Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Godrej Consumer Products Limited Q1/FY 2026 Earnings Conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vishal Kedia. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening to all present. Welcome to the Q1 conference call for Godrej Consumer Products Limited. We have with us Mr. Sudhir Sitapati and Mr. Aasif Malbari. We'll start with opening remarks from Mr. Sudhir Sitapati, following which we will go into Q&A. I now hand over to Mr. Sudhir Sitapati for his opening remarks.
Good evening to all. Q1 FY 2026 has been a good quarter for GCPL. In particular, our standalone business has had an excellent performance, delivering an underlying volume growth of mid-teens led by robust broad-based performance. Our international business has been affected due to macro headwinds and competitive pressures in Indonesia, which was compensated by a robust performance in Africa. On a consolidated basis, our revenues grew 10% in INR terms, with 8% underlying volume and - 3% on EBITDA. India has had a good quarter with a revenue growth of 8%. Our volume growth was 5% and EBITDA growth was - 6%. However, excluding soaps, we grew underlying volumes by mid-teens, with soap volumes being affected by volume price rebalancing and a very poor season in May, especially in North India.
We had a robust performance in household insecticides, which grew volumes in high single digits led by Electrics growing double digits. We have gained market share in Electrics on the back of the relaunch product and are very happy with the outcome of our actions. Our categories of air fresheners, laundry liquids, etc., have continued to deliver strong underlying volume growth. All our products like Bloq, the antiperspirant, AirPlug , and Amazon Woods 4X have been launched successfully and are seeing good consumer traction and repeat sales. Furthermore, as guided in the investor meet, we are on track to deliver 150 bps- 200 bps of savings in A&P investment. Over the last three years, we have doubled our A&P spend and tripled our working media. With this kind of scale, we have been able to accrue savings on account of better planning, automation, and negotiations with a new agency in place.
This has been done without impacting media reach. Our Indonesia business has been impacted by macro headwinds and competitive pricing pressures. However, we expect this to be transitory in nature with the situation improving in a few months. Our Africa business continues its solid performance, with sales growing at 30% and EBITDA at 15%. We successfully launched Aer Pocket across all markets in Africa and are seeing a very positive consumer response. Latin America continues to do extremely well with high single-digit underlying volume growth and EBITDA margins now in the double digits. As guided during our latest investor meet in May 2025, we expect performance to improve sequentially in FY 2026, with the second half performance better than the first half performance in terms of margin. Standalone EBITDA margins in H1 2026 are likely to be below our normative range but are expected to improve in the second half.
While palm oil prices have started moderating towards June, benefits of this moderation will only be realized in H2 FY 2026. We believe for FY 2026, we are on track for mid to high single-digit EVG for standalone business, high single-digit consolidated INR revenue growth, and double-digit consolidated EBITDA growth for the full year. Thank you. I'd be happy to take questions now.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star then one on their touchtone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking your question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Again, to register for a question, please press star then one. Our first question comes from the line of Aditya Soman from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good evening. Two questions from me. Firstly, you indicated the impact of the early monsoons potentially on soaps. Was there also a similar positive impact on home insecticides given that we had an early rain and typically insecticides do well in the rainy season? Second question on the liquid detergents business. We've seen when we work out many of the rest of the space, they've recently launched Sunlight , INR 70 a liter, actually even significantly under-setting even Fab. Do you see this as being a challenge to growth and margins going forward? Thanks.
Thanks, Aditya. To answer your first question on whether there was a positive impact on household insecticides, we have something called an insect-seeking index for the quarter. The overall quarter was at about 100. That's because April was very low and May and June were good. April was very low because it was a particularly hot April. It became hot early this year, and then it cooled down in May and June. April normally, where the season changes in the north, the season changes in March. Overall, we didn't have a particularly good seasonality index. It was an average seasonality index on household insecticides. April is normally a much bigger month than May and June. May and June are good summer months. The index is higher, the volumes are lower. April, the volumes are higher, the index is lower, and it was roughly the same.
I don't think we got any particular benefit in terms of household insecticides in terms of season this quarter, which we did a little bit last quarter, which was in Q4. To answer your second question, fab continues to do extremely well for us. It is sequentially gaining share. It is much loved by consumers, and it is heading towards unprecedented levels of revenue in FY 2026. We do not see fab as a price competitor. We think that there's an overall mix to fab that is good. In fact, we have taken up prices by 5% on fab in the last quarter and have seen no impact of it despite a lot of price competition in the market. We are very convinced that this is a good mix and a fundamentally good mix.
