Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Greenlam Industries Limited Q2 and H1 FY2026 results. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on date of this call. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchstone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Saurabh Mittal, Managing Director and CEO of Greenlam Industries Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, friends, and a very, very warm welcome to the quarterly call of Greenlam Industries Limited. I am pleased to have Ashok, CFO, Samarth from the finance team, and SGA on this call. I will discuss, I will take you through the performance and updates for the quarter. As you probably have seen, we have done about, we have crossed INR 800 crore of revenue in Q2 FY2026, and the business has grown by about 18.7% on a year-on-year basis. Even at the gross margin levels, we have done about 54.6%, so one of the highest we have done in terms of gross margins. EBITDA also, we did, we crossed INR 100 crore, and obviously EBITDA was impacted due to forex losses and still small losses in the chipboard and the plywood business.
That was impacted also due to the forex and higher depreciation interest considering the fact that we have plants capitalized in FY 2025- FY 2023. If you go segment-wise in the laminates business, revenue, gross margins, EBITDA, I think across all the categories, we did very well in Q2, and both domestic and international markets have done well. I think international has done slightly better than domestic for us in Q2. On the laminates business, we've also announced a brownfield expansion of 2 million sheets and boards. This is two lines of laminates we're expanding at our facility at Andhra Pradesh, Naidupeta. These two lines of 2 million sheets and boards will generate about in the range of INR 375 crore-INR 400 crore of revenue. We're expecting commercial production in Q4 of FY 2027. That is on the laminates business.
In the chipboard business, like we said previously, the products are being very well received in the market. From a product quality, performance, decor range, I think there is very good feedback from the market. The plant side is quite well settled, and we continue to build this chipboard business. We are focusing on completing the channel appointment wherever there are gaps, focusing on secondary sales specifications, streamlining or expanding business with the furniture makers and the OEMs. We are hopeful that the business will keep improving in the time to come. On the plywood business too, I think we said this earlier, the product feedback is very well, and we have added few more markets in FY 2026 in Eastern India and Western India, and gradually we are seeing traction. The growth in plywood business in Q2 has been pretty decent also, I think done about 45%-50%.
The business in the flooring business also has become a bit positive. The door business also has grown in Q2. The veneer business also has become a bit positive. By and large, if you see in Q2, I think across the three large categories and even the smaller categories, I think there's improvement in revenues, volumes, realization, gross margins, product side. Things have also gone well with the various launches we've done in Q2 and in H1. The working capital days have also, we've done reasonably well there. We had about 47 days in Q2, despite the fact that in plywood and chipboard, we still have slightly disproportionate working capital days because sales are yet to settle in. We've managed to reduce about 50-odd crores of debt. Cash flow from operations has also been healthy.
By and large, I think across the business, I think we've moved ahead. Like we said earlier, this year is a year of execution for us because we are free from all the expansion which we did over the last three years, and there is complete focus on execution. I think things are going in a decent direction. On the market side too, I think while there will always be challenges, there still are challenges on both exports and domestic. I think the teams are continuing to strive well, and we hope to keep winning market share and keep growing the business in a profitable manner. That is it from my side. I will hand over the call to Ashok. Ashok will take you through all the financial details and numbers, those which we will have an open house for. Ashok, over to you.
Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me take you through the financial performance for the quarter and for the last year. First, to the quarterly performance on a consolidated basis, net revenue grew by 18.7% on year-on-year basis and grew by 20% on sequential basis to INR 808 crore in this quarter as compared to INR 681 crore in Q2 last year. Gross margin grew by 300 basis points to 54.6% in this quarter from 51.6% in Q2 last year and grew by 150 basis points on a sequential basis. Gross profit in absolute term grew by 25.5% on year-on-year basis to INR 441 crore as compared to INR 351 crore in Q2 last year. EBITDA margin before forex fluctuation was up by 130 basis points and stood at 13.2% in this quarter as compared to 12% in Q2 last year. On a sequential basis, EBITDA margin grew by 510 basis points.
