Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q1 CY 2025 earnings conference call of International Gemological Institute (India) Limited, hosted by MUFG Intime. 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 touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sumeet Khaitan from MUFG Intime. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah. Thank you, Ulrich. Good evening, everyone. I welcome you all to the earnings conference call to discuss Q1 CY 2025 results of IGI India Limited. To discuss the result we have from the management Mr. Tehmasp Printer, MD and CEO, and Mr. Eashwar Iyer, CFO. They will take you through the results and the business performance, after which we will proceed for question and answer session. Before we proceed with the call, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in the today's call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. For more details, kindly refer to the investor presentation and the other filings that can be found on the company's website. With this, I now hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Sumeet. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you all to the Q1 CY 2025 earnings call. I trust that every one of you had a chance to review our financial results and investor presentations, which have been made available on both the stock exchanges and as well as our company website. It's a pleasure to connect with you all and share insights into our business strategies and outlook. To recap, we are the largest independent accreditation and certification service provider in India with over 50% of the market share. Globally, we are the second largest player with 33% market share, and in the lab-grown sector, we are lead with 65% of these lab-grown certified diamonds by IGI.
We serve nine out of 10 jewellery chains in India, and we expect to continue to leverage this position to expand our global presence and establish IGI as the laboratory of choice to the large retailers and brands. We are present across 10 countries globally and have 31 labs, 12 in-factory laboratory setups, and 18 schools of gemology. We serve over 7,500 customers globally and are present across the jewellery value chain. Our multiple service delivery formats in the form of IGI labs, in-factory labs, and mobile labs strengthen our customer relationships, driving a distinct advantage for the company. Our schools of gemology provide us with a distinct advantage as they help us drive brand awareness, expand market opportunities, and new customer acquisitions.
I'm happy to report that the company has shown strong growth momentum across all its business segments compared to the previous quarter as well as the first quarter of the last financial year. The business on a consolidated basis has been done exceptionally well, with 15% growth in revenues and 29% growth in EBITDA compared to the previous quarter. The growth in revenues was driven by our core segments of natural diamonds as well as lab-grown diamonds, each recording more than 30% revenue growth in this quarter compared to the previous quarter. The jewellery segment also has registered single-digit revenue growth owing to the base effect that of last quarter, which witnessed a high festive demand in India. On a year-on-year basis, the business has delivered revenue growth of 10% and EBITDA growth of 13% in Q1 2025, as when compared to Q1 2024.
Recorded volumes over this period grew by 27% across our business segments, natural diamonds, lab-grown diamonds, jewellery, and colored stones. We took a one-time price correction in our LGD certification services in Q2 last year, corresponding to the drop in the wholesale prices of the lab-grown diamonds. Post that, certification prices have stabilized over the last three quarters. Going forward, we are expecting robust demand to continue both across natural diamonds as well as lab-grown diamonds further. With demand for jewellery certification is also on the rise, we expect the jewellery segment to drive a significant proportion of growth in the quarters to come. Finally, with increasing adoption of lab-grown diamond jewellery in India, we expect the revenue from this segment also to increase significantly in the future.
With the industry evolving at a rapid pace and certification being a key enabler of consumer trust, IGI is focused on strengthening its leadership position by expanding its presence, embracing innovations, and enhancing the overall customer experience. As demand for both natural as well as lab-grown continues to grow, IGI is strategically positioning itself to capture the immense opportunities which lie ahead. We are rapidly ramping up our people and laboratory infrastructure to support this volume growth. In Q1 2025 itself, India business has recruited over 130 gemologists. This virtually represents around 14% of our overall employee strength to cater to the exponential volume growth. This is part of our broader strategy to remain agile, responsive to the evolving needs of our partners.
The company is also embarking on a digital transformation initiative as we seek to enhance the quality of our service, as well as reduce the turnaround time of our services. Overall, we are confident of maintaining the growth momentum and delivering revenue and EBITDA growth this year in line with our historical performance. In terms of industry outlook, we have started 2025 against a backdrop of significant dynamic global developments. On a macroeconomic front, trade policy changes, including the recent imposition of tariffs by the United States, are being closely watched and evaluated by the diamond and jewellery industry. The 90-day pause has provided the industry time to evaluate the impact of the potential tariffs and identify strategies in the evolving landscape. The India-U.S. FTA is also being closely followed, and we are assessing the impact of these changes in our business.
