et cetera, but if tomorrow one of the competition were to heat up or some new player were to enter, how is it that we are planning to hold that tough? Would it be more through innovation, new launches? Would it be more through ad spend, promos, or how is it that you would look at this category?
I think it's a mixture of all. Correct. I think the thing that we're most focused on is frankly, we have about 50% of the category. It's really and in the premium formats, very high shares. Really it is our job to be educating, marketing to consumers, getting them to upgrade, convert them, and giving them that value for money with efficacy and protecting them from these diseases and mosquitoes. Competition, I always encourage good competition that serves the consumer well. It keeps us all on our toes, and if that were to happen, we've dealt with competition many times, so we will-
Sure
figure this out, how to serve the consumer better.
Sure. Thanks a lot, Nisaba, for the detailed answer.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Percy Panthaki from India Infoline. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question again. My question is again on the Indonesia business, especially the GT rollout. I've been tracking GCPL since long. Basically, we have been now talking about this for almost five years. Just if you can give me an idea of what progress has happened on this point of GT rollout over the last several years. I mean, some point-to-point data you can share, let's say, your direct reach now versus what it was two years ago or any other kind of data which would help us understand what is the progress on this point?
Yeah, hi, Percy. I think to begin with, this has been kind of a structural growth driver for us. I think in terms of data points, say two years back, we would be reaching out to 80,000, 85,000 outlets. Now we reach out to close to 120,000 outlets. The intent is to reach out to close to 200,000 outlets. I think what also happened is because of COVID, at least over the last eight, nine months, and extreme social distancing, all this took a back seat, right? We could not get feet on ground, we could not connect with channel partners, and hence there was a little bit of pause in the journey. Now we are, again, back to having this kind of build upon. In fact, there are more than 10 to 12 initiatives which we are sort of working with.
We have called this out, again, in the past that General Trade is around a third of our business. Whereas for other companies within Indonesia, this could be anywhere between 50%-60% rate. It remains a big kind of growth vector. Also, it's something which will result in a favorable impact on the margins. It's more of a growth kind of initiative than anything else. That's where we are. Yeah, over the last nine, 10 months.
Percy, if I can add to that. Thank you for the question. I think our portfolio also for GT has improved quite significantly in the last two years. Even, say, something like this bar soap or the long-lasting paper and stuff, really GT is the market for it. I think we have a better portfolio of products and this push now, hopefully post the pandemic, gets stronger.
Right. Which brings me to my next question, which is on the portfolio for Indonesia. You've launched soap organically. What's your sort of medium-term objective in Indonesia as far as categories are concerned? Would you like to become a broad-based, diversified FMCG company in Indonesia? If so, would it be largely organically? Also, which are the other categories over the next three years or so where you think it is adjacent or you have some right to go into those categories on your own or through an acquisition?
Sure. Thanks. I think, like we said, someone asked a question in M&A, we would definitely and we are tracking other companies in Indonesia. We would look at bolt-on acquisitions for that business. I think organically, actually the categories that we look at are quite global also, where we have some level of product and know-how strength. I think bar soap is something that we've sold quite successfully in India for many years. We saw the opportunity at this time, given some of the market shifts that we're seeing. I think we see hygiene both in home care and personal care as sort of very interesting categories. If you look at what I mentioned in Saniter, what's doing really well is sort of a disinfectant cum freshener sort of spray.
I think things in the home care area, we already have HI, we have hair care. We are looking at these other home care sort of potentials between both Indonesia and India very seriously. We have fabric care in India. We have a bit of a fabric care business in Indonesia. We look at scaling those businesses up. Wherever we feel that we have a product differentiation advantage to offer the consumer, we would definitely look at those areas and build on our strength.
Hello?
Percy, you have any follow-up question? Hello, Percy?
Yeah, sorry. I just wanted to ask you on your hair care business, you launched three, four years ago in Indonesia.
Yeah.
What is the kind of success that you've seen there, and what % of the sales does it contribute today?
That business actually, frankly, this year has surprised all of us. It is doing extremely well. We have had good momentum there with sachet hair color. We are also launching shampoo hair color there. We see that as a good opportunity. Interestingly, it has quite a bit of a fashion business in Indonesia, not just gray coverage. That is also definitely a good pivot of growth.
Okay. That's all from me. Thanks, and all the best.
Thanks, Percy.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that would be the last question for today. I will now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone. With that, we would like to draw this call to a close. Thanks for your participation, and have a great evening. Stay safe and stay healthy.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you for being with us. Bye.
Thanks to you all.
Thank you very much. On behalf of ICICI Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.