Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Hindustan Unilever Limited Conference Call for the results for June quarter, ended 30th June, 2023. 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. A. Ravis hankar, Group Controller and Head of Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Yashashree. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the conference call of Hindustan Unilever Limited. We will be covering today the results of the quarter ended 30th June, 2023. On the call with me is Rohit Jawa, CEO and Managing Director, and Ritesh Tiwari, CFO. We will start with prepared remarks from Rohit and Ritesh, which I expect to take around 20 minutes, leaving us about an hour for our Q&A session at the end. Before we get started with the presentation, I would like to draw your attention to the safe harbor statement included in the presentation for good order sake. With that, over to you, Rohit.
Thanks, Ravi. Good evening, everyone. I'm delighted to be here for my first earnings call as the CEO and Managing Director of this great company. I look forward to engaging with all of you. Since I have come on board in April as CEO designate, I've been spending time reconnecting with the business and meeting our people, consumers, and customers. It has helped me to better understand our purpose-led, future-fit business, our winning strategy, and our distinctive capabilities. While so much has changed in the business over the years, what remains constant is our values, our belief that what is good for India is good for HUL, and the high-quality talent that we have in the company. I've had the opportunity to also witness firsthand the on-ground impact that we have created through our working communities across the country. I'm very proud of that.
We've delivered this quarter a resilient and competitive performance, which was again marked by challenging operating environment. Let me now hand over to Ritesh to cover our results in detail. I will then come back to share my perspectives about the operating environment and our outlook. Ritesh, over to you.
Yeah. Thank you, Rohit. Good evening, everyone. I will begin with FMCG market context. Then cover our quarter performance in detail. Starting with market growth for HUL relevant categories, we are seeing a gradual recovery in market volumes, with aggregate volume growth now at mid-single digits. Urban markets continue to lead the growth for FMCG. Rural market volume, which at one point was declining in double-digit, has just turned positive in this quarter. Having said that, we need to be cognizant that these growth have come on back of volume decline in June quarter, 2022. If we were to look at market growth on a two-year CAGR basis, total volume growth is still marginally negative, with rural volumes declining at 4%. With most commodities remaining stable, the year-on-year inflation continued to moderate. There are, however, two call-outs that I would like to highlight.
First, within our portfolio, we do see some divergence in commodity trends. Input materials for home care and BPC, like crude and palm derivatives, remain benign, whilst FNR commodities like coffee, cereals, and cleaning powder continue to witness high levels of inflation year-on-year. Second, as we said earlier, we need to be mindful that most commodities continue to be level higher than their historical averages. With this moderation in year-on-year inflation, we have seen more players passing on benefits of lower input costs to consumers. This is reflected in a sequential reduction in the price growth that we see in the market, albeit it being in high single digits. In anticipation of lower prices, we are seeing trade reducing the stock levels by one to three days.
As we highlighted earlier, there's a time lag between companies taking price reductions and consumers experiencing the benefit of lower prices due to trade pipeline stocks. This is seen in Nielsen optic data, where price growth is in high single-digit. Volumes will recover gradually due to high levels of cumulative inflation that consumers are facing, and the fact that consumption habits typically recover with a lag. With softening in input costs, we are witnessing increased competitive intensity in the market. If you look at media deployment, which saw a steep reduction during high inflation period, has started normalizing and is now at 95% of June quarter 2019. With increasing share of digital spends in AMP, one can anticipate that the overall media deployment is now very similar to the pre-COVID levels.
We are also seeing the resurgence of small and regional players in select categories and price points, many of whom had vacated the market during peak of inflation. In this backdrop, HUL delivered a resilient all-round performance. Our underlying sales grew 7%, with an underlying volume growth of 3%. Both these measures strip out the impact of disposals of our salt and atta business. Talking about our bottom-line performance, EBITDA margin at 23.6% remained healthy and improved 40 bps year-on-year. I will cover the details of EBITDA movement in a subsequent slide. Profit after tax, before exceptional items, at INR 2,500 crores, was up 9%. Net profit at INR 2,472 crores increased 8% year-on-year.
Slightly higher levels of restructuring costs explains the difference between net profit and PAT BI growth. Talking about our market share performance, our growth was competitive with more than 75% of our business winning market share, both value and volume. Premium portfolio continues to lead growth for us, and this reflects in higher share gain in this part of the portfolio. As I said earlier, we are seeing a resurgence of small regional players due to moderating commodity prices. Consequently, there are certain pockets of our portfolio, primarily in mass segment and specific regions, where we have seen dip in our market shares. However, on an aggregate basis, our shares are ahead of what it was pre-inflation. On a two-year basis, we continue to significantly outperform the market with our sales CAGR at 13% and our UVG CAGR of 5%.
Moving on to performance across our three segments. Home care delivered yet another quarter of robust performance and grew 10% on a very strong base. Beauty and personal care delivered a volume-led growth of 4%. Foods and refreshment grew 5%. Margins in all three segments remain healthy, with home care at 18%, BPC at 26%, and FNR at 18%. This time, we have included information on segment and category level UVG, which we normally do not disclose. We have done this to help you better appreciate our volume performance, especially with the divergence in operating context of each division. Both home care and BPC delivered a mid-single-digit UVG, while FNR had a near flat UVG. Let me give you some more color on our UVG performance across the various categories.
As you can see, all categories in home care continue to have strong volume growth. Household care had a double-digit volume growth, while laundry grew in mid-single digit. Moving on to BPC. Skincare and color cosmetics had a high single-digit volume growth, driven by POND'S, Lakmé, and Vaseline. Hair and oral care had a mid-single-digit volume growth. Skin cleansing UVG was in low single digit. When it comes to FNR, we continued to grow volume ahead of the market. Volumes in foods, HFD, and coffee were impacted due to price increases taken to cover the input cost inflation. Ice cream had a very high base last year and was also impacted by the unseasonal rains in April. In summary, home care and BPC, which constitutes 75% of our business, is growing volumes in mid to high single-digit range.
Hopefully, this helps you better understand our volume growth trajectory and the divergence we have seen between categories. For the sake of abundant clarity, we don't intend to make this a standard disclosure. Talking about our innovations for this quarter. Surf excel Matic liquid was relaunched with a superior cleaning formulation and new packaging. Comfort perfume wardrobe hanger is a line extension from our fabric enhancer brand, Comfort. This ensures the wardrobe and clothes in it remain fresh and fragrant. Dove Men+Care two-in-one shampoo plus conditioner was launched in three variants: thick and strong, anti-dandruff, and fresh and clean. Pureit has launched a new range of water purifier, Revito, with best-in-class filtration technology, independently certified for heavy metal removal and gives higher water recovery of up to 70%.
Indulekha has extended its franchise into skin cleansing with Indulekha soap, an Ayurvedic proprietary medicine, which is clinically proven to help repair visible signs of skin damage like dark spots, uneven skin tone, and acne marks. Expanding its product line further, Knorr introduced a range of Chinese sauces: green chili, red chili, and dark soy sauce. The perfect choice for restaurant-like Chinese at home. Horlicks biscuit was relaunched in South India as a millet-based biscuit. We are using the power of two millets, ragi and sorghum, with whole wheat to create a special millet biscuit. Vim launched an all-new product called Vim Shudhham for brass and copper vessels in easy-to-use format of gel and spray. On the occasion of World Social Media Day, Brooke Bond Red Label launched a beautiful film called Red Label, India's favorite social network, reminding that chai is India's original social network.