We remain committed to enabling growth for our partners and delivering long-term value to all our stakeholders. With that, I now invite our CFO, Mr. Eashwar Iyer, to take you through the financials and operational performance for the quarter. Over to Eashwar.
Thank you. Thank you, Tehmasp. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for joining today's conference call. We are delighted, as always, to have each of you with us. As many of you would know, our company follows a January to December reporting cycle. We are excited to present the results for the first quarter of the calendar year 2025. I will start my update with the performance update versus the previous quarter, which is Q4 2024. I am happy to report that the group consolidated business has maintained a strong growth momentum in Q1 2025. In terms of revenue, certification income for the current quarter stood at INR 297 crores, growing at 20% compared to the previous quarter.
This was primarily driven by strong revenue growth across all our core segments, namely 37% growth in natural diamonds, 35% in lab-grown diamonds, 16% growth in lab-grown jewellery, and 14% growth in gemstones. Total revenue from operations for the quarter stood at INR 305 crores, registering a growth of 15% versus the previous quarter. In terms of reported volumes, during the quarter, we delivered 3.12 million reports compared to 2.77 million reports in Q4 2024, registering a growth of 13%. Driven by strong revenue performance, continued cost optimization, and restructuring in some of the other global offices, we have delivered a PAT of INR 141 crores, marking a growth of 24% compared to the previous quarter.
PAT margins have also expanded by 330 basis points to 46.2 for the quarter. EBITDA stood at INR 196 crores, reflecting a growth of 29% compared to the previous quarter. EBITDA margins stood at 64.2%, which is an improvement by 680 basis points over the previous quarter. Coming to the year-on-year update on a consolidated group performance, I'm happy to report that the group consolidated business has also maintained strong growth momentum in Q1 2025. During the quarter, we delivered 3.12 million reports compared to 2.47 million reports at the same time last year, marking a robust year-on-year growth of 27%. In terms of revenue from certification business, the income stood at INR 297 crores, growing at 11%.
This was driven by strong growth across all our key segments. Be it lab-grown diamonds growing 9%, ND jewellery growing 21%, LGD jewellery 87%, and gemstones growing 16%. This revenue growth also reflects a one-time pricing correction in our lab-grown diamond certification services that was affected in Q2 2024, post which the certification prices have remained stable over the last three quarters. Revenue from operations for the quarter stood at INR 305 crores, registering a growth of 10% year-on-year. Driven by strong revenue performance, continued cost optimization, and restructuring some of the global offices, we have delivered a PAT of INR 141 crores, marking a year-on-year growth of 12%. PAT margins have also expanded by around 80 basis points and stands at 46.2% for the quarter.
EBITDA stood at INR 196 crores, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 13%. EBITDA margins at 64%, representing 180 basis points improvement over the same time last year. Looking ahead, the company is actively ramping up infrastructure to support volume growth, and we remain confident to delivering a very strong performance for 2025. With that, I conclude my remarks and open the floor for questions. Thank you, everybody.
Thank you, sir. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. We will now wait for the question queue to assemble. The first question comes from the line of Jay Doshi from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity, and thanks for reinstating segmental disclosures. Could you provide some guidance or outlook on what revenue growth as well as EBITDA margin for CY 25 from both consolidated and standalone businesses?
Okay. Hi, Jay, this is Eashwar. Okay, as I had mentioned, our revenues on a year-on-year basis have moved from 2.47 million reports to 3.12 million reports, registering a 27% growth. Overall revenues from operations have grown 10%. As we have discussed in the past, this is post the pricing correction that we did sometime in April, May of 2024, consequent to the correction of the lab-grown prices that we had seen from the last quarter of 2023 extending up to the quarter one of 2024. From that standpoint, the company has now cycled, close to, you know, cycling the price correction that happened as far as the LGD certification prices are concerned.
Again, if you were to refer to the sequential growth that was indicated during the call, the gap between the revenue growth and the volume growth should now subside as we now start cycling the pricing that correction that happened last year. From that context, I think we should therefore expect to grow on, you know, between 15% and 20% from a revenue standpoint, in this financial year at the consolidated level.