Thanks, Sudhir. That's very clear. Thanks for the clarification. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. My first question is on the India HI. Most of the subsegments of the India HI seem to have gone in double digits. If you could clarify how much is the decline in coils? Would you see that as a structural issue? It's a good long-term issue to have given the premium products can grow faster, differentiated products can grow faster. Second is the Q2, obviously, currently the expectation is the monsoon is going to be high. Still, now it is high only. Generally, when the monsoon is high, the mosquito larva gets plugged away, which is not a good development for the HI construct. Would you be a bit cautious on the Q2 demand based on this premise? Obviously, it's too early to comment on the quarter from an overall projection perspective. From a monsoon perspective, would you say that that's not a supportive premise?
To answer your first question, Abneesh, of course, it's declining. We don't usually give numbers at a subsegment level, so it's probably not proper for me to give it. I feel like last quarter was an average quarter in terms of season, and we've done this high single-digit volume growth, which, other things being equal, I think will persist in the future. If you have a good season, if you have a bad season, we may go to low single digits. That kind of variance will be there. We seem to be on that kind of trajectory. We'll see how to take this up further. I still feel that there are ways in which we can take this up further, and we're working on it. One obvious way is to see how we can upgrade faster from incense sticks, but that's work to be done.
At least this battle seems to be a little behind us. This is, in fact, the third quarter in which Electrics has done well. We continue to be quite positive about that. In terms of Q2, in terms of seasonality, it's hard to say, Abneesh. It's hard to predict what's going to happen. Actually, July was a little bit of a poor monsoon in South India, but again, the monsoon has come back in August. It's been a bit of a strange season where what happens in August is happening in July, and everything is getting changed a little bit by 15, 20 days. Sitting here today, I don't think this is going to be a particularly good or bad season. Sitting here today, I don't know what August and September will bear. Last year in Q3, it was a particularly poor season.
One can be hopeful that that will improve. I can't really answer that question with more clarity than that for you.
Sure, sir. That is absolutely reasonable. In terms of the new formula, now it has been a few quarters. How is the competition responding? Because India is all about reverse engineering. Even if reverse engineering doesn't give the same product, Indian companies are very happy to copy the messaging. If you could comment on the competitive landscape from a new formula perspective, how things have changed?
See, firstly, within Electrics, we have had unprecedented share gains over the last few months, and genuinely unprecedented share gains.
Is the Nielsen market share gained?
Nielsen market share gained. Again, I don't want to give exact numbers, but they're very high. In fact, for the first time in a decade, we have gained share of overall HI because in the past, we would gain and lose share, you know, a little bit of share in electrics. The market was reshaping so rapidly that we were losing overall share with us as were all branded players because illegal sticks were gaining share for all branded share. This is the first quarter, except for one quarter in the middle of COVID when, you know, Chinese imports and all stopped one or two quarters.
It's the first quarter really in a regular quarter in a decade that overall HI shares we've gained, which is a very, very hard thing, which means you really have to gain a lot of share in Electrics to compensate because incense sticks still continue to grow fast. That's been very encouraging for us. I mean, look, the RNF molecule is a competitive moat for us because, as I said, when we launched RNF, you guys were here in the last analyst call, we have an exclusivity for some time on this, and the lead time for new molecules in India is long. In the short to medium term, we don't expect any challenge in terms of product. We are convinced that this is the best molecule in India. It has shown results. I hope it shows even better results in the future. It's not easy to copy this.
Mere proposition doesn't help. I mean, in the last decade, everyone's had a lot of propositions, but mere propositions don't help in the absence of a solid product.
There's one last follow-up on this. You had shown us the live experiment in your office when we had come on the new formula. In real world, there are so many other uncertainties and all that. What is the customer saying on the efficacy of this product?
The customer, see, qualitatively has been very good, which we knew for some time. Quantitatively, if you're able to gain enough share in Electrics to compensate for the headwind loss of incense stick growth, that kind of share doesn't happen without a genuine product differentiation and consumers genuinely loving it, which we are hearing from a lot of consumers. Plus, this advertising also seems to have clicked. We went in with a proposition of lasts for two hours after the electricity goes off. This seems to have been a good proposition that consumers are recalling as well.