Building further on its purpose of owning chores, Vim's new activation, Apne Bartan Apne Aap, is a call to action to men and society to own the chores. Moving on to our performance in home care. This was another solid quarter for home care, with strong performance in both fabric wash and household care. Revenues grew 10% with mid-single-digit volume growth. Fabric wash delivered double-digit growth, led by premium portfolio. Household care had double-digit value and volume growth, led by outperformance in dishwash. Talking about beauty and personal care, our business delivered 4% revenue growth with mid-single-digit UVG. Skin cleansing had a modest volume-led growth, with Lux and Hamam continuing to outperform. Benefit of lower input costs were passed on to consumers through pricing actions taken in the quarter. Hair care delivered mid-single-digit UVG, led by TRESemmé, Indulekha, and Clinic Plus.
Skincare and color cosmetics grew double-digit on back of strong performance in the premium portfolio. We continue to build our skincare portfolio in high-growth demand spaces through innovations and further scale-up of our digital brands. Oral care delivered a strong double-digit growth, led by Closeup. Let me now turn to foods and refreshment. FNR grew 5%. Starting with tea, the category continued to witness consumer downgrading due to high inflation in premium teas, vis-a-vis loose tea. Overall, the business delivered a modest volume-led growth in the quarter. Coffee grew in mid-single-digits, led by driving. Health food drinks had a good quarter, with both Horlicks and Boost performing well. Foods grew in mid-single-digits, led by strong performance in ketchup and food solution. Ice cream delivered mid-single-digit growth on an exceptionally high base. Ice cream consumption was impacted due to unseasonal rains in the quarter.
Softening commodities, coupled with our sharp focus on savings and ensuring the right price value equation to consumers, has led to our gross margin improving 140 bps sequentially, taking it to 49.2%. As I mentioned earlier, media intensity has increased in the market. We have stepped up our A&P investments to keep our share of voice ahead of share of market and ensure our brands are well supported. A&P spend in this quarter was higher by 110 bps versus March quarter 2023. This is an additional investment of almost INR 200 crores. Summarizing our performance for this quarter, we had a resilient top line and bottom-line delivery. I've already covered most of the lines, but let me give you a quick highlight on a few other items.
Our other expenses was up year-over-year due to step up of investment in building capabilities and impact of the new royalty and central services arrangement. There was also a favorable impact on the base due to phasing of costs. Our ETR for the quarter was 26.5%. We expect this to come down slightly on a full year basis. I would like to remind you that our ETR in financial year 2023, what was positively benefited due to prior period tax adjustments. Speaking about progress made on some of our key sustainability initiatives, HUL, in partnership with HSBC and BMC, has established 12 Suvidha centers in Mumbai, which provide safe sanitation facilities to 3 lakh people in low-income communities annually. During the quarter, we signed a strategic partnership with JSW Foundation to establish 10 new Suvidha centers in Mumbai.
These new centers will save 300 million liters of water over a decade and will run on solar energy. In association with Genpact, we launched Be.Seen, an accelerator program to help scale businesses owned by minority and underrepresented groups in India. This program aligns our ESG goal of increasing procurement from diverse businesses. FICCI has set up a center for sustainability leadership with HUL as the founding member. The center aims to help accelerate India Inc's climate action in line with government's net zero commitment embodied in the Panchamrit framework. Let me now move on to our near-term outlook. The situation on weather front remains erratic. We have seen unseasonal rains, heat waves, and a delayed monsoon. El Niño has set in early, which could impact latter parts of monsoon. While monsoon has picked up pace of late, special variation persists.
We have seen unfortunate floods in parts of the country. Consequently, cropping, especially of rice and pulses, seem to have been impacted. High reservoir levels and better agri infrastructure should hopefully contain the impact. On non-agri front, we are seeing mixed trends. While Manrega demand remains high, remittances to rural have improved. Looking at demand from consumer lens, we should be mindful that consumers are still facing high levels of cumulative inflation. As you saw earlier, due to pipeline stocks, they are consuming higher price inventory, and hence the volume recovery will continue to be gradual. Clearly, the operating environment remains volatile, and we should be watchful of how these variables pan out. In this context, we will continue to manage our business with agility and take actions to ensure long-term profitable growth which is consistent, competitive, profitable, and responsible.
Speaking specifically about outlook for next couple of quarters, price growth will tail off further with lapping of high prices in the base and sequential price reductions. If commodities remain where they are, we expect our price growth to be near flat or marginally negative. With inflation moderating, the competitive intensity is likely to go up further. We remain focused on providing superior value to our consumers, building back our gross margins, and investing competitively behind our brands. With this, we expect to sustain our volume growth momentum. With this, I complete my prepared remarks, and let me pass on to Rohit for his perspectives.
Thanks, Ritesh. Let me start with my perspective of this quarter's performance. I'll summarize this as another good quarter for HUL, delivering consistent, competitive, profitable, and responsible growth. On a high base, we grew 7%, equally balanced between price and volume. We have stepped up our gross margin and increased A&P investment behind our brands. Our business fundamentals remain strong. More than 75% of our business is winning shares and gaining penetration. Our brand power scores are looking healthy, product security is significantly better, and we continue to make good progress on our long-term strategic priorities. We have a clear and compelling strategy that has delivered strong results for us. Let me now turn to the operating context and our outlook. I'm pleased to see that commodities, which have a few quarters back were at record levels, have now corrected and inflation is moderating.
Market volumes are recovering, although gradually to the country. El Niño has settled early, and hence that could impact the latter part of the monsoon. Clearly, the operating environment continues to remain volatile. In this context, we will continue to manage our business dynamically, provide superior value to our consumers, and invest behind our brands and future-fit capabilities. Notwithstanding these near-term concerns, I remain confident and positive about the mid to long-term outlook for FMCG sector in India and ensures growth prospects. Our focus remains on delivering 4G growth. I now hand over to Ravi to commence the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, Rohit. Thank you, Ritesh. We will now move to Q&A session. We request you to kindly restrict the number of questions to a maximum of two at a time, so that we are able to address questions of more participants. In case you do have any further questions, feel free to join the queue again. In addition to audio, as usual, our participants have an option to pose the questions through the web option on your screen. I'd like to hand the call back to Yashashree to manage the next session for us.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have our first question from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. I have two questions. My first question is on the impact of palm oil price cost correction. When I see the biscuit companies and the other listed soap company, there we are seeing very strong gross margin and EBITDA margin expansion on year-over-year basis for the past few quarters or maybe for one or two quarters. When I see your Q1 number in terms of the beauty and personal care, the margins are almost stable. I wanted to understand if you are being more aggressive in skin cleansing in terms of advertising spends and promotion or giving back to the customer, why it's not visible in terms of the volume growth? Is there a lagged impact? Supposing you are more aggressive currently, does it mean that later you will get that benefit?
Thanks, Abneesh. Let me pick it up. Overall, let me start at the aggregate level. Of course, there are different cycles of commodity. If you look at aggregate numbers for Hindustan Unilever, there are commodities like palm to the point that you made, crude oil and Indian Rupee, which has by and large, remained stable, are factors which has led overall inflation to moderate. Equally, at a total company level, we also have consumer professional business, where coffee, milk, barley, are materials which are significantly inflated. When you look at total company level, you will just ensure that you have looked at both the elements put together. At the peak of September quarter 2022, of inflation, at that point in time, we had seen a 600 bps impact to our gross margin.