Just to-
Yeah, sorry.
Sure. Please continue. Please complete.
Yeah. I'm saying that was the view from a consolidated standpoint, and I think it will more or less mirror in terms of what the India business will therefore perform. With India representing over 75% of the group's revenues, I think the performance in India will therefore mirror the consolidated group performance as well.
Sure. Could you provide some color or outlook on margin guidance, EBITDA margin, consolidated level also?
Yeah. See, I think, we delivered around 57% PAT margins last year for the full year 2024. The Q1 performance has seen substantial improvements in margins. While the company is continuing to invest significantly in terms of building up or ramping up capabilities from a people and a laboratory expansion standpoint, we are confident that with the volume throughput that is coming through, we should therefore improve on whatever we delivered last year. Anything between 57 and 64 is what we think we will deliver on from a PAT margin standpoint for the full year this year.
Perfect. That's helpful. A couple of associated questions. One is, you know, if the mix of jewellery increases significantly in certification volumes going forward, does it have any implications, you know, on profitability? Because we understand that realizations for jewellery certification is much lower, but we are not sure how, you know, EBITDA margin is for jewellery certification.
See, Jay, I think, over the last four quarters, if I were to look at the Q1 of 2024, the total jewellery business as a percentage mix was around, you know, 23%-24%. That 24% has actually now moved up to around 28%. Despite all of that, you're seeing the improvement from a margin standpoint. Having said that, this trend is of importance for all of us to understand because most of this increase in the revenue mix is driven by lab-grown jewellery segment. You know, as more and more consumers in India start participating in the lab-grown jewellery segment, I think this is a massive potential for the organization to, therefore, you know, accelerate its growth in the forthcoming years.
That is the big plus that we are seeing as a trend within our organization in terms of more consumers coming into the fray as far as lab-grown jewellery is concerned. You know, despite the 4%-5% mix improvement on jewellery, the margins have obviously, you know, continued to remain strong.
Understood. One final one. You mentioned that certification prices have been stable over the past three quarters. Can you give us some color on, you know, realization for LGD? Sorry, my question is related to LGD. Realizations over the past three quarters, because there are two things we often sort of hear, you know, when we talk to people in the industry. One is full certification versus minimum certification. What are the trends? Second is, you know, stone size, average caratage, you know, whether it is going up, you know, on average per certificate for LGD. Broadly, if you can give us some color on, you know, this trend over the last three, four quarters.
Where LGD is concerned, you know, right now the wholesale price of lab-grown diamonds have stabilized, and as well as our certification price is also stable. What happens is earlier we used to certify 30 pointers. Today, we are certifying 2 carat plus. The size of the diamond has obviously increased. Whereby with the size of the diamond, we base our pricing on the unit weight of the diamond. That is why, you know, the realization from certifying a larger diamond is better than certifying a smaller diamond. That's one. Having said that, with the advent of LGD jewellery certification, you know, LGD jewellery is also taking, growing up very rapidly and all the smaller diamonds which were not certified gets cluster certification in a jewellery- mounted piece.
Again, certification of the smaller diamonds also are being done in case of by the certification of a jewellery piece. These are the two things that we feel that will ramp up the revenues, you know, in the LG sector.
Understood. Just when you certify stones, are there two sort of different brackets where, you know, full certification and minimal certification at a stone level for loose stones?
What happens is we have different formats. We have a full diamond report, we have a dossier report, we have a credit card report. The analysis remains the same. Only the format in which it is displayed to the end consumer or to the retailer is different. It depends on their convenience. Some prefer the credit card format, some prefer the smaller diamond format, some prefer the full- scale report. It depends on an individual retailer preference. We cater to all of these demands, and we certify accordingly. However, having said that, the analysis remains the same.
Understood. Pricing remains the same, which is linked to the carat and the size of the diamond and not the format.
Yeah. The pricing is more linked to the size of the diamond, the weight of the diamond, rather. Yes, it is like that.
Sure. Thank you so much. I'll get back in the queue.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Anand Shah from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Just a few questions. Firstly, I mean, while it's early days, but because of all these tariff changes, any indication you can give on any disruption you've seen or are likely to see, maybe in the next three to six months? Does this China tariff angle in any way sort of benefit you?