My second quick question, India Perfumes and Dio maintains growth, say, 15%, 16%. If you could comment on a two-year basis how the growth is, I understand this was not a very favorable quarter given that most summer categories did not do well. Second sub-question there, the Bloq antiperspirant, that formulation, the way it is applied, I think India, we haven't seen too many products really become successful. It has been tried earlier. To that extent, from an application perspective, would you need a lot of time for customers to be taught how this is used so that the traction is there?
I don't want to give specific numbers on a two-year basis, though last year, the same quarter was also a very high growth quarter because that was on a low base. Two-year numbers are very high, but three-year numbers may not be. I would say the two-year number will be high only because last year's growth number that we had was because the previous year we acquired the business. One thing is that the traction is good. We've done two, three things that seem to be working. This Amazon Woods 4X, which is an innovation, seems to be working well because the market was disrupted by 2X and this is 4X. In Tamil Nadu, we did a pilot, which seems to be working very well, where we brought the MRP of the category down to INR 99.
Many of you will know that this category, and a lot of questions are asked on it, is a very trade-driven category. At that time, I said that our job is to convert it from a trade-driven category to a consumer-driven category. In Tamil Nadu, what we did is the category MRP was INR 230 and the trade price was INR 100. In Tamil Nadu, we brought down the MRP to INR 99 and we brought down the trade price to INR 90 and converted 150 ml to 125 ml so that the rough gross margins remain the same. That has had explosive growth in terms of volume shares, volume growth, and even NSV growth.
We are now convinced that is the right way for us to compete in this market, not give so much margin to the trade, give trades the margin that they earn on the rest of HPC, and bring down price. That has been in one state, but that has been a delta contributor. Bloq, I agree with you, is a long, hard battle because converting this country to antiperspirants is not going to be easy. I just met some consumers yesterday. I was in Chennai where we've launched Bloq, and consumer acceptance is hard. Remember that this category of antiperspirants is selling at INR 200 - INR 220, and Bloq is a INR 99 disruption. We seem to be having a lot of these INR 99 products that seem to be doing quite well for us: Bloq, Aero, KS Deodorant 99.
To answer your question, is Bloq going to give us a lot of revenue in the next two years? I doubt it. It is one of the key reasons why we did this acquisition, which is to build the antiperspirant category.
Last question, I'll end there. Liquid detergent, you did extremely good disruption with the pricing, packaging, product, etc. Now, legacy detergent powder players have quickly caught on, and now I think their pricing is even lower than Fab detergent. Modern players have also quickly caught on. Currently, you are doing quite well. My question is not on the current quarter. My question is, eventually, what we see is the legacy player in any category eventually will come back because they have much higher advertising budget in this category to really get back that initial delay of loss. Plus, definitely, their economies of scale will be much, much higher to initially cross-subsidize, etc. How do you see Fab now competing against a Rin at a lower pricing? The Modern Trend, of course, the quality will be different. If you could comment long term, how do you see this trend?
See, firstly, Abneesh, you know, laundry liquids is a category we built in India with Ezee. The category is quite analogous to soaps 20, 25 years ago with the category that we've done well over a long period of time. We are certainly one among a few players. I don't think that there is a question of rise to win in this category, both because we were the pioneers in liquids and the detergent category has a lot of similarities to soap. I think we look at our mix from a consumer's lens. We feel that a combination of the products, the pricing, the packaging, and the advertising is a sweet spot for consumers. We have, in fact, as I said, gone the other way around and taken up prices on Fab because actually raw material costs have gone up.
SLES, which is a big component, is linked to the palm complex and so on. We have not seen, and these kinds of things, if you are purely playing on a commodity basis, you'll see things falling immediately. We have not seen that. We have only seen our sequential revenues go high. We will play a branded game here. We are not going to play a pricing game on Fab. It came at a disruptive pricing because we felt that's the right price for consumers, not because you want to discount the category. We feel the right price for consumers to upgrade from powders to liquids. Our job is to upgrade from powders to liquids, and our focus is on that, so that consumers get a better experience with liquids.
Thanks, sir. That's all from me. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. My first question is on soaps. Suddenly, we've seen such a huge volume growth coming in this quarter. What really has changed?
Are you talking about soaps or ex-soaps?
You said that soaps have grown 15%, right?
No, you heard it wrong. I said our business has grown 15%. Soaps is a huge quarter, both because of grammage cuts, which are very sharp, and also because of a poor season in May. We overall grew 5% in India, but we grew ex-soaps in the mid-teens.
