Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Honasa Consumer Limited Q1 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star one zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Pooja Kubadia. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Q1 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call for Honasa Consumer Limited. Today on call, we have Mr. Varun Alagh, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Ms. Ghazal Alagh, Co-Founder and CIO, and Mr. Ramanpreet Sohi, Chief Financial Officer. I'll now hand over the call to Mr. Varun for his opening remarks. Over to you.
Thanks, Pooja. Hi everyone, welcome to the Q1 FY 2026 call. I'll take you through the presentation for the next 10 minutes, and then we will open for FAQs. Starting with the first section, which we have been capturing in the past as well, which is our view on how the future of Indian beauty and personal care is shaping up. In the past, we've talked about sun care, serumization, premiumization of face care and hair care. Today, we are talking about the growth of the color cosmetics category. We believe there are three core macro reasons which are leading to the growth in this category. The first, of course, being increased women participation in the Indian workforce, which is a phenomenon that continues in, I think, the next couple of decades, will be a strong tailwind for this category.
The second is how the adoption of this category is becoming younger over decades. A few decades ago in the last century, this used to be an after-marriage category, which is why bridal sets used to be the biggest sort of beauty color cosmetic drivers. Over time, it went to first job, then through college, right, and now is reaching school levels in terms of the adoption of this category. We believe, looking at the global trends, the category adoption will continue to become younger, as well as the width of category adoption will continue to become wider. It used to be just a two-product category , in the last century, which was lipstick, contour, and probably some compact. From that, the category has evolved quite a lot, and now a lot of different types of lip products, lip liners, concealers, etc., are also becoming mainstay.
A combination of these three levers will ensure that this category grows the fastest amongst all cohorts in BPC over the next decade or so. We believe that by 2028 itself, this is going to be a INR 17,000 crore category; by 2030, this should be a more than INR 20,000 crore category, of which lip should be the largest subsegment. That's the subsegment that we are actually currently focusing on strongly with our play in Staze, as well as in Mamaearth. We are quite optimistic and bullish on both the category and our play in it. Outside of this, coming back to the Q1 FY 2026 performance, we've delivered our highest ever quarterly revenue and PAT in the history of the organization, which is also a short history, about eight- and- a- half years.
In that journey, this is the highest quarter in terms of revenue and PAT that we've had. This is a 7.5% YOY growth, 11.6% sequential growth. Gross margin has seen improvement by 48 basis points. EBITDA at 7.7%, which is a sequential improvement of 260 basis points. The quality of growth is actually even healthier because, again, this is a volume; UVG is at 20.5%, is 300 basis points ahead of the value growth. It's a volume-led growth. Working capital continues to be negative. This growth could have been higher if the early onset of monsoon would not have taken place. There is some impact in our largest category, which is sunscreen, that we have seen on account of softness in sunscreen category in June. Overall, this is the performance that we've had in Q1.
If you look at it from an EBITDA perspective, sequentially, we have gotten 264 basis points better. This is on account of gross margin expansion, increased salience of the offline channel, as well as the scale and leverage that we've seen coming overhead. We'll continue to work on efficiency and effectiveness levers to make sure that our bottom line grows faster than our top line as we move forward from here. From a highlights perspective, I think the first key thing for me to talk about is the strategy of focus categories. I think while overall value growth is in single digits, focus categories which contribute now already to about 80% of our revenues have grown in double-digits. That's a healthier indicator of our strategic shift that we can see.
This is actually across, be it an online or an offline, where we've seen the focus category approach working for us. We'll continue to double down on this approach, and we are confident that this will lead to even better results in the future. Mamaearth was a clear area of focus that we have talked about over the last few quarters and continues to be a strong area of focus for the company. In Q4, we talked about how in modern trade and e-commerce, the focus categories have turned positive. Now in Q1, the focus categories in these channels have actually turned double-digits, and the focus categories across all channels have now turned positive. The change in strategy that we have done is showing results.
This growth is also now competitive growth because if you look at Nielsen shares and offline or our e-comm shares, they are actually growing YOY and sequentially respectively. We are seeing healthy green fruits of the strategy that we've implemented, which is basically a three-pronged strategy. Focus on sharp category partitions, and in those category partitions have superior products. Awareness-led brand building, right, and an always-on media strategy. This is what we've been executing starting February, and we are seeing healthy results of the same. In fact, in the latest Kantar brand health track amongst online buyers, Mamaearth is now perceived as the number one face cleanser and shampoo in the brand power survey that Kantar does, which is again a healthy sign of the brand pull and confidence that we are building amongst consumers. Apart from Mamaearth, the GT distribution has been a continuous area of focus.