Again, as you know, across industry, this was a better performance where our price versus cost lead was lower than many other players. From that front of 600 bps, we have already recovered 400 bps of gross margin in last three quarters between December quarter, March quarter and June quarter. A good portion of this 400 bps gross margin that we have improved over last three quarters has gone behind AMP. AMP was roughly 7% in for us three quarters back, and now as you see, it's almost 10%. We have dialed up 300 bps of investment. Of course, where required, we did lean in with price reduction, with more amount of grammage to be filled back.
We will see the impact of these changes, the point that Rohit articulated earlier, that we should see impact of these changes in consumer behavior and volumes in times to come. Typically, this takes two to three quarters for the whole thing to stabilize. When we do price cuts and price changes, it goes to trade. Trade has high price inventory. They liquidate that first, and it goes to consumer. Consumers also have pantry stock at home, which typically will be higher price, bought earlier. When that inventory in the pipeline clears up, consumers start experiencing lower priced product. Of course, after that, we expect them to start changing their behavior and start to consume more. This transition typically takes two to three quarters, and we've seen that, Abneesh, in the past as well.
If I go back a decade ago, for example, laundry in 2012 and 2013, similar conversation. A year later in tea, 2014, 2015, similar conversation. Even if I go back, say, 2008 and 2009, similar conversation for skin cleansing. Each of this period, we have seen substantial inflation, post that as commodities came down, we saw it took two to three quarters for consumption levels to start to recover. We expect it similar this time as well.
Sure, that was helpful. Just one follow-up on that. I understood, you explained on an overall basis, the gross margins are getting, flowed back. My specific question was on the beauty and personal care. There, why we are not seeing, the margin expansion in terms of the EBIT? Because clearly, skin cleansing would have seen a very strong margin expansion. Here my specific question is, in terms of the palm oil inventory, would you be a bit, more in terms of the pricing versus, say, some of the other players? And in terms of your non-skin cleansing beauty, personal care, how is the cost inflation there? That math, I'm still, not able to understand.
Yeah. Abneesh, both elements. Element of, A, price actions in skin cleansing, B, dialing up AMP in skin cleansing, and equally dialing up investments behind other categories within beauty and personal care. You've seen the impacts of those. For example, we grew in double digits, skin care and color cosmetics. We had good volume growth in hair care, oral care, and those are the examples where the investments that we have done in AMP across BPC categories, we are seeing impact of it coming in. Of course, overall, one of the charts you saw me presenting, media intensity has gone up. It's almost back to 2019 levels. It's a summation of, A, we have increased gross margin.
In fact, a large portion of gross margin of 400 bps has come from categories which got impacted in the first place, through commodity, be it laundry or be it skin cleansing. Hence, recovery also has been led on gross margin on those categories. It's a combination of a mix of between inflation impact, gross margin improvement, and investing in A&P behind categories.
Sure. My last question is on oral care. You have also done well. Our sense is, the other two players listed are also doing well. What's the reason for all three players doing well? Is it a market share loss for the unlisted player? Second is, when you see the recovery in the oral care versus some of your other personal care business, is there any difference in terms of the consumer behavior which is driving this?
No, oral care, I remember one of the conversations we've spoken for the last few quarters, the amount of work we have done with Closeup. Our performance, as we speak in this quarter, has been driven by Closeup. Closeup has seen good traction with consumers, and our activations have worked pretty well, and so is innovation. We are seeing the benefit of that in terms of overall growth that we see in oral care. Oral care as a category, you can imagine, is a highly penetrated category. Of course, there's a job to be done in terms of increasing the brushing location. That's a longer-term job to be done. The overall price realization, the kind of distribution that we've done and the innovation activation put together, we have seen Closeup, basically, driving the growth of oral care overall for us.
Thanks. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Vivek M from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, Rohit. Congratulations, .
Hi, Vivek.
Hi, two questions. You know, first, a broader question to you, Rohit. HUL is a very well-run company, but, you know, in the last few months that you have spent here, where do you think there are still some gaps that you have identified and you wanna work on from a next 12-month perspective? If you can elaborate on that would be useful.
Yeah, I think, thanks a lot, Vivek, for the question, and happy to speak to you and hope to work again also in the future together. To your question, I have now, you know, been immersed last few months as a designator around the business, meeting, you know, different customers, our teams, also the branches, and I've been to factory, too. I have a sense of really how the business is and seen the impact on the ground. First of all, let me just say that clearly, it is a great business with very, very sound fundamentals. I have come back after two decades, but I must say I'm very proud of the scale and the quality of the talent we have.
I'm very proud of the impact we make in the communities who are doing good mission. Equally, I'm also impressed with the portfolio and the quality and the discipline of our operations, our supply chain team. By and large, I would say we have a fundamentally very strong business that's well poised for growth in the long-term story of India, which, as you know, is very exciting. We have very strong position, and we should be able to leverage and exploit that, to grow our company to the next level. Doing that, by, you know, fulfilling our mission of what's good for India is good for HUL. I feel quite good. It's coherent and in good place.
Of course, as we look forward, you know, the country is at a moment of big inflection. We all know the opportunity, the macro tailwinds that are supporting the market. There are lots of changes. The clock speed of the country has gone up. We see the transformation on what we need to do on portfolio, in channels, also deepening our sustainability and of course, our distinct capabilities and taking them to the next level, such as Winning in Many Indias, which I believe is a very, very strong moat. The digitization agenda, which must go to the next level, especially when it comes to our, you know, eB2B platforms like Shikhar. I see more opportunities than gaps, to be honest, and I think I'm in that sense, quite optimistic.
I do feel, of course, that there will be some jobs to be done like any other business, whether it's to drive, you know, the opportunity of portfolio in skincare or to get more and more growth in our health food drinks business, or for that matter, you know, also expand the opportunity we have in the consumer packaged foods business, which again, is quite a promising space. All in all, I feel pretty optimistic, and really it's about us to leverage and exploit the opportunity than to actually fill any gaps.
Great. Rohit, one follow-up to that, you know, two portfolios, I want to know your specific views. One is, you know, the HFD category, you know, and my estimate is that this quarter it would have declined probably mid-single digits in volume terms, and since the acquisition, we have seen, this portfolio, you know, probably performing lower than what the expectations were. The other bit is beauty and personal care. You know, on the, on the laundry side, you have done a phenomenal job over the last decade, but beauty and personal care still has been somewhat, you know, lower than what the expectations would have been. What are your views or problem areas in both these portfolios? Any specific views on this?
Yeah, if you pull back and let's take one of the, one by one, the two of them that you mentioned, I will ask Ritesh as well to help me to support my thinking. If you look at basically the health food drinks, it is bang on the sweet spot of the portfolio that works for Hindustan Unilever. It is purposeful because it serves to fill the deficiency in macronutrients. It has huge opportunity, it has space for growth because only a quarter of our households use it. It has got a very wide footprint where we could drive synergies in distribution and supply chain, which we have. It is at the moment, on business case, when it comes to the cash cumulative generation, there is a job to be done when it comes to top line, and here it is a little bit more nuanced.