Understood. With this import duty cut, does that benefit us in terms of RM? When do we see the margins sort of normalizing for soaps division?
The import duty cut benefits us. However, in the last few weeks, there has been a bit of a rally again in palm oil prices. Palm oil prices still are up, not hugely up, but they've gone back up 10%. From their peak, they fell 30%. They've gone back up 10%. That's in the realm of a couple. Because of the inventory that we hold, I think the benefits for soap margins will only come in towards the beginning of Q3.
Okay. Understood. On Indonesia, we keep having these issues every three years or so. I think now it's been like 12 years or so since our acquisition. More or less three or four times we have seen this cycle repeat that things are going good, then we have some competitive intensity. Two or three quarters down the line, we realized that we should have responded more forcefully early on. What actions are we taking now to sort of protect our business against competition?
Primarily, I feel like in Q4 itself, Indonesia FMCG had slowed down. I think a lot of our peers and competitors reported that in Q4 and the beginning of Q1. Things seem to be, so the primary cause in Indonesia seems to be macro. When the core is acting, one needs to understand whether it's a macro cause or a micro cause. Primarily, we see this as macro. I mean, I could be wrong in the first year. I could come back and say, hey, listen, maybe we missed something. There has been some price competition, which I think has been in response to the macro because the macro is poor for four or five months. A lot of competition also wants to react. We have to defend market share unblinkingly. That we've done because our objective is to defend market share.
I don't, I'm also going to Indonesia next month to assess for myself. From what I've read from the data I've seen, it does seem to be, from what I've spoken to others, it does seem to be a little bit of a sudden slowdown that the Indonesian economy had in Q4 and the beginning of Q1. It also seems to be doing a little better now.
Understood. Is the price competition in wet wipes or something else?
No, in household insecticides and air fresheners, basically in general, because Q4 was so bad that I guess everybody was saddled with inventory. Nobody's plans happened. I suspect that's what must have happened there. I also feel that this was a temporary kind of a response to what went wrong in the Indonesian economy in Q4 and the beginning of Q1. I don't have a clear answer, but a lot of people have written about it and a lot of competitors have spoken about it. I don't know what happened in that quarter, but it seems to be a response to that.
In a situation where we have a slow macro plus some discounting and price-led competition, will your priority be to protect the margins or will it be to sort of make sure that whatever little bit of growth you can get in the poor macros, you get that?
Our objective is always to defend our shares and to grow our shares. That is number one priority in a macro that's poor. Whatever the consequence of defending shares, you have to bear it where to bear it.
Understood, sir. Any callout here on margins, like you had called out a few quarters earlier that India margins will remain below normative level? Any such possibility in Indonesia that for a few quarters it will be below normative levels because of price competition or something like that?
I have a feeling, Percy, I'm not 100% sure here, but I have a feeling that this is a bit of a temporary drop and it should come back in the next two months. This quarter we have kind of continued to invest on pricing, but I have a feeling that the pressure should lift by two, three years is what I think will happen in Indonesia. It doesn't look like a deep structural margin correction that we have to take.
Lastly, on Africa, you have done a very good top line growth, whereas the bottom line also has grown, but there has been a margin compression here. What is the reason for that margin compression?
I think the primary reason is that one of our products, which is Aer Pocket, has been doing well across the world. We have launched it in many countries in Africa and invested quite a lot in Aer Pocket in terms of media, on-ground activities, and BTL. I think that has been the main reason for a slight bit of dilution in Africa margins. Also, consequently, the growth is we are also pivoting that business to an FMCG business, and air has been such a big success in India that we see a big opportunity not just in Africa, actually, but across the world on Aer Pocket.
Got it, sir. That's it for me. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Karthik Chellappa from Indus Capital Advisors. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. Sir, I have two questions. The first.
Sorry to interrupt, Karthik. Sir, you are sounding too soft. If you are using an external device, if you can use the handset, please.
Yeah, sure. How is this one? Is this any better?
We can hear Karthik just about, but go on.
Okay, sure. I'll try to be loud as well. My first question is on the standalone business. If I were to exclude soaps and look at the margins on a year-on-year basis, directionally, how do you think that trended?