I'm happy to say there also the green shoots continue. The strengthening in terms of infrastructure quality is now paying off. Earlier the secondary sales growth was healthy in terms of sequential. Now even on YOY basis, that growth is becoming healthy. From a direct outlet reach perspective, we've gained by 50%. Nielsen also is showing a growth of 20% in terms of our distribution numbers. Modern trade offtakes are also healthy. All in all, the pain that we sort of took is starting to pay off. In terms of foods, we are still continuing our work on fundamental infrastructure improvement because this is going to be a long-term lever of growth for us. That work, both in terms of capability processes and infrastructure, will continue to take shape. Apart from this, the young brands continue on a strong growth trajectory with a 20%+ growth in Q1 as well.
In all of the young brands, we are looking at now building plus one categories out of their core categories or partitions. In BBlunt, hair fall is a partition, Athleisure moisturizers as a portfolio, Dr. Sheth's serums as a portfolio, and in Staze lipstick as a portfolio is what we are focusing on building. We are seeing strong green shoots in all of these. The Derma Co, of course, continues its strong trajectory. We are very confident this is going to be our next INR 1,000 crore brand over the next few years. It's also earlier the two categories which were strong for the brand and had a INR 200 crore+ run rate were serum and sunscreen.
We are happy to inform that we now have a third category within the brand which has touched more than INR 100 crore run rate and is growing at 100%+ in terms of growth, with acne as the partition being the partition where the brand is doing well. In Q1, we've also entered in hair care as a category, which itself is a INR 13,000 crore category, with hair fall as a partition and peptide sun cell as a technology that we've used to enter into that partition. The objective will be like face cleanser to build this into a strong category for the brand. We continue to strengthen the offline channel with strong focus on offtakes and expansion in chemist outlets. Overall, the brand continues to deliver circulative notes and share across ages.
Innovation continues to be a strong pillar for us, and we have now aligned it more towards, again, the focus categories that we have pointed out. Within those categories, entering into new partitions and strengthening current partitions is the role that innovation is clearly driving. Across the brands, we've done effective innovations with strong launch rationales, which you can see here. Apart from innovation, renovation continues to be a very strong focus area. We have talked about product superiority being something that is on our minds all the time, and we are trying to enhance and improve product chassis across our portfolios. In the past, we have talked about how in serum and in face wash we have cracked blind test winning commercialized formulations, which are beating the core competition in blind test.
I'm happy to inform that we now have a shampoo formulation as well, which has beaten the leading global brand in blind testing by a decent sort of margin. We are now commercializing this across our shampoo portfolio in Mamaearth. We have also taken pride in the fact that as a company, we are India first, and we build for Indian consumers and contexts. Taking clue from that, our innovation team has been working on this technology called anti-pollution factor. India has a pollution problem, and in the next H2, this will become a large problem across cities. We wanted to make sure that our sunscreens, which provide sun protection, not only provide protection from sun, but also provide from pollutants. That's the technology that we have been able to launch in Athleisure or APF, which is an anti-pollution factor technology that provides 80% protection from external pollutants.
Now we have that as part of our sunscreen portfolio. We've also been listening to consumer conversations around the need for skin type-based skincare. In line with that, brands like The Derma Co, where we have our 1% hyaluronic sunscreen portfolio, that we have extended into different skin types now with a difference in sunscreen for dry, normal, and oily. This is also something that consumers have responded very well to. We will continue our strong focus on listening to consumers and innovating for the Indian consumer. Apart from brands, the next focus area has been around investing in people. We have a few leadership changes that we have seen. We have Yatish, who has joined us as Chief Business Officer and comes with 17 years of experience across Unilever and Flipkart, and good offline-online exposure, and joins us to lead the business teams across online and offline systems.