Some parts of the HFD portfolio are showing growth already, so I would say that like Boost and some of our more premium clinical-based parts of the portfolio are on tailwinds. When it comes to the more of the core, which is where the heart of the business is, it has been impacted over the last few years by inflation in milk, but also in its basic cost, and that does impact consumption in the heartlands. That said, we do see penetration growing, we do see market shares growing. In that sense, therefore, the business, I believe, is poised for growth, and we have to see this more in the long term. I'm absolutely convinced that this is a great fit. It's in the sweet spot and heartland of our what we do well.
What we now need to do is to make sure we get the relevance increased, and we have done that. We made attempts, and for instance, our advertising has gone back to the core proposition of sharper. Our packing is being improved, we're activating it and sampling it quite aggressively. We'll stay the course. We keep driving the core up in its relevance. We'll keep driving the value up through value-add variants and building the portfolio widely. It's a big brand, and I'm very hopeful that in the years to come, this will prove to be a very, very good part of our portfolio. I'll stop there on the HFD part. That's really how I feel about HFD.
I think this quarter, for what it's worth, we grew 10%, largely through price, but this is one of the better quarters we've had, and We'll see how the future shapes up, but in the medium to long term, we feel confident about the business, and we're on it. When it comes to the BPC side, well, it's more specifically on the beauty care and personal care, the two parts of that business, I think we have a very high market stance, where the relative market shares are high. If you take skincare, it's 4x. On hair, we have a 55 odd share. On skin cleansing, we are the largest player. Oral care, we've talked about that, Closeup is doing quite well.
If you look at it, we are in a very, very strong position, and the per capita consumption of all of these categories is low. There's huge opportunity for market development, category growth, and also, of course, huge opportunity for up-trading, because consumers in beauty, in hair care, and even personal wash, are willing to upgrade to better formats. Specifically speaking, we already start to see in skin cleansing growth in our body wash liquids, you know, it's doubling, but it's a small base. We, you know, 10 years down the line, that's gonna be a very large share of our total skin cleansing. We feel quite confident about the trends we're seeing in our skincare portfolio, especially the premium end, with POND'S, with Lakmé.
We see tailwinds there, and we see growth coming in and higher return on investment. As far as hair is concerned, I think we have a beautiful portfolio, right from Clinic Plus all the way up to TRESemmé, and we will keep expanding that to serve the needs of consumers at all ends of the market. Hair, again, is a beautiful market to be in high margin, high growth. All in all, I feel that, yes, it's true that home care has been a star performer over the last decade. That said, we do have two very large parts of our portfolio, BPC and food, and only, there's only opportunity for us to leverage and do the right moves on.
I'm confident that as we go forward, we'll see these components also delivering value creation to our company as they have done previously as well. Is that? I hope that is a comprehensive response to your two questions, Vivek. Indeed, it was quite detailed. Thank you so much, Rohit, for that. Second, one quick, very small question on other expenses. Ritesh, while you mentioned 20% and, you know, royalty impacts, despite that, is there any one-off sitting in that numbers, Ritesh?
We did have one-off in the base period, Vivek, so hence year-on-year, when you look at it, you will see the impact of coming in. If you look at sequentially, what we had number of other expenses in the previous quarter, March quarter, is very similar. The only item, as I mentioned, A, the impact of royalty, which has gotten now booked in this quarter, and hence year-on-year, that royalty and central expenses, that has gone up. Apart from that and impact on the base of one-off expense, by and large, what has changed year-on-year basis on that line.
Plus, we also have stepped-up investment in capabilities, Vivek, and that expense also basically shows the amount of investment that we have to bring into different parts of the business to dial up capabilities. It's a conscious choice we've done to lean in on that front as well. Those are three reasons put together why you see other expenses of where they are.
Suffice to say, Vivek, we do drive across length and breadth of the P&L, of a savings agenda, be it trade promotions, be it supply chain costs, be it other costs, and we ensure that we are able to balance between generation of savings and then deployment of savings, be it on capabilities in overhead, in other expenses, or be it on advertising sales promotion, to dial up, as media intensity goes up. That's how we end up managing the P&L across lines.
Got it. Thank you very much, wishing you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you, Vivek.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, team. Rohit, just to continue the question that Vivek asked, in terms of what will be your priorities going ahead. One of the things I wanted to sort of put forth to you is the skin cleansing portfolio. I mean, if I look at it over a fairly long period of time, like around 15 years or so, there has been significant market share erosion in this. Just wanted to understand, I mean, what is the reason why this has happened, and what are we planning to do in order to sort of stem this decline and reverse it?
Yeah, maybe Ritesh can respond to the more near term, and then I'll come back on how I see the category.
Yeah. Let me pick up skin cleansing, then I'll hand over to Rohit on the question you asked on long term, how does Rohit see in terms of overall evolution of FMCG. Skin cleansing, we did call out Percy. Yeah, if I look at last more than a decade, our shares are lower compared to what it was, let me say, a decade or 15 years ago. Some parts of that have been portfolio choices, where a part of the segment, which was not making profit and at the lower end, we did vacate that part. That was one reason. There were also competitive reasons where we lost shares in the initial part of the decade, and we had called out. The learnings we had were two.
Number one, product superiority, and number two, dialing up the rigor of Winning in Many Indias. These are the exact two things that we deployed in skin cleansing, where our proportions, Lux, for example, the way we sell Lux in North, East and South is different. The fragrance, the proportion and the overall mix that gets sold. We dialed up WiMI in skin cleansing as number one broad action. Number two, we dialed up big time product superiority, as I mentioned earlier. Both these elements of action put together gave us good results, which is why in last couple of years, our we grew ahead of the market and also gained shares. That has been the skincare, skin cleansing journey over the last 10, 15 years. The focus remains.
In short term, the focus for skin cleansing is very simple and clear: maintain competitive price value equation while it's doing the job. As Rohit mentioned earlier, there are vectors like body wash. We want to ensure that that starts growing. That's our one of the market development cells. How do we accelerate growth of segments like that? Maintain price value equation, dial up market development part of the portfolio, and keep doing the job of ensure that we segment the market as Winning in Many Indias, and then keep looking at the growth opportunities appropriately. That, I would say, will summarize skin cleansing, but let me pass over to Rohit on long-term overall trends and growth.
Yes, thanks, Ritesh. To your question, Percy, skin cleansing is a heartland of our business. You know, we've all grown up in this company selling Lifebuoy. You know, that is really close to all of us. I think there are three. I think over a medium to long term, the skin cleansing consumption, because per capita consumptions are low, is going to grow up both in terms of volume and value, because just the sheer nature of the secular trend. We need, as the market leaders, our job is to really grow the market, and the market that is going to happen on the market that was. I see three big levers for us to follow.
Number one, given that we are almost a billion-dollar business there, our first job is to play the portfolio smartly, which is through price segments and through benefit segments. We have really good brands, as you know, right from Lifebuoy, Lux, Dove, Pears, Hamam, Indulekha now as well, entering the sort of soap segment. First job is to make sure we play the full portfolio, and make sure that we are smart when it comes to price value equations, Winning in Many Indias, pretty much what Ritesh spoke. The second point of emphasis is on premiumization, because consumers are upgrading. We do see that on growth rates and, for instance, in our premium part of the portfolio, where Pears and Dove have shown smart growth, and we expect that to continue, so in urban areas, for instance.