See, the tariff is a big disruptor globally. There is no doubt about that.
Yeah.
It is something that, you know, we will have to accept and adopt. We have been given a 90-day lead period to find different innovation solutions, and 10% would probably become a norm where the tariffs are concerned.
Yeah.
Now, from an IGI perspective, almost 50% of what we certify is for domestic consumption.
Right.
The same thing, it's like India to India. The tariff is not a factor here. As well as China contributes 10% to the overall IGI revenues. In China also it is again China to China.
Right.
You understand? I mean, almost 60%, you know, in the overall mix is consumed domestically. Okay?
When you take the lab growns, we are the leading factors in lab-grown. A tariff of 10%, we are a service organization, we are not a product organization. Tariff on services are correspondingly impacting less. The value of the lab-grown in the wholesale level is low. Probably the incremental cost to the retailer and finally to the consumer would be, I think, distributed between the manufacturer, the retailer, and the end consumer. I think it will be driven through all the three. I mean, some may take, the manufacturer may take a more portion of the hit, but it will be between these three. You understand what I'm saying?
Yeah.
That way, we will encounter the tariff, challenge that we have in the current state.
Got it. Very clear. I mean, in the near term, is there any disruption at all? Like, like you do, may get impacted because of the uncertainties. Are you seeing any of it, or that is not applicable?
We haven't seen anything as of now, yeah.
Haven't seen it. In fact, our numbers are increasing.
Got it. My second question was on this LGD jewellery. This is pure play LGD jewellery growing in India, right?
Yeah. See, what happens is 95% of the diamonds are cut and polished in India. India is the main manufacturing hub of the world.
Right.
You understand? All that is done in India.
Yeah. No, I'm saying, I mean, we are seeing this sort of a significant growth pickup, as you've been highlighting as well, in the lab-grown jewellery now.
This is, your lab-grown jewellery certification is all India lab-grown jewellery, right? This is end consumption in India.
You are correct to assume that.
Got it. Would it be fair to say the lab-grown jewellery certification will be higher ASP than the normal certified jewellery certification?
That depends on the size of the stone.
Depends on the size of the caratage of the jewellery piece, you know.
Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. One more follow-up question I had was if I, if I look at your international numbers, right? I mean, we look at consolidated minus standalone to deduce the subsidiary numbers. There again, margins consistently have improved. I mean, even this quarter, if I see now, it's gone up from 13%, 14% EBITDA margin to almost 20%. What kind of margin are you now seeing in Belgium and Netherlands entities, and where should we project? I mean, Netherlands has already gone to 25%+ . Belgium, of course, had slipped into losses and is starting to recover. Some guidance on the trajectory on where those, these two entities should stabilize in margins.
Yeah, again, you're Anand, I think, as we have discussed in the past, there is significant strategic interventions that we have made in each of our key geographies across the globe. Okay, early days, but you know, the initial first quarter trends are extremely positive and gives us a lot of confidence that, you know, this should progress in the strategic direction that we have set them up for.
Got it. Now these kind of 15, 20% EBITDA margin, both Netherlands, Belgium, sort of combined, that is sort of sustainable.
That's right.
Got it. Got it b roadly. Okay. Yeah, I mean, these are the broadest questions from me. Thank you. One last thing, I mean, on disclosures, I mean, thanks for the segmental. Is it at all possible to share the CY 2024 numbers similarly, I mean, for the full year, the CY 2024 that you reported?
We can consider that, Anand. We'll come back.
Okay, sure. Thank you.
Thank you. Participants, please restrict yourselves to two questions. For any more questions, you may rejoin the queue. The next question comes from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening. Just two questions. You know, historically or last few years, you've seen the natural diamond jewellery business in India not grow at a very fast pace. You know, you started to see a pickup there as well. Is that just broadly indicative of the market context right now, where the natural diamond jewellery growth has picked up in the Indian market? Is that the way to think about it?
See, where jewellery certification is concerned, lab-grown is gaining.
Traction.
Traction. Okay. I mean, I'm not saying it's all due to lab-grown. It's some of it is due to the natural jewellery certification, quite a lot is also due to lab-grown jewellery segment.