We've also seen the elevation of two of our leaders who have been with us for more than three years, Rilash and Karan, who have taken over as Chief Supply Chain and Chief Business Officers. Apart from this, we've also launched a milestone-based ESOP plan for our leadership cohort. This is a plan whereby everyone's goals are aligned now to certain organizational EBITDA and revenue milestones. The plan gets unlocked, and everyone creates value when as an organization we hit those milestones, bringing a certain cohesiveness amongst the leadership group in driving organizational level goals, as well as excitement and retention in the talent pool that we are building. Apart from this, our work on purpose and giving back to community continues strongly. Mamaearth is now very close to its goal of planting a million trees. The Derma Co has provided science education to more than 30,000 kids.
Athleisure has provided clean water plants to more than 900 households. BBlunt has provided SARA certifications to more than 15,000 women, and Dr. Sheth's's vehicles, which do health checkups in multiple villages, have now completed 32,000+ health checkups. As our brands grow, our contribution to communities also continues to grow. Thank you so much for listening in. I would love to answer the questions that I have.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star, then one on their touchstone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star, then 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. Again, to register for a question, please press star, then one. Our first question comes from the line of Dhiraj Mistry from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, Varun. First of all, congrats on a decent performance for the quarter. The first question is regarding young brands, which were growing at 30%+ earlier. Now that growth has come to the 20%+ growth. I understand that the base is now getting a bit bigger, but how do you see the competitive intensity in this segment? We have seen that some of the large players have repositioned their flagship brands with active ingredient layers plus some of the science-based products also. How's the competitive intensity in those segments and how are you planning to motivate that?
Hi, thank you for asking the question. I think firstly, I would agree with the fact that the size of this cohort has actually become large. It's actually more than 50% contribution now. As a group, it's actually bigger than Mamaearth for us now, which is where the base effect does come into play. Within that environment, a 20%+ continuous sort of growth will make sure that it is a shared gameplay that we continue to do. Also, specifically referring to what I talked about, the sunscreen impact is also higher within this cohort itself because this is the cohort where we have brands which have almost 70% contribution coming from sunscreen as a category. There is a bit of that early monsoon impact as well. The competitive intensity, I would say, is high and has been increasing.
I think that's a reality that we are fairly tuned into, and we just need to ensure that, be it our formulations, propositions, or our communications, remain ahead of the curve so that consumers choose our brands. I'm not as worried about that. That's an edge that we need to sort of internally develop. Yeah, I mean, that's what my view on that.
If you can help us, the growth excluding the sunscreen impact, what would be the growth for the full for this quarter?
Honestly, at a company level, I would say the impact of sunscreen growth is about 200 basis points. Of course, the rest of the math will be done, but at a company level, the impact is about 200 basis points.
Yeah, I completely understand that. The second question is regarding the profitability trend. We have seen a decent increase in our profitability during the quarter. What percentage of this contribution would be because of the lower A&P spend for these young brands? We know that it's been becoming big. In a way, it will help us to see what is the profitability of this younger brand and if you can break up between TDH and other younger brands.
Yeah, like we have talked about in the past, right? Brand profitabilities are a journey of their age and scale. The Derma Co became profitable last year, became a single digit, now is a high single digit level of profitability. The rest of the brands, of course, are still in invest zone and hence are not profitable, expected to become profitable in the next couple of fiscal years, basically. That's the journey which they're all tracking on, and is how I'd say.
Okay. Third and last question from my end. Now the base will be catching up or less of the low base of Mamaearth will be catching up because of the general trade reset that we have done. For the remaining part of the year, is it safe to assume that we can aim for double-digit top-line growth with improvement in profitability also?
Yes, we do believe that for the remaining part of the year, we'll have good double-digit value growth. From a profitability perspective, we should be in this zone of 7% for the rest of the year as well.
Thank you. Best of luck for the rest of this year.
Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, participants who are connected through webcast may post their text questions as well. Our next question comes from the line of Sucrit Patil from EyeSight Fintrade Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Good evening to the Honasa team. I have a specific question for Mr. Varun Alagh. Yes, Mr. Varun Alagh, good evening. How are you?
Very well.
Yeah, thank you. Hi, sir. This is Sucrit Patil here. My question is, as Honasa grows across brands and offline stores, what are the key bets you are making that you believe will drive the next phase of growth? If some of these bets, like new formats or markets, don't work out, what is your backup plan to protect margins and keep the momentum going? Thank you.