That's the second driver. The third driver of value is new formats and regimes. Even though it's quite small, the shower gels, 2% are growing, are doubling. You know, they still get close to the 20% mark in the medium term, because that's where what happens to liquids when they become accessible, very close to, you know, soaps in terms of cost per wash. We expect liquids to grow, including regimes like, you know, scrubs and bath and shower experiences. There's a lot of growth that exists in basically getting consumers to expand and upgrade their shower experiences. That's really how I see, very optimistic, and we'll continue to drive the innovation and our portfolio to leverage these three drivers that I mentioned.
Right. My second question is a little bit more on the near term. You mentioned in your PPT that soon the pricing growth will become flat or even negative on a YY basis.
Yeah.
In light of this, how do you see the volume responding? How do you see the overall sales growth in light of this? In the longer term, HUL has done a high single digit, 9% type of overall sales growth. Do you think that with the pricing being flat, this number is at risk? Or do you think that the volume growth would pick up to a high single digit in the second half to sort of keep the overall revenue growth in line with the longer term average? If you think that is the case, then what really will drive that change from a 4%-5% or a 3%-4% to an 8%-9% kind of a number?
Let me pick it up, Percy. See, overall, let me start with market to start with. This quarter, as we speak, market grew volume in mid-single digit. Same period last year, market had declined volumes by 6%. Hence, one of the things we spoke on the chart, when you look at a two-year number, CAGR, market volumes are roughly flat over two years. As HUL is concerned, we had 6% volume growth same period last year, and a further 3% growth this year. Over two years, we've grown at 5% our volumes. Volume trajectory is very strong and robust in comparison to where markets are growing.
Hence, that's also the reason, Percy, why over a two-year period, we have substantial outperformance compared to the market, and hence we also gained corporate market share in last two years, substantially. That's number one. Number two, when I look at in short term, here and now, market is in transition. The point I was mentioning to Abneesh earlier, that whenever you see substantial increase in commodity costs and then commodity costs comes off, it takes two, three quarters for market volumes to recover. If trade does destocking, and we have seen across categories, anywhere from one to three days, traders destock, because they do want to ensure that they are able to get out the high-priced inventory before they source and they stock up lower-priced inventory. Consumers, of course, end up experiencing the lower-priced inventory a little later.
You also see the divergence between the price growth that we, as a business, we declare. This quarter, we spoke about 4% price growth our business, by and large, which is coming off the price that we've taken in the previous period. Market had shown a price growth of this, in this quarter of 8%. There's always a lag between what we end up doing as businesses and what market ends up showing. This transition, and I was quoting 3 periods, yeah, 2012 and 2013, laundry; year after, tea; if you go back, 2007 and 2008, in terms of skin cleansing. Each of these period, we saw two, three quarters, so market will be in transition, and the volume recovery of the market will be gradual.
In short term, as we speak, this will be the reality in terms of overall gradual volume recovery of the market. Price growth, in short term, we called out that if commodities remain where they are, I do expect our price growth to be either flat or marginally negative. The growth for next two quarters will be fully led by volume. Of course, this is a transitory period. You know, long term, FMCG industry grows by both volume and price. Once the cyclical trends settle in. Of course, that's anybody's guess, when the price stable commodity settle in. We have called out at the peak of inflation, even in September 2022, that commodities are cyclical in nature. Ultimately, high price impacts demand, high demand impacts price, and they do normalize the curves.
This is why we did see that the inflation started moderating of any commodity which had significant amount of inflation. With that getting, let me say, stabilized, hopefully, in near to medium terms, post some quarters, we should start seeing this equilibrium coming back. Coming back, which was a high price growth situation, which was there, let me say, last year in several quarters, situation now where, as I mentioned, next couple of quarters, we do see volume leading growth. Hopefully, if commodities do stabilize, hopefully, industry goes back to what its long-term trends are. Roughly 1/3 or 40% comes from price, and what about 2/3 or 60% comes from volume. That equilibrium should start getting established. Price did lead growth. You've seen our overall numbers in last year as well.
We had, last financial year, we had roughly 11%, 12% pricing. That pricing is no more there for next couple of quarters, and hence, overall amount of absolute growth, to your point, will be very different, and growth will be led by volume. How much volume we sell, as I mentioned, depends upon this transition, how quickly it settles in across different parts of the country and across different categories. Of course, external environment we spoke about, be it rural demand or for that matter, be it weather-related uncertainties. We have to put all that into mix, in summary, I do see next couple of quarters to be in transition.
Right, Ritesh. Thanks very much. That's all from me. Thanks, and all the best.
Thanks, Percy. Appreciate it.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Manoj Menon from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. I know that there's maybe two questions, but allow me to ask three. You know, team, basically, the first one is actually on the, you know, the inflation part of it from a consumer lens. You know, it's been. Ritesh, first of all, I want to thank you for, you know, making it very clear about the interplay between inflation and the volume price elasticity, how the consumer, you know, sees it. Rohit, actually, from your global experience, you know, if you could actually call out a few, you know, examples or learnings actually on, let's say, how the interplay plays out.
We are in a unique situation in India, where from a consumer staples industry point of view, where, you know, you've actually seen material inflation in the last couple of years versus, let's say, which is not the case from a consumer lens, you know, five, six years prior to that. You know, so how do you see actually this, you know, I don't want to call it deflation, but let's say, lower inflation or deflation, you know, from a consumer lens? That's, that's question number one. Second, actually, on the GSK part of it, the nutrition part of it, you know, how do you see actually the issues which you have, you know, as a company in terms of solving the consumer problems?
The third is, you know, it's more of an observation than a question. When you look at more of the listed space in consumer staples, in India currently, you know, it appears that most companies are trying to solve the problem in the premium end, not necessarily at the bottom of the pyramid. You know, let me explain that. For example, At least I don't hear from any listed consumer, you know, staple company talking about, let's say, solving the or rather, creating the next Fair & Lovely or the Glow & Lovely or the Veil.
Three questions. Thank you.
I think I'll pick on the last one, on premiumization.
Yeah. Let me pick up the inflation on the GSK point. Inflation, I think good reflection, Manoj, you are posing. If you look at market price growth, FMCG, over two years, we've seen overall as an industry, there has been 22% price increase. This is substantial, which is why the impact on volumes is no surprise. The point I mentioned earlier, a 5% volume growth on the back of a 6% volume decline of the industry, and hence, two-year CAGR being flat on volume front. That has been impact of these categories. In the meantime, we did see this got more pronounced at the beginning of the inflation on discretionary categories.
Mass skincare got impacted, health food drinks got impacted, where the bite was higher. Consumers basically did more prioritization on kitchen inflation, hence kitchen essentials, they did dial back on discretionary category. Then I spoke the point earlier of elasticity. We do see this coming up in terms of in next couple of quarters, we do see a gradual recovery happening in overall consumption trends. Overall, if I see within the portfolio, skincare, if I look at skin cleansing, hair, laundry, bulk of the commodities which impact these parts of the portfolio have seen moderation. Of course, the point still remains over 2 years, there is cumulative inflation, but it has seen moderation. Income levels to some extent have caught up.