EBITDA before forex fluctuation in absolute term grew by 32% to INR 107 crore in this quarter as compared to INR 81 crore in Q2 last year. Net profit for the quarter stood at INR 31.8 crore as against INR 34.4 crore in Q2 last year. Moving on to half-yearly performance, on a consolidated basis, net revenue grew by 15.3% on year-on-year basis to INR 1,482 crore as compared to INR 1,285 crore last year. Gross margin was up by 210 basis points to 53.9% in this H1 from 51.8% in last year. Gross profit in absolute term grew by 20% to INR 799 crore as compared to INR 666 crore in H1 last year. EBITDA margin before forex fluctuation was down by 40 basis points at 10.9% in this H1 from 11.3% in last year. EBITDA before forex fluctuation in absolute term grew by 11% to INR 161 crore as compared to INR 145 crore in last year.
Net profit was down to INR 16 crores in this half-year as against INR 54 crores in the last year due to higher interest and depreciation and foreign currency losses on new projects, which was commissioned in the Q4 of the last year. Moving on to segmental performance, first, laminate and allied, which continues to be our biggest segment. For the quarter, the revenue grew by 10.2% on year-on-year basis and grew by 18.6% sequentially to INR 658 crores from INR 597 crores in Q2 last year. Volumes saw growth of 7.4% on year-on-year basis and 17.2% on a sequential basis. EBITDA margin before forex fluctuation, after forex fluctuation, stood at 18.7%, a growth of 400 basis points on year-on-year basis, and a growth of 450 basis points on quarter-on-quarter basis. Production volume were the highest in this quarter and stood at 5.9 million sheets and boards, with a utilization level of 96%.
Sales volume for the quarter stood at 5.79 million sheets and boards, with an average realization of 1,104 in this quarter. For the half-yearly laminate, for the half-year laminate revenue grew by 7.2% on year-on-year basis to INR 1,213 crore from INR 1,131 crore in last year. Volume grew by 6.7%. EBITDA margin stood at 16.6%, a growth of 240 basis points on year-on-year basis. Production volume were at 11.06 million sheets, with a utilization level of 90%. Sales volume in this half-year stood at 10.73 million sheets, with an average realization of 1,098 per sheets and boards. Moving on to another segment, plywood and allied. This segment consists of plywood, decorative veneer, engineered doors, and engineered floors. Revenue of this vertical grew by 22.2% on year-on-year basis and grew by 16.4% on a sequential basis to INR 102 crore from INR 83.9 crore in Q2 last year.
EBITDA loss for this quarter before forex reduced to INR 3.9 crores in comparison to INR 6.2 crores loss in Q2 last year. Revenue for the half-year grew by 23.5% to INR 190 crores from INR 154 crores last year. EBITDA loss for the quarter reduced to INR 12.5 crores as compared to INR 14.9 crores in H1 last year. Moving on to another segment, panel and allied, which is having chipboard as of now. For the quarter, revenue grew by 54.2% on quarter-on-quarter basis to INR 47.8 crores in this quarter from INR 31 crores in quarter one last quarter one FY 2026. Volume saw growth of around 80%. Average realization stood at INR 18,187 per cubic meter. The production volume were at 26,571 cu m and at a utilization level of 36%. Sales volume for the quarter stood at 26,287 cu m.
In this quarter, working capital improved by 12 days and stood at 47 days as compared to 59 days in quarter two last year. Net debt as on 30th September stood at INR 995 crore as against INR 1,040 crore in the June quarter, with a reduction of INR 45 crore in this quarter. That's all from my side. Thank you. We will now open the floor for the questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Keshav Lahoti from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Firstly, congratulations for a strong set of numbers. First, I want to get a sense on laminate's margin, which is 18%-19% for this quarter. How do we see this in the upcoming quarter and what is the guidance for the team?