Thank you. I think, like we have discussed today as well as in the past, there are seven focus categories that we have chosen, which have been carefully chosen, keeping in mind the kind of growth, right to win, gross margin profiles, etc., that we have seen for these categories. These are the categories in which our ambition is to, over time, become market leaders as a company. I think that's the strategy that we would continue to implement. Now, within that, whatever consumer needs, innovations, price points need to be serviced, we will continuously listen and provide those products to the consumers. Overarching, that'll be the category strategy, followed by a strategy of ensuring that we win across distribution channels, be it in online or in offline, by doing right database investments in online and right infrastructural investments in offline.
A combination of these two, we are confident, will lead to market-leading growth for our brands in the medium term.
Okay, just to close the loop, as the competition rises, are there any long-term levers like tech or supply chain or brand partnerships that Honasa is planning in the coming days? If you are planning some partnerships, can you discuss it with which firms you are planning?
No, I think the long-term levers for us would continue to be, they have been in the past, data and technology. That continues to be a very strong part of all decisioning that we do, even within the company today, which is based on data and now based on a lot of LLMs that we have been internally instituting. Apart from that, the right media mix modeling, the right distribution partnerships with, be it the offline or with the online players, be it e-commerce or quick commerce players, as well as strong partnerships with digital ecosystem partners like Google and Meta, are what we are relying on and building strongly to deliver our plans.
Thank you very much for your guidance and best of luck for all your future endeavors ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mehul Desai from JM. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is obviously on the younger brands. If X of TDC , if you can give some flavor on Athleisure, Dr. Sheth's, BBlunt, Staze, how these have done in the quarter, and is any of the brands where you are seeing the results which are better than your expectations and any of the brands where you think more work needs to be done? That's the first question. The second question is on the margin side. Obviously, you did guide that 7% is something that can be sustained in FY 2026. On that, I just wanted to double-click one on the staff cost. Do we see the INR 60 crore run rate sustaining? Also, the other expenditure this quarter, I mean, there has been a 10% growth.
It's a decent control that has been done on other expenses as well as the A&P spend side. How do you see these cost line items also, whether that can sustain, especially on the A&P side? These are my two questions.
Thanks, Mehul. On the younger brand side, we've been talking of them as a portfolio. We will continue to talk about them as a portfolio because comparatively, nobody else disputes brandable growth. That said, I think from a quarter one-only performance perspective, like I said, the brands which have much higher sunscreen reliance, like Dr. Sheth's and Athleisure, were relatively behind plan. We are very confident that over- the- year, they will catch up to their plans. The balance brands actually did ahead of plan. Overall, that's the picture that we saw. They're all sort of in their journeys. They're all building other categories also, which becomes important to diversify. In those other categories, we are seeing high double-digit growth for most of these brands. We are confident that over time, that will also get built up and the diversification risk will also get reduced.
Apart from that, on your point of margins, I think finally we have, these are the large cost heads for us, Mehul, the A&P and the OpEx cost head. Gross margin, like I said, we have been continuously focusing on and we've seen slight improvement as well. These are the two bases from which we expect efficiencies, effectiveness, not just in this year, but also in the coming years to go. These are the two focus areas where we continue our controls. Of course, because of the ESOP plan, we do expect some higher impact on the OpEx side. Overall, because of the effectiveness in A&P, etc., we'll still be able to manage and deliver the 7% that we have talked about. I hope that answers.
That answered your questions. No response from the line of current participant. We'll move on to the next question. Before we move to the next question, a reminder to all the participants, you may press star, then one, to ask a question. Our next question comes from the line of Jitendra Arora from ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Limited. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, Varun, and congratulations on a good set of numbers. I just want to understand from you, since we talked about the journey of margins and how they are a factor of scale and the age of particular brands. Just from your vantage point, as in when these brands, let's say, achieve a certain scale of, let's say, INR 1,000 crore or INR 1,500 crore, what kind of milestones do you have in mind as an organization that you would want these brands to see at? Would it be, let's say, a mid-teen kind of thing, high teens, or maybe in the early 20% where we see some of the more mature organizations having their margins?
Hi, Jitendra. How are you? To answer your question, we are very early in this journey. We do believe, from our next four to five-year view, that some of our larger brands will surely be in the mid-teen kind of EBITDA range. From there on, we will need to further see the journey of the next five years, how it shapes. The other difference that we also see is the online versus offline kind of brand presence and creation, which is there between us versus some of the other FMCGs, where their online contribution is supposed to go up, our offline contribution is supposed to go up. From our next four to five years perspective, we can still see that mid-teen and our top brands to be surely happening.