Rural demand to some extent has got supported because of this inflation getting moderated. Equally, the job now has to be on driving more volume and driving more consumption. That remains the focus area for us. Keeping aside the price elasticity of these categories, the job of in medium to long term on market development, on making the portfolio more premium, on entering high demand spaces, that remains the fundamental for us. Product superiority, driving WiMI, that remains the fundamental for us, and that's the playbook in terms of driving growth in the business. That's basically overall the inflation playbook. The point I was mentioning earlier, there are still parts of the portfolio, milk, cereals, bottled barley in this case, and coffee, substantial inflation we have seen in these commodities.
Like, I'm hoping, like, food, like, vegetable oil, these also will be cyclical in nature, and these commodities will start deflating in times to come. There's always an interaction of price inflation and demand for these commodities. That interplay we have seen in India, we've seen across the world in many markets, emerging markets. At least in India, we don't have a large interplay on currency this point in time. We've seen in many international markets, Latin American markets, currency ends up playing a very large implication on overall inflation and hence price tables. Indian rupee, after having, I would say to some extent, depreciated last year, over last six to eight months time, it has remained pretty stable, and that has helped overall inflation in the economy.
If I come to GSK, there have been multiple jobs that we had to do, as I was articulating earlier. We had a job of integration, which the job has been pretty well executed. Go-to-market has got fully integrated, business has been onboarded. We had a job to be done in terms of correcting the price value equation. We launched overall sachets and to ensure that we're able to increase access to sachets and small price point pack. That job we have ended up doing. Market development at scale.
Almost last year, we spoke about 45 million plus home-to-home contacts to ensure that we're able to educate on the benefits of health food drink, where the food palette, by and large, is carbohydrate-heavy and micronutrient deficient, how Horlicks ends up playing a role in supporting that and making that meal plate more balanced. That job of educating and increasing the relevance of the category and driving consumption is the single biggest focus area. As part of that, we did the job of activating booths across the country. We did the job of ensuring that the plus range, backed by higher scientists, has got activated, and we're seeing good amount of growth in that part of the business.
In summary, all relevant jobs to be done in terms of building penetration, building relevance of the category, and boosting consumption have been in play. Inflation has played a spoilsport. Earlier, we had a peak of as we acquired the business, we, as you know, we had. This was in peak of COVID, and post that, a very high amount of inflation as a basket overall, and then, of course, overall inflation impacting, in particular, HFD category milk, essentially. Those impacts have overall had a tail on the HFD growth. You saw in this quarter, we had a value growth, but volumes were just below flat, and the margins with margins, it declined in terms of volume.
Medium to long term, we do see this category, our ability to build relevance to market development and drive growth remains. We are very confident about that. Let me hand over to Rohit on the premium end and the mass segment. How do we play at both the ends as an FMCG market?
Yeah, thank you. I think this is to really simplify this, you know, the first point to note is that we are a highly penetrated company with reach 9 or 10 households, multiple categories, and we are of the scale because we have, over the years, played the full portfolio. From the lower to the middle to the upper price segments. If you consider that context, the second point is that we have therefore two big parts of our portfolio. There's the core, which is really what drives our baseline, and this is all about getting the right, what you call sometimes mass, but it's basically the one that gets us to every household, gives us that reach and distribution and GT, but also in every home.
This is where we got to make sure we have the right price quality equation, the right mix, right for the right region, which you call WiMI, and this is what drives the fundamental baseline of the business. This doesn't take away from the fact that our, as for the growth, is coming from the premium end, which is about a third of the business now, growing at roughly 50% faster. Here, in fact, much of the focus of our innovations, our A&P spends, our market development, and our portfolio expansion is happening. We are focused on both the and, drive the core usership, keep it healthy, keep the baseline humming, and drive the growth of our premium end, because that's the secular trend of the market, and make the right investment in mixes, innovations, market development, and portfolio expansion.
I hope this answers your question on how we see these two sort of simplified ends of the business.
Thank you, Rohit, and thank you, Ritesh, for, you know, the response. Sorry, I mean, if I may, if I push the envelope a bit. Rohit, actually, the context I was trying to, you know, get from you, in the call today, this is the first call. You know, when you take a step back and go 20, 30, maybe longer, you know, in the history, you know, HUL or Unilever in those days, HLL in those days, created, you know, Fair & Lovely, created a Clinic Plus, you know, created a Veet, et cetera.
The context is that today it appears that the strategy, you know, does not necessarily have those ingredients, saying that, "Look, you know, we're not going to, let's say, solve the problems of bottom of pyramid from a brand point of view. We'll probably solve the problem from a, let's say, pricing, per unit point of view." That was my only question about the premium versus the BOP.
I think the what you talked about is indeed about category expansion. you know, we have, we do have the right brands like Taza, Veet, Lux, Lifebuoy Lux, Glow & Lovely. These are deeply penetrated solutions, and you're right, we've got to make sure that they keep serving the consumers in the right way, and they still have a lot of runway of growth. When it comes to category creation, the category creation is going to the underserved areas, new benefits, and we are building brands there. Sesame is a great example. Excellent, vibrant brand. Did not exist many years ago, now it has helped us increase our market share in the hair category to well over 50. The brand is positioned on a new trend.
It's a solarization trend and is doing very well. Equally, there are brands that will get stretched even further premium. For instance, Lakmē, to solve the beauty needs of every Indian, and there is a, you know, segment that's emerging that Lakmē will serve. I think our thesis of growth continues to be at the primary level, market development, category growth, because that's the story of India for the next many, many years to come. Yes, it is a part of our genetic code.
Thank you so much. One last thing, if I may, as a follow-up, you know, is, Rohit, from your global experience, actually, when a country, you know, or a geography which you cover, you know, when moves from, let's say, significant inflation to, you know, lesser inflation to, let's say, deflation or rather a lower inflation, how do you manage the P&L? Because these are things which are not that easy to handle. The reason I'm asking, because when I look at India in the last, let's say, 10 years, you know, India's really not seen material inflation, which I presume most consumer staples CEOs and CFOs would love to see, because that's where you get operating leverage from.
In the last few years, you have seen material inflation, that's been a tailwind, in different ways, let's say in a home care segment or a, you know, segment, et cetera. Now it's actually reversing. Anything from your global experiences on handling the inflation to lesser inflation/deflation would be super helpful. Thank you so much.
I think there's collective knowledge and experience in the company, and we've been through cycles in India a few times, as Ritesh mentioned, we've seen analogies of what have happened. Of course, it might not exactly be the same, because things do change and the number of factors at play may be different. We are, at the moment, specifically focused on driving competitive volume growth. That, at one level, is at the top-line job, and at the bottom line, we do have the tailwind of reducing commodity costs. Some of that we are passing in higher A&P investments. We want to keep our brand strong, penetration is growing. We do have the Symphony, the program, of our productivity program called Symphony, to drive the savings.
It's really about from a margin point of view, it's about the driving the levers of pricing, mix and cost, and we know that machine well. From a top-line point of view, it's to drive volume growth competitively in the quarters to come. Thereafter, I think when price returns back to the market or in our categories, we will go back to, we hope, the organic trend of about two-thirds volume, a third price. Driving volume and mix, in any case, is absolutely the most virtuous thing to do, which is what we focused on at this point.