Yeah. Thank you, sir. So laminate margin in this quarter is around 18% before the forex fluctuation. We have given a guidance of around 16% on a longer tenure basis. This quarter, apart from the volume, if you saw, there is an increase, and this quarter we had a launch of our flagship brand of Greenlam also. As of now, we will continue with the around 16% growth, 16. It can go up also depending upon the volume, but let's say we continue with the 16% guidance on a yearly basis, kind of a thing. For the H1, the margin remains at 15%. As of now, margin is 15.7% before forex fluctuation.
Got it. Laminate's prices and raw material prices are stable. That is a fair understanding.
Yeah. For the domestic, yes, the laminate prices were both, but in the export side, because of the currency movement, there is realization, some bit of realization there is not. And raw materials remain stable.
Got it. Are particle board plans intact to possibly break even next year on EBITDA front, and plywood possibly would break even by the end of this year?
Chipboard, clearly, I think the way things are moving, we think we should be able to break even EBITDA in FY 2027. And ply also, again, we are very close. You see a little bit of more push on the numbers, then it should happen. Yes, it should be around there.
Ply, when you talk about break even, you talk for the FY [2027] as a whole, or possibly you talk by Q4 FY 2027 just for the quarter? On chipboard, any sense on FY 2027, you're talking H1 or H2? Last question, what has been the Ply loss for this quarter?
If you go one by one, obviously we can't say anything with certainty, but I think the revenues are going up each quarter more or less for plywood, and we are quite close to a break-even point at EBITDA level in plywood. Chipboard also, the endeavor will be to do it quicker. We just have to see how the business progresses. Versus Q1, EBITDA loss has reduced in Q2, chipboard too. I think at about 45%-50% utilization, we do EBITDA break even. We're now at about 36% utilization. You can run the numbers.
Yeah. Fair. Got it. What was the Ply loss for this quarter?
It's INR 5.8 crore.
5.8 crores. What is the reason not to report Ply loss in presentation which earlier you used to report?
This is actually too many things are coming in terms of that. There is nothing such not to put kind of a thing.
Okay.
Having said that, even for competition, they also report decorative veneers in the plywood segment itself. Yes, our addition is pouring in those. Most of the competition also discloses their flush door business or laminate flush door business in the plywood segment. It is not anything very different we are doing. Maybe just flooring gets added on, but otherwise, the plywood reporting segment is all kinds of plywood, decorative plywood, flush doors, laminate flush doors. We are more or less in the same line. Instead of product level, we are giving at the segment level because the number of products are increasing. We are putting on a segment level, which is like three segments mainly. We are doing at a segment level kind of thing.
Got it. Thank you, sir. That's it from my side.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Rudraksh Raheja from iThought Financial Consulting. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Am I audible?
Yes, please.
My question pertains to the laminate segment. Last quarter also, we have seen some revenue growth coming back, and this quarter also some 10%-11% growth in revenues. Could you give us an outlook on both domestic and international markets? What is generating this kind of a growth with segment?
Laminates, we're not doing anything very special. Actually, if you look at H1, the growth in laminates is 7.2% only. I think, yeah, okay, revenue grows about 7.2%. Yeah. Volume is also 6.7% [crosstalk]. 6.7%. I think it's more like a routine growth in laminates.
Sir, how do you see this going forward for the rest of the year or maybe next four quarters?
I think we should be able to, our endeavor is to keep growing the business the way it's done. I can't say much certainty, but at the overall level, we've said we should be able to grow 18%-20% at an organization consolidated level basis. I think we maintain that. I think laminates growth should also continue at the same or slightly maybe better pace versus what we did in H1.
Got it, sir. Sir, one thing on the U.S. tariffs front, the cost benefit that laminates had before tariffs, and if I compare it to the current situation when the U.S. has imposed the tariffs, could you help us understand if India still has that cost advantage that it used to have or?