Beyond that, I think in a few years, we'll be able to give you a healthier version of where do we see it from the next seven to eight years.
To put it differently, in terms of what kind of improvements do we expect to see, let's say, year- on- year, like earlier we had, I think, said that we will see 100 basis points- 150 basis points improvements on an annual basis for at least a few years till we reach. Do you think we are there on that journey that from here, let's say, if we are around 7%, we see a 100 basis point s kind of improvement at least for the next two, three years, if not more.
Very much. Not just two, three, right, but probably for the next five to six years, we want to ensure that that's the journey of improvement that we continue to be on.
Thank you. Just one last question on how are we tracking in terms of market share in quick commerce versus, let's say, the GT channel?
Actually, the right question comparison will not be quick commerce versus GT. Quick commerce versus GT, our market shares are far higher in quick commerce compared to our market shares in GT. Actually, our internal benchmark has been quick commerce versus e-commerce shares. In almost all of our focus categories, our quick commerce shares are higher than our e-commerce shares, which is where it's a very healthy sign that any transition that happens from any other channel towards quick commerce is actually going to be healthier for us.
Can you say the same about the margins?
From a margin perspective, compared to e-commerce, the margins are better.
I think that's it from my side.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pratik from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir. You're audible.
Hello.
Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. Hi, Varun. This is Pratik from HSBC. I have a couple of questions. You did highlight it in the presentation module. I'd appreciate it if you can elaborate more on how the core brand Mamaearth is doing across your focus and non-focus strategies. My second question is on A&P expenses. They are running at about 35% of sales as of now. Of course, there are different levels for different brands. Can you elaborate on what kind of levels a mature brand needs and what are we basically heading towards for the mature brands, say Mamaearth and The Derma Co, in a few years? Some color on that would be helpful.
Yeah. I think the first question, like I said, we had recognized a few clear interventions needed in Mamaearth around October, November of last year. We took some time and worked on building a plan as well as content and strategy to execute these interventions, which we started executing from February onwards. In Q4 itself, we could see some green shoots of these interventions in e-comm and modern trade channels, where the focus categories, which contribute about, at that time, about 65% to the brand, had started to grow in single digits in these channels. In Q1, the focus categories now contribute to close to 70%+ of the brand and are growing double digit in e-comm and MT and across all channels in single digits. Again, showing green shoots in the right direction on the strategy that we have adopted.
Like I said, if we continue to see these gains, we are confident that over the year, the brand overall should also be back to growth profile and then from there onwards to a stronger growth profile over years is how we see that shaping. In terms of A&P expenses, especially for larger, more mature brands, we think, and this is something that.
Thank you for that. On the second question?
Yeah, I was just taking that up.
Can you hear us?
Yes, can you hear us?
Hello?
Hi, am I audible?
Yes, sir, you're audible.
Okay, I'll continue. On the A&P trajectory, we believe over the majority of brands, this number should settle around 27%-28% for brands as they sort of grow over the next few years.
D oes that answer your question?
Thank you for that. You're saying 27%- 28% is for mature brands and it'll probably be higher for different brands depending on their journey?
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, thank you. Thank you for answering that. Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all the participants, you may press star, then one, to ask a question. Our next question comes from the line of Neel Doshi from PL Capital. Please go ahead. Mr. Doshi, your line is unmuted. Please proceed with your question. Mr. Neel Doshi, your line is unmuted. Please proceed with your question. Mr. Neel Doshi, your line is unmuted. Please proceed with your question. There is no response from the line of the current participant. We'll move on to the next question. We have the next follow-up question coming from the line of Pratik from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for the opportunity again. A quick bookkeeping question, please. Your standalone numbers seem to have been restated. Can you please elaborate on that, please?
Yeah, hi. I think that's because of the approval of the merger of two entities: Hollyw ood Subsidies Fusion, which houses a brand, Dr. Sheth's, and there was another entity called Just for Kids. Those two were approved for merger, and hence, our standalone financials have been reinstated to that account.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star, then one, to ask a question. Our next question comes from the line of Aditi Parmar from iWealth. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, ma'am, you're audible. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, sir. Congratulations on a good set of numbers. Just wanted to ask, there's a significant amount of cash in the balance sheet. Are you looking for any acquisitions in the future, or how are you going to utilize this cash?