Thank you so much, team. Good luck.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We move on to our next question from the line of Arnab Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, thanks for taking my question. My first question is on your comments around the resurgence of local competition, especially in laundry and tea. Given, again, your past experience, what do you expect here? Does this mean that some of these categories could have a bit of a subpar growth for a year, as the market conditions normalize, and therefore the market shares normalize between local players and national players? Also in laundry, specifically in tea, does it really affect your lower end of your portfolio, or does it also affect the entire price ladder, which includes premiumization into your premium brands?
Yeah, thanks, Arnab. You know, as you called out, in this period when we had seen very high amount of inflation high is one element, but second important element is huge volatility. This is a time where business model becomes a little more tricky to manage, and that's the time we have seen that players did vacate the market. Now, as we have seen commodities, basically moderating, we've seen more number of players participating in the market, especially small players. The whole conversation comes on the ability to manage such amount of variations in the business model, and we have seen more players now participating.
One of the charts that we had put earlier, that, because of that, we did see in tea, in overall laundry, that the small players are growing ahead of the large players because there are more players participating in the market. By and large, these conversations is in the lower price point of the market. When I look at tea, apart from this, the question we mentioned earlier, the current year tea commodity cycle led to a large, a widening gap between premium tea and loose tea. Nowhere else across the portfolio we have seen downgrading happening. The point has me-mentioned quite a few times earlier, we did see consumers seeking value and either up trading or down trading, but we've not seen downgrading happening.
In tea, given the divergence of premium tea and loose tea, we saw consumers downgrading, and we do have brands like Taza, which has done pretty good business. That's one clear job. When it comes to overall price-value equation, the interaction usually in this part of the market is in the mass end, mass segment. There is never an interaction between, let me say, a mass brand and a, let me say, mass brand and a, and a premium brand. That interaction doesn't exist. It's usually within the price point. Also, the fact is the cumulative order of inflation has been pretty significant. The point I mentioned, market price per se, over two-year period has seen 22% inflation in terms of price increase. Even in our business, we've seen cumulative inflation of 18% NMI.
There has been pretty high amount of inflation and hence link pricing decision. These equations, in my mind, will settle as commodities overall stabilize, the overall segments of the market, they become normalized. Then the job that we typically have, the point we spoke earlier of price, volume, balancing to a historical norm, whatever 2/3, 1/3, 60/40, that keeps happening. Also mentioned, just to complete, and I'm sorry, that over this two-year period where we've seen the players basically vacating the market, we've seen players coming back to market. Over two years inflation period, we have grown significantly ahead of the market, and our market shares today are higher than what they were before the inflation started kicking in materially.
Sure. Similar to what you said about the consumer adjusting to the price, this market share or let's say, market forces adjustment, would you expect this also to be a two, three quarter kind of a phenomena, or this could be like a full year reset, where you had gone to a much higher level of share in the market, which probably comes somewhere in between where you started and where you ended last year?
This players coming back is more of a last couple of quarters phenomenon as commodities started moderating. In our mind, where commodity levels are today, they by and large have got moderated. Now, something can go up and down, we'll see in times to come. Hence the, let me say, more players participating has got fully played out. Now, of course, it'll be year-on-year implication in the next few quarters, but sequentially, in our mind, I'm saying the players have participated more, that has got played out.
Sure. Understood. My last question is on your margin side. As you take up your AMP spends, if you look back, you had this 11.5%-12% AMP spend for many years. All other things remaining same, should that be the broader level of AMP spend that you need to be to support market development, you know, normal market of condition, over a period of time? Therefore, if there is any expansion in EBITDA margin, it would only happen if your gross margin expansion is higher than, you know, the level of AMP increase required to get to that level. Just trying to understand that dynamic between AMP and gross margin.
Sure. See, the point Arnab mentioned earlier, that at the peak of inflation, we did have a 600 bps impact on our gross margins. We built back 400 bps out of that in last three quarters, a bulk part of that got invested behind AMP. Now, AMP, there are always two ways we look at it. It is not the percentage turnover that typically drives the model, investment model in this space. We always look at the reach objective and the frequency objective to ensure that we're able to communicate the messages of our brands, to our consumers and ensure that innovations land in the marketplace.
There's always a, let me say, a bottom-up way in which we compute as to what's the amount of investment that we require in a category or a brand, for that matter, in a quarter. Second is always a competitive element, where overall media heat goes up. The point that I spoke in one of the charts, that we're almost back to 2019 levels now, where the media intensity has been. That's the second element which determines the absolute amount of investment that we got to do in AMP. The bottom-line principle still remains: share of voice ahead of share of market. With peak inflation, the point I mentioned earlier of in our case, for example, 18%. With peak inflation, we have seen overall media intensity had come down as the price versus cost bleed across industry went up.
You know, in our case, we had lower price versus cost bleed at margin. We have seen at those levels, media intensity came down, which is starting to come up. Will this go from here higher? Media intensity, I do expect in short term that to further happen, which is why if I look at next few quarters, the priority remains. The single big important line of margin remains gross margin. Idea is to keep building gross margin and invest competitively behind AMP. EBITDA margin for next few quarters will be an outcome. Where we are this point in time, 23.6%, even last few quarters, [audio distortion], 23.5%. It's a pretty healthy margin, and which is why our objective is to drive gross margin and invest in AMP.
EBITDA margin will be an outcome of what evolves in terms of development of commodity and hence gross margin, and what evolves in terms of AMP investment need to maintain SOV ahead of SOM. It'll be more of an outcome of the two, but the focus will remain on driving gross margin.
Okay, thanks. Thanks, Ritesh, so much. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Richard Liu from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hi, Ritesh and Ravi. Thank you very much for taking my question.
Hi.
One thing that struck me, you know, is that your earlier comment on rural slowdown bottoming out, seems to be missing from the deck this time around. Instead, you've introduced a new comment on weather-related issues. Can you give a perspective on whether there's any change in your reading of what's happening on the ground on rural? How should we look at the progression, here on? Did you need maybe, be more circumspect than before on this front?
Sure, sure. Rural, as you called out, for last few quarters, that slowdown has bottomed out. Indeed, this time, in fact, we did not repeat that comment because we also spoke hard numbers as well. Let me summarize three or four elements, Richard, in rural. First, we had seen, in these last few the last quarters, year and a half, double-digit volume decline of the market. From that space, as we spoke in the latest quarter, market for rural has turned positive, in fact market was 2% up. Still job to be done. If I look at, two-year CAGR, rural has a 4%, circa 4% market decline, but it is definitely looking up compared to what it was.
There are a few elements which are helping this recovery, where it has bottomed out and now it's on the path of recovery. What's helping this recovery? Overall inflation moderating and hence overall commodity, we have given commodity link savings we passed on in terms of volume, in terms of price reduction. That is one thing which is helping rural recovery, number one. Number two, we are very conscious that government has maintained its heightened amount of rural expenditure. That supports overall situation of income levels in rural area. Third, the amount of CapEx which government has committed last fiscal, this fiscal put together, and we have seen CapEx investments going up, including state spending money. Ultimately, as that happens, we know the non-farm income does get benefit in rural area.
If I look at data for last few months' time, I do see remittances improving. Rural wages, yes, we have seen the point are on a real-term basis, are almost flattish. It had a small marginal decline, as you saw previous quarter. Now it's come back to almost being flat on real basis. There are forces which are supporting and helping this point in time on many fronts. The only place where we have to watch out is the impact of monsoon and weather-related risk. El Niño has come earlier, and we know that when it comes early in the season, it grows more in the season. We have to see what impact that has. We know that it's not only the quantity of rain, it's also the where the rain distribution happens, that's equally important.