The way to look at it is that of the increase, as far as we are concerned, our business in the U.S. is about, I think, 4%-5% of our export business, maybe 6%. That is just the number you should know. In terms of the increase of tariff, if you take the entire tariff increase, clearly the cost benefit will not be there unless it is a specified item by an architect ID. What we have done of the increase, which is impacted to us because we ship to a subsidiary, which then does custom clearance and ships to the customers, of the increase of 40% is something we are passing on to the market, and we are absorbing about 60% of the cost. We are obviously all hopeful that something gets resolved on the tariff issue.
If you take an entire 50%, then the cost competitiveness is not there.
Understood. So have we seen some capacities coming back in the U.S.? Have they started doing more production in-house or maybe outsourcing to some other countries?
I don't know with certainty, but if I talk about ourselves, in Q2, our sales to the U.S. has been maintained. I do hear in the market that local production has increased, and there are other countries who have been imposed with lower tariffs, like Turkey and maybe Italy and some other markets. I don't know with much certainty, but clearly other countries where tariff percentages are lower do get an opportunity to kind of win some more customers or get some market share.
Understood, sir. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Saurvik from Nuvama Wealth. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Congratulations on a great set of numbers. Continuing with the portion about export volumes, I was just looking at the laminates' export volume. They have increased sharply for both ply and YoY on a sequential basis. Continuing with what you said, do you think we should see a little bit of cooling off coming across?
When you say sharply, the value of exports has gone down sharply. I don't know which data are you referring to.
Volume specifically [crosstalk].
Okay. Okay. So only referring volume of Q2 will be something like a 12%-13% volume growth, but in Q1, we did not do so well. Are you referring Qo Q? Are you referring year-on-year? I think it is a routine. If you look at a six-month basis, we had about 6.5%-7% kind of a volume growth, which is more like normal course of doing business. I do not think anything has gone up sharply unless I am not able to understand what you are trying to ask.
No, that's [crosstalk].
You're talking about volume, right?
Yes.
Yeah [crosstalk]. So volume, year-on-year is on an H1 basis, 6.8%. In Q2, it's about 13.2%. Yeah.
Yes. Yes.
Okay. Fair enough. This is the nominal course of business, and we should probably just continue with the same run rate takes and not look at it at a quarterly basis.
Yeah. You can believe so. Because on a quarter-on-quarter, there can be some ups and downs can happen, but if you see more on a longer term, like H1 basis, it is 6%-7%. So I believe it's normal as of now.
Okay. Understood. Second point would be in terms of realization. We've seen a drop in realization for both plywood and our chipboard division. Is there any particular reason for it?
Sorry, your voice is not. About realization of particle board and ply. I want to explain that to you. In particle boards, there is no reduction in pricing because this was our second quarter of operation of the business. It is just a mix of orders between melamine chipboard and plain boards. I think it is still in the settling period. While melamine chipboard, in absolute volume, the numbers have been better than quarter one. Because, as you see, there has been a significant volume growth, we have had more plain board sales also in quarter two. It is just the value mix, which has kind of got a bit altered in percent, although in volumes, both the numbers have gone up. I think it will still take some time to settle this mix of melamine chipboard and plain chipboard.
I think for maybe a few more months or quarters, this might be a bit here and there, and then we'll kind of settle in here. That's on the chipboard. Even plywood, the realization has been down by, if I can see. It's a small difference. Again, some mix of orders. Because volume has gone up Qo Q by nearly 50-odd %, so it's again a mix of orders. Nothing to do with pricing. I think I see realization gone down by 1.3% precisely. It's more routine, actually. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Payal Shah from Billion Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes [crosstalk], please.
Yes [crosstalk]. Yeah. I have a few questions. First being, just wanted to understand how do you see our engineered wooden floor and door business going forward, and then how is the demand scenario?