Directionally, you know, we also on ex-soaps have taken some price corrections in some part of our portfolio, including household insecticides, hair color, which also explains the high growth in the rest of the business. Even there, the margins have not done much, but they have come down. We have had spectacular mid-teen growth there. We felt there were some parts of the portfolio, for example, the aerosol part of the portfolio, when compared to the rest of the world, prices were high. Margins at an absolute level are high. We have dropped prices there. In some parts of our hair color portfolio, where margins are high, we've dropped some prices. All these businesses have exploded, but we have taken some kind of margin correction there. We will recover those margins as the year goes along through cost savings. We have very aggressive cost-saving programs, including in the first quarter.
A lot of it has come through media negotiations. We have some big budget savings, including some supply chain from our new factories, etc. Our strategy on ex-soaps soaps is to recover the normative margins with pricing. ex-soaps is to be a little bit aggressive on pricing and recover those margins back through cost.
In the second half, when we talk about margin recovery, it will be on the back of soaps normalizing, as well as ex-soaps also improving, but not to the extent that we will see in soaps, right?
Yeah, we should, in the second half, go close to our normative kind of margins. That's what I think. Unless, of course, there's another rude shock on oil prices. If assuming oil prices are roughly where they are today, which is higher than their low, but lower than their highest, we should kind of roughly get to normative margins. That's what our calculation suggests.
Okay, great. On Indonesia, if I were to look at your price levels in the first quarter, for the competitive categories, whether it's household insecticides or air fresheners, what would be your gap vis-à-vis these aggressive challenges? If I take the first quarter price level as a reference point.
Compared to where we should be, I think we were about 7%–8% higher than where we should have been, which we took corrective action in the quarter itself. Towards the end of Q4 and beginning of Q1, we saw some sharp price drops on household insecticide aerosol, which we waited for a month, and then we've kind of gone and matched and so on. We were off by about 7%–8% for a period of two months.
If the price aggression from the challenger doesn't get worse from here, our price levels are probably where there should be some competitive standpoints, right?
Yes.
Okay, great. Okay. That's all from my side. Wish the team all the very best for the remaining quarters. Thank you.
Thank you, Percy.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good evening. My first question was on pricing and gross margins in standalone. So, you know, soaps have declined. Within HI , also, the premium categories have done well. Most of the higher gross margin categories have actually done quite well. We've seen still a slight sequential drop from quarter four to quarter one. What I'm trying to ask is, MIPS has dramatically, at least looks like it has significantly improved, but the drop is still there. Is that largely eventually price-led? Is it what you were mentioning in the earlier participant's question that you've taken some price drops in the non-soap portfolio? Could you just help me understand this change?
Largely, we've taken some price drops in the non-soap part of the portfolio, especially on aerosols, on what we call CIK, which is crawling insect, flying insect, which is mosquito and cockroach. Also, on hair color, we've brought down our price of our last pack by about 5%. On three big packs, we have taken down prices to air volume growth.
Got it. Got it. Okay. You know, the soap, you know, if I just do a back of the envelope calculation, it looks like a mid-teen volume decline. You know, when do you see?
It wasn't a mid-teen volume decline or not.
Okay. Whatever a double-digit kind of a number, at least it looks like. I just wanted to get your sense on when do you see and how does this even happen through the quarter? Is it just a base effect which anniversaries from, say, third and fourth quarter? Part of it is seasonal. That should ideally play out from quarter two itself. Is that the way to think about it?
Yeah, I do. We'll definitely see better volume performance. See, a good start in the volume decline, UVG decline is just grammage. About half our business, so 40% of our business, is price point packs. For example, on Godrej number one, INR 10. Last year, same quarter, I think we were 55 g or 56 g. This year, we're about 43 g. That's the kind of grammage cut that we've had to take, which is almost 20% grammage cuts, right? That on 40% of your portfolio accounts for most of the volume decline. There was a volume decline, which was an unusually poor May that we had. The unusually poor May will disappear in Q2. What will happen on grammage cuts is those will continue because, as we go through the year, the base also has smaller and smaller grammages, and units also tend to increase over a period of time.
While our UVG is 5%, my reckoning is that our unit growth would have been in double digits this quarter.
One last question on soaps. As you track competitive intensity, have you seen market shares stay largely intact in that space?
We are still gaining in this quarter market share on soaps despite all this, but it is less than we usually gain. I have to say that we have for a long time been gaining significant share on soaps. That significant share has reduced to a marginal gain on soaps, but we're still gaining. We're not losing share on soaps.
All right. All the best. Thank you.