Equally, timing of the rain is equally important. All three: quantity, timing, and placement of the rain, all three have to work to ensure that the monsoon supports the overall agri growth and hence overall rural growth. That is one element is what we called out as part of unknown, and all of us need to learn and wait and watch out. We did see some floods in parts of the country in the last few weeks, so that is also a reality we are facing this point in time. Which is why the only single biggest risk we called out is weather. Everything else is looking good.
I've seen data on MGNREGA, more enrollments, I'm hoping and assuming that with CapEx spend, boosting remittances, that should help overall the non-farm income component of the rural economy. Yeah, that in summary, I would say the encouraging sign. Weather in my mind is the only watch out.
Sorry, Ritesh. Thank you very much for that. Ritesh, second question, you've alluded to this a bit already, but let me try my luck once again on this, you know, rather massive growth in other expenses this quarter. You know, to put it more simply, this is a line that we are used to seeing, you know, grow in low to mid-single digit, that's why I'm finding a bit difficult to see this 10%-15% kind of growth in this line, even if I were to strip out the impact of the higher royalty. I wanted to get a flavor from you on this, you know, this step-up in growth on this line, and what are the factors that's driving a different, but a higher level of cost growth versus, what we've used to, seeing in the past?
There are two lines, let me speak, Richard. I know you asked me one line, let me talk about two lines. I'll talk about the line, which is other expenses. I'll also talk about a line called excess items that we are restructuring. So let me start with other expenses. Other expenses this quarter, very similar to what we had in the last March quarter. In the base period, I was responding to Vivek earlier, we had a one-off in the base, which impacted the year-on-year read. Of course, we had seen salary inflation, which we have done salary increases in the system, which was one driver of cost increase. We have seen capability investment in the business, which has been, which has led to increase in costs.
We did call out, of course, the increase year-on-year on royalty and central services and investments behind capabilities. If I look at even all these elements put together, if you look at total expenses that we have as Hindustan Unilever, when I compare across industry, we are still at the lower end of the industry economical that we run. We have a frugal mindset. Any cost which is adding value to consumer gets prioritized. Everything else, we have extremely frugal mindset. We have savings program of to drive cost of other expenses also down. To give an example, look at the distribution expenses sits as part of our expenses. One of the items we have spoken about, our entire job of driving less than number of kilometers a product needs to travel before it gets served to the customer.
Items like that, we are driving in the system. We are looking at our infrastructure as part of Nakshatra on our distribution setup. If I look at overall other expenses, if I look at manufacturing expenses, in supply chain, we called out even in the space of holiday features this morning earlier, that one of the job that we have, we still have more space to go in terms of driving supply chain synergies and cost transformation in area of HFD. Current quarter, we invested in restructuring expenses, to drive better cost structures in HFD, and we have more work to be done in supply chain in HFD to drive cost reduction. There are other elements in the system we are working on.
You will see that those expenses as time comes relevant, where as part of Nakshatra, we will invest restructuring expenses to ensure that we are able to lower our supply chain manufacturing costs, sans the procurement cost of material, and we will drive them down by ensuring that we spend on restructuring as required to lower our supply chain expenses. You will see some amount of movements on these expenses overall, but you will see always us being at a benchmark level. Across industry, you will see that we will operate always at the lower end of the industry in terms of overall costs that we end up having. Quarter-on-quarter, will be some puts and takes, as I explained, but overall, rest assured, that's a line which has a hawk-eye attention in the organization, and we run a frugal mindset.
Got it, Ritesh. Thank you very much. Wish you all the best.
Thank you. [audio distortion] .
Thank you.
What we will do now is take one question from the web, and then we'll call it time. There's a question from Latika on three parts to the question. One is: What's the impact that trade destocking had in the quarter? Second, she says that you've mentioned it takes two-three quarters for consumer behavior to change. In some categories, like skin cleansing, price reduction started two quarters ago, and laundry, shampoos, et cetera, perhaps it started a quarter back. Is it reasonable to expect volume growth recovering to 6%-8% in the second half of the fiscal? Third one is around rural and whether our optimism on rural recovery is lowered versus what it was a quarter ago, given the weather risks.
Yeah. Thanks, Latika, and let me just pick up these three or four questions together. The trade destocking, of course, is always linked to the price change that we end up doing. We did speak about price change in the previous quarter, but even in current quarter, Latika, we have done price changes in skin cleansing and in laundry. Of course, the trade and overall impact of volume recovery and overall trade impact in pipeline basically may be two, three quarters as we finish doing all this job. Where commodities are today, as we saw in current quarter, we had spoken a number, small margin amount, marginal amount of deflation, in fact, we saw in commodity costs. Which is why in this quarter, we did do price decrease.
This new price has further landed in the market. If you see, look at the price growth that Nielsen, for example, has spoken. They're talking 8% price growth. That's what consumers are paying this point in time, where we had a 4% price growth as we declared our results. There is still a transition, as you speak, happening in the trade because of the latest set of price decreases that we did in the quarter. That's the point I was making, that as we finish doing these price decreases and as we no further commodity up and down happens, this is the point where two, three quarters it will take for overall transition to complete, where trade, which is destocking by one to three this time, where they're having higher price inventories, they will liquidate that.
They will then stock up lower price inventory. Consumers will churn and then end up using their higher price inventory stock at home. They will start experiencing the lower price inventory. With the lower price inventory, it's also the more volumes that we're giving to consumer, and we want them to consume higher volumes and then come back with repeat purchase. That transition of two, three quarters is what will end up taking. The absolute amount of volume growth, price, we had already clarified, Latika, that we see near flat stroke marginal negative price growth for next couple of quarters if commodities don't change materially compared to where they are. When it comes to volume growth expectation, I think we want to be mindful where markets are.
The point I mentioned earlier, market grew volume at 5% on the back of a 6% volume decline, same period last year. Two-year market CAGR is near flat. As far as HFD is concerned, we grew our volume by 3% this quarter on the back of 6% growth last year, same quarter. We had a two-year CAGR of a 5%. I think, hence, if I look at next few quarters, the point of transition I mentioned, we will have to see volume recovery and consumers' habit coming back in terms of more consumption. Market growth will, of course, will end up driving as to amount of volume growth we are able to do on the base that we have against the market base.
Once you add those two elements, let us see how things play out. Coming to rural, yes, compared to earlier, I did mention that the slowdown has bottomed out. It's on the path of recovery. All right signs, in terms of macro level, and the only element which is unknown, and we'll know in next few months' time how that plays out, is weather. That's the reason we called out that unknown element. That's the element which we got to wait and watch. If I take that element out, there are many factors which are helping in my mind, in our mind, rural recovery, and which is why we did mention that we are optimistic, sans the weather concern. That's how I'll summarize, Latika.
Sorry, we're not able to guide you to a precise number of volume growth in next few quarters, but I hope that the narrative has helped you to gauge where our minds are at this point in time, the way we see this panning out.
Thank you, Ritesh. With that, we will come to an end of the Q&A session. Before we end, let me remind you that the playback of this event will be available on our website in a short while from now. Thank you, everyone, for your participation, and wish you a great evening.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, all. Appreciate.
Bye-bye.
Thank you. On behalf of Hindustan Unilever Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.