Yeah, hi. Thanks for asking the question. Yes, we do have a healthy balance in our cash balance in the balance sheet, and it continues to grow with the negative working capital and profitable profile of the company. We continue to look at potential acquisition opportunities, which could be portfolio additive in nature, in the areas which we feel are strong growth hypothesis areas for the category. We currently don't have anything which is in the stage that we can share with you, but that's a continuous exercise. We continue to do that. We'll also look at figuring out younger opportunities that we can participate in in the future to utilize this capital to drive growth from a long-term perspective. Outside of that, in the medium term, we'll also look at dividend as a strategy for cash organization.
It's okay if that answers my question. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants, if you wish to register for a question, please press star, then one. Next follow-up question comes from the line of Mehul Desai from JM. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Just one question again on the profitability side, Varun. Obviously, you had guided for 150 basis points kind of improvement going ahead. Now, obviously, this year itself, we are at 7% odd. Would you still maintain that guidance of 150 basis points expansion year- on- year continuing over medium term, or you would say that obviously this year, obviously you have got it ahead of your expectation?
The exact math, the land could not be picky, but like we mentioned, the attempt is to improve profitability by 100 basis points- 150 basis points each year. If you look at it from a CAGR perspective, years might vary. Some will be higher, some will be lower. Overall, that's the trend line that we follow in the coming 4-5 years.
Got it. Lastly, from a regional performance perspective, is there any underlying trend that you would like to highlight? I mean, is there whether in the north, south, east, west, is there something different on a regional performance perspective?
Honestly, no significant differential in performance. What I would say is, honestly, being a north-based company, we believe that we haven't leveraged on the South India opportunity as well as we should have. That's an internal focus area for us on how to get our vernacular communications as well as our inciting right to better serve the south markets and make sure that our shares are fairly indexed across the regions.
Got it. Thanks. Thanks, Varun, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to know that there were a few articles about us getting to the beauty device, beauty tech sort of market. Is this an area of interest for us, and how big would it be if it is?
No, currently, no strategic interest in that area. The article did not have any backing from the company and its spokespeople.
Okay. Noted. That's all. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Vismaya Agarwal from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi, Varun and team. Varun, if you'd share an update on Project LEAP, how are things trending now that it's been, what, almost 8- 10 months of that project? Any updates on the distributors that you appointed, if they're in churn or how stable that bit is? Yeah, that's a big question for me.
Thanks, Vismaya. I think, like I've mentioned, all our efforts on stabilizing and building an infrastructure which can service our plans over the next five years, right? I think it's going in the right direction, right? The direct distribution metrics, like I said, are 50% up, and our inventory levels are very well under control now. Less than 30 days on our direct distributors. We have zero overdues in terms of credit and a very healthy credit profile also. We continue to improve the quality of our partners on one geographical cell at a time. That's an ongoing work in terms of improving our infrastructure. I would say, of course, the worst is behind us, right? The best is still ahead of us.
We still need to continue to work in terms of improving infrastructure quality across sales, which is an effort both in terms of people, capability, and partners that our teams are needing.
Mr. Agarwal, does that answer your question?
Yeah, sorry, a line broke in between. Yeah, what the answer? Varun, thanks for that. Varun, just one more bit is on the statement that is there in the presentation where you say the secondary sales are going on a healthy rate. Now, when I look at the Mamaearth overall brand performance, it's probably a slight decline, whatever that quantum be. I would assume the generative part of it is where there's still some bit of rationalization and the non-focus part, the ex of focus part, rather, which you're doing. From that aspect, is there still a difference between the primary and secondary sales the way the brand is trending or not so much?
Very slight difference in case of Mamaearth, where we still continue to be very sort of sharp about correcting assortment and driving the right portfolio. There is also the positive delta that the channel is getting from The Derma Co scale-up and introduction, a combination of which is leading to positive share of phenomenon at a channel level.
Good. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Varun Alagh for closing comments.
Thank you so much, everyone, for patiently listening in and asking your valuable questions. We look forward to meeting you again in the next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Honasa Consumer Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.