Thanks, sir.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Arnab Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, team. I think my first question again actually is on soaps. What I wanted to understand is whenever you have historically seen this very large decline in volumes in soaps, like 8%, 10% or high single-digit declines in any year, because long term, there is still some low single-digit growth in the category. Do you expect volume growth to come back to a reasonably good number at some stage to make up for this decline, or does the usage actually drop and does not recover when you take these grammage cuts? What I'm asking is, once the base normalizes, do you just think you get to a zero kind of a territory, or there is a year when you actually make up and therefore get through the long-term trend line growth of the industry?
I think you will get to the long line in the industry from my past experience, Arunabh, because people don't reduce the number of bars. It's an inelastic category. You know, similarly, you see there are also lapping bases where the other way around happened, where you suddenly give grammage increases and then it looks like you have high UVG. I do expect that long-term volume growth on soaps to be in the low single digit, which is 2% odd %, 2 %- 3% is what I expect the long-term volume growth on soaps to be.
Got it, Sudhir. The second question related on soaps is, you know, I thought you had answered on market shares, but sometimes nuisance shares can be a bit off short term. This quarter, again, was the first quarter in a long time that I think HUL grew slightly, slightly better than GCPL soap volumes. Anything you leave from that in terms of your on-ground understanding of how things have gone after the formulation change or pricing actions, or do you worry about it much? It could be a quarterly thing that one company could have a slightly higher number. I just wanted to get your sense of anything that worries you on the competitive performance in soap.
No, I think, Arnabh, it's one quarter. We've still gained share. We have a large business in North India, and North India had a particularly poor summer. We had a really poor May in North India, and 70% of our business comes from North India. There's a little bit of geographic stuff here. I would say that we have been a little aggressive on soap pricing over the last few years, generated quite a lot of margins. I would not read too much into one quarter. If this continues for a few quarters, the market share gain that we've got in this quarter is less than what we want, to be honest. Leave alone whatever reports come externally. That itself, we've got to improve a little bit more.
I would still kind of leave a quarter aside because it's also been an unusual quarter in terms of various kinds of prices and the weather. Weather does affect soap sales. I probably will not react too quickly. We'll wait for a quarter or so and then probably kind of think about it.
Got it. My last question, Sudhir, is generally what we've heard from most companies is this slight broad-based pickup we are seeing in some parts for mass consumption. I know your categories have different drivers, especially as I explained, season-driven. Any thoughts you have on, are you seeing broader consumption trends slightly improving? Therefore, like the second half recovery, which is right now more predicated on soaps recovering, is there also some chance that you do get a little bit of uplift from a broader consumption recovery? Any thoughts about anything you've picked up on the ground there would be helpful.
I think so Arnab, I think there's one chance here that this quarter growth has been slightly easier than the previous quarter, and the previous quarter was much better than the previous one. I mean, it's too hard to say if there's like a big boom in consumption at all, but certainly, it looks in the right direction because soap numbers are affected by a lot of things. ex-soap is a good way to kind of look at the overall consumption basket, and those numbers have been quite unprecedented for us this quarter.
Got it. Got it. Thanks. That's it from my side. All the best.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jham from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, can you move to the MR a little bit?
Yeah.
Since the first question was on HI itself, specifically post RNF launch, even say either via Nielsen or any other medium, there is a potential to get a feedback on the repeats. I'm sure there will be a novelty factor associated with the advertising campaign that you've run. Any sense on, say, the repeat factor for the new molecule/product?
Yeah, see, we've now got, see, we could launch the new molecule in September last year. This kind of market share gains cannot happen without repeats. I mean, you know, you can get after advertising the first three, four months, the trials can go up and then the repeats can come down, etc. That alone tells us that the repeats are high because the scale of market share gain is very high.
Got that. At least in our understanding, maybe a share in electricals is not over 60% before the recent share gain that you're speaking of. Potentially, leaving apart the focus on trying to transition a lot of the incense and markets into LV, where can we potentially take our share off in the long term?
That's a good question to ask because, you know, let's take in FIK, our share is 85%. In cockroaches, it's 90% +. When you have a differentiated product and you have a moat, I suppose the sky is the limit.
Got that. Final question is, during the analyst meet, you did mention about obviously implementing the channel margin architecture for the deodorant portfolio and the new launches again. Just feedback on that because obviously at that time also there was a slight apprehension given it was the first time that any company was trying to implement it. Just initial feedback on that.