Yeah, I get that, Tehmasp Printer. Just that this quarter you've seen, you know, on the standalone business, even the natural diamond jewellery growth has been on a year-over-year basis, actually has been quite strong.
Right.
I just wanted to kind of get, is there a base if issue or are we just seeing now pretty good growth on the natural diamond jewellery certification side as well, which was a little bit subdued in the past? lab-grown jewellery obviously is a new kind of segment for you over the last two years.
Yeah.
No, I think, if you look at it, be it natural diamond or natural diamond loose or natural diamond jewellery, the momentum in India has been continuing quarter on quarter, you know. Again, there is an orchestrated strategy at play in terms of wanting to, you know, get into the Natural Diamond segment at a faster scale than what we have done in the past. There is adequate resourcing that is going towards, therefore, making some of these growth numbers happen.
Understood. We should
Right. Yeah.
The second question was on, you know, just to understand seasonality in your business on the revenue side, a little bit. Obviously, last quarter was a high base quarter where you did about 20% growth. You have grown on that as well. Should we assume in general that Q1 2025 will be a higher revenue quarter in general, given that, you know, you have, you know, higher growth in U.S. and a good festive, et cetera. Is that the way to think about it? It typically should, you know, Q1 last year was very high, this year, next four quarters, it will not be, there will not be too much seasonality. How do we kind of think about the revenue seasonality going into this year on and onwards?
Part of it, part of what you say is true. There are a couple of other aspects that we must just keep it in mind that if you were to look at it from a volume standpoint, I'm just talking basis the data that I have for the last four quarters. From a volume standpoint, we've seem to have a flat seasonality across quarters. What is at play, obviously, is the slightly changing dynamics of mix across each of these segments. If you recollect the discussion that we had during the quarter four call, we had mentioned that the jewellery mix was pretty high, given the fact that it was a Diwali festive quarter, right?
Correct.
That's some of the mix change that you're seeing if you look at the growth on from the previous quarter. The mix of jewellery obviously has settled down to its normal levels, and the quarter one is again driven by the loose stone, both natural as well as lab-grown. You must just keep in mind that there could be a few tweaks on the mix across these segments as we get along to each other quarter. From a total volume standpoint, we seem to be running a flat sea-flat seasonal business across quarters.
Very clear. The last thing was, you know, You know, if you think about tariff and you know, is, you know, just to propose a hypothetical, if towards the end of the three-month window, is there a likelihood that, you know, industry pushes more cut polished into U.S. just to get away from that 10% tariff, which in turn just, you know, upfronts your revenue a little bit? Is there a possibility that that could happen or it's too early to say?
See, it is too early to say because obviously we keeping an eye on even from the India-U.S. FTA that is being proposed. Industry body here is, you know, has a good sounding board with the ministry, et cetera.
We must not forget that the gems and jewellery export business is a very large part of the India export turnover.
Yes.
I think we just keep an eye out for it. Let's see how this pans out.
Got it. Those are my questions. Thanks. All the best.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Sheela Rathi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Hi, Tehmasp. Hi, Eashwar.
Hi, Sheela.
My question was actually a follow-up to Harit's question on seasonality. Just want to understand how the seasonality differs between India and when we look at the consolidated revenues. Because if you look at the natural diamond growth, revenue growth, segmental growth this quarter for India is 51%. Whereas in the U.S. it's about 1%. Likewise, in LGD, in India's case, we are down 19%, whereas for U.S. we are up about 88% on the jewellery side. Just want to understand how should we think of Eashwar, you talked about that last quarter in India's case was high on the jewellery side, natural diamond jewellery side.
Just want to understand how should we think about the first half in India on a mix point of view, as well as the first half on a consolidated basis, how the mix will be and vis-a-vis how the second half could be.
Okay. I think what we can safely assume, and again, the industry trends are evolving because the lab-grown jewellery segment is just coming into play. I think quarter two should mirror quarter one from a mix standpoint, be it the consolidated business or from the India standalone standpoint. Obviously, quarter four, we should therefore expect a larger chunk going into the jewellery mix. Again, Sheela, I think, at the moment, you know, we are also looking at some of these trends and with lab-grown jewellery really starting to take off, which is, as you mentioned, close to