The business is growing. Obviously, we wanted to grow at a faster pace. The door business has grown okay in terms of volume. Flooring has been a bit flattish in this quarter. I think it's like we're trying to do better each time. Yeah, like [some odd], but typically with hospitality, business is taking off, and multiple hotels, housing coming up in the country. We hope this gets better.
Okay. My next question is with respect to our chipboard segment. How do you see chipboard demand going forward? Do we have a good demand for chipboard in the international market? How is our pricing in chipboard business as compared to peers?
Again, it's a very open-ended question. Clearly, there is a market opportunity which exists in chipboard, and market opportunity exists to win more market share from the unorganized market and from chipboard manufacturers, and also win some business from the other panel products because at the price point, the quality, the physical performance, the dimensions which the chipboard product offers bring in more value for the customers. In general, it's not as if demand is more and the supply is less. I think we are winning market share from different segments. Also, with the large furniture manufacturing hopefully coming into India and furniture players expanding capacities in India, the demand for chipboard should go up because chipboard is the number one raw material as far as a panel product is concerned for furniture making, especially commercial furniture, which is offices and shop fit-outs, etc. Yes.
The demand, a market exists, but we have to still make our own place for our product, for our offering. As far as the international market is concerned, few markets will have some opportunity where there is a level playing field where other players also export into that market. There will be some opportunity there. As you probably are aware, freight is a very important factor in the chipboard business because it is voluminous and low value. Yes, it will not be as widespread as we have done in laminates business. It will be very specific to fewer geographies.
Understood [crosstalk], sir. Thank you so much for the elaborate answer. My last question is, how much revenue contribution do you see from laminates?
Laminates, H1, we've done about INR 1,200 crores. When you say revenue, like Q2, we've done about INR 650 crores-INR 658 crores odds. I think of our revenue, about 80% is laminates, right? It depends on how the other business scale up. I think laminates will still be a core part of the business.
Okay. That's quite concise. Thanks so much.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Bhavan Rupani from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Bhavan on this side. First question on laminates. You had mentioned about the brownfield optionality that we had. Currently, we are at 24 million sheets right now, and we are adding another 2 million sheets, right? What is the additional total capacity that we can add at our existing locations?
Space-wise, we can add multiple lines in Andhra Pradesh and in a factory in Gujarat. For these two lines, we don't need to do any civil construction also, because we've already built a larger space when we set up the factory. You can assume, but then the expansion process might involve civil construction in both the factory. From a land space, we can comfortably add another three lines in the Andhra Pradesh factory and maybe three- four lines in the Gujarat factory also. After these two lines, another nearly six-seven lines can also get added.
All right. And CapEx will be somewhere around INR 45 crores-INR 40 crore per line?
CapEx, if you do civil, might go up. Because for this line, we do not need civil. We do not need the energy plant. We do not need to construct a resin plant because we already built that in phase one. While it is looking attractive now, those investments have already been done earlier. It might, let's say, be in the range of, depending on what we do, about INR 45 crores-INR 50 crores in that going ahead.
All right. Sir, since we are running at almost 96% utilization at our laminates plant, do we see our volume growth limited in the near term as we peak near utilization, or do we have any plans for outsourcing?
No. So there's no plan for outsourcing because the product spec and the quality standards we need, we've tried in the past, doesn't work out. But since we have already announced expansion, and in the past also, we've been able to utilize plants at a higher level. So our sense is that we should be, we should be okay with the volume, but there could be a tightness for a few months maybe. But by and large, we should be under control.
What is the peak utilization that we can pull up, sir? More than 100?
It depends on the line. So let's say of the number of lines we have, in the past, we've gone up to 110% inflation also. I mean, 15% also, but I'm being corrected.
All right, sir. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you, friends. Thank you for taking up the time and attending the conference. In case you have any other query, you can reach out to us or SGA, our investor relation advisor. Thank you once again.
Thank you, everyone [crosstalk].
Thank you, everyone [crosstalk].
On behalf of Greenlam Industries Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.