We're very happy. As I told you, we launched it in Tamil Nadu. Now, Tamil Nadu is the easiest case, by the way, because it's the lowest wholesale component, the most retail component, and wholesale doesn't vibrate. The lesson that we've learned is, you know, doubling of volumes and doubling of volume shares and actually doubling of revenue also because we've not really dropped price. Price per ml is kept the same or, you know, our NSV per ml. I mean, it shows us that this is a powerful idea, which is if you bring the strategy to INR 99. Now, it's a hard transition to do. We'll have to do this slowly and not like, you know, one shot because if you do it in one shot, you can really lose a lot.
Certainly, the right thing to do is to get this category to INR 100 and then, you know, this category has to explode. I hope that takes the growth of the category up. We're also unique because among the top couple of players, we probably have the best distribution for this kind of thing because you need a wide distribution to compensate for initial loss of wholesale fraction. I guess we are quite well placed as well among the top three players to kind of capitalize on this from a distribution point of view.
Wonderful. That's it for me. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mihir Shah from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Thank you for taking my question. Firstly, on the Africa business, after the team left, the growth seems to have been quite strong. Is this growth sustainable and/or what can be a reasonable growth for Africa on a sustainable basis and in FY 2026? That's my first question.
I'll ask Aasif to answer that.
Sure. I think one is we've kind of taken in a lot of interventions over the last year. Some bit of the growth is obviously kind of coming in because of, I would say, directions or base selections, which we've done in the past because we have taken down dealer inventory. I would kind of attribute around 10%-12% of the growth to that. Should we be able to kind of grow by double digits over the next few quarters? I think we should, with macros being there.
Understood. Secondly, on competitive intensity in Sweden and Indonesia, do you expect all the higher promotions, etc., that have happened to match competition? Is the impact of all this already factored into the margins this quarter, or do you think that we can see some more margin pressure in coming quarters as well?
Look, it's hard to predict this. I can only guess this. I can't predict it. My guess is that margins may have bottomed out in Indonesia because of pricing pressure. My guess is that the market will grow faster. If the market grows faster, the kind of need for competitors to drop prices slightly reduces. That's my guess.
Understood. I was just asking on such a palliative basis. Have you taken any specific tests?
Yeah, I think a good model is to think that this is not a if anyway. Maybe we can have a conversation in a quarter or two on this for us to assess whether my guess sticking here today is it's a bit temporary and it'll improve in a quarter or so.
Got it. One on HI, if I can. The best of HI quarter sales are likely to come in the coming quarters. Could one revisit the HI guidance that you had called out? How do you see this plan, you know, rolling out during the year?
Sure. I mean, look, I think we have achieved a certain kind of momentum on HI, which we're convinced of, which is kind of moving from a zero to low single-digit volume growth to a high single-digit volume growth in HI. I think we should probably, that's the guidance we should stick to for some time. There will be, by the way, another event where this should change because there has to be a limit to incense sticks growth. When incense sticks growth tapers off and then starts declining, it is suddenly upgrade. We will have a lot of high market share in the premium segment. There will be a second wind of growth. When that second wind comes, I don't know. Certainly, the first wind seems to be reasonably secure.
Right. I was thinking maybe we should update guidance given the strong growth that we've seen.
Probably not because the relative growth of incense sticks continues unabated. See, we can gain share within Electrics that we can plan for. If incense sticks continue to grow, even if it doesn't downgrade from premium, it doesn't allow upgradation of premium. I would still say at this rate that, you know, stick to the guidance. When we see incense sticks slowing down, HI can come back to you. For the time being, I would say that this high single-digit kind of growth in HI is a norm. This also will vary between low single-digit and double-digit depending on season, by the way. On average, this is what we should probably think of for some time.
Understood. That's very clear and very helpful as well. Lastly, on soaps, if you can share, when does this price hike actually annualized If you could share that one. That's the last one. Thanks for all. They were all my questions. Wishing you all the best.
Thanks. I think second quarter it annualized . This quarter and by next quarter, Q3, it would have fully annualized. We should have good results. By this quarter itself, it annualized.
Calling on the volume bit, do you think that we can see sharp improvement in volume if that were the case?
See, I think globally, we may not see from a consolidated basis. We do 8% volume. I don't think that will improve because it's a one-time. Africa has done really well in the quarter. I don't think that's the sustained number for Africa. India, I think, will edge up because, see, India, as I told you, its soaps was mid-teens. Now soaps is a composite of bad season and also, you know, these grammage cuts. As I was saying, Arunabh, ultimately, consumption doesn't fall. I would be disappointed if India doesn't move from mid-single digits to high single digits in the next few quarters.
Got it. Thanks very much. Wishing you all the best.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, sorry. Two quick questions on the pet food. Any initial update you have where you sold us the product? The very good consumption, live consumption is sold. Any further updates on the initial market study, market portal, any pilot initial study you can share with us?
No, Abneesh, you know, it's early days. We've launched it in TN and we've sold in. I was in Chennai yesterday both to look at Bloq and to look at our pet business. The first question I asked more than anything else is, is the product acceptance good? Among consumers whose pets have used Ninja, the product acceptance is good. I think at this early stage, that's the only relevant question, which is, you know, is the product doing well or not? I would say it's doing well, but this is a long, long gestation, right? Bloq, it's a long gestation thing where there'll be lots of ups and downs. We'll have to, you know, it's a several-year commitment where we will probably the focus has really to be on consumer delight for now. Numbers and all we can, you know, really get into in a few years.
Sure. I wanted to understand on the pricing bit. You mentioned some price cuts in the bigger packs of hair color and in the pre-coat of surgery, etc. What is leading to this? Is it benign raw material or desire to gain more market share in the larger packs of hair color, for example?
See, in the case of household insecticides, we saw that our price per ml was very different from the rest of the world. One of the barriers for aerosol penetration is pricing. India was an overpriced market when compared to even our own markets of Indonesia and other markets that we operate. Our bet here is that it is better to benchmark the prices versus the world, get to that price, and get to volume growth rather than not having volume growth. There we've thrown the kitchen sink. We've put the new formulation and dropped the price. I'm quite sure we'll see volume growth go up. In the case of hair color, the driver of price drop is, you know, we had launched the INR 15 pack, which has done explosively well for us. We did feel that the gap versus the large pack was too high.
We wanted to adjust our price pack architecture, which is what we've done with reducing the large pack from INR 42 - INR 37 so that the per ml price is still much better for the small pack, but that gap we kind of narrowed. These were the two drivers for the price drop.
Sure. Last quick question, and it's more a question on the overall industry. Wanted to understand a bit more. So, Sudhir, if you see biscuits also correctly, the INR 5, INR 10 pack is exactly the same thing where the grammage cut is optically leading to impact on the volume growth for Sri Lanka. Now, biscuits is an impulse category versus a soap, which is it, as you rightly said. In soaps, after two, three quarters, doesn't the consumption mirror the actual growth because still, how will the price cut be absorbed, right? Ultimately, as you rightly said.
I think it will, Abneesh. I think there's no reason for it. It could because, you know, you're also sitting on vessels where there was extra grammage, then you're going to less grammage. There's a lot of inventory lying. Inventory is lying at various parts, including the consumer's pantry. There might be an initial kind of titration, but my own experience on this is a necessity. Consumers use 2 g of soap per bath. They need that coverage. You know, you can't, I mean, it's not the kind of thing that is such a large component of household expenditure that people titrate and it's not doing it. It has to come back. It has not come back. I see the thing is that the grammage cuts have been really sharp. Like I don't remember the number, but from 56 g, we've gone to 44 g in like 12 months.
Every quarter you're cutting and cutting and cutting. Every time the pipeline is going down. If you do the math for a two, three-year period, you know, the volume growth of soap has to mirror the volume growth of the population.
Absolutely. One last follow-up, and that's the last question to me. This question was asked around three or four quarters back. On the formulation by the number one player, at that time you were told you would evaluate. Now, some time has gone. If you see, palm oil goes up, palm oil goes down. The number one player's requirement of palm oil in LifeBuoy and Lux is lower by 20% versus earlier. In that context, what is your analysis? Do you need an answer from a formulation perspective at some stage?
No, I think Abneesh, I have to answer this in slightly general terms, which is, you know, we have to do what we at one point think is right for the consumers. Right now, we think our formulation is right for the consumers. We'll have to play our game on this, which is it's a long game we have to play. We will continue to do that and see the situation. We are not happy with our market shares in soaps, but we're not unhappy with it either. We just have to wait and watch a little bit more on this, Abneesh. I still feel that our path is probably the right one, and we should probably stick to it. Look, we're also ready to learn at any point in time on anything.
Okay.
Okay. If there are no more questions, then thank you very much and have a good day. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Godrej Consumer Products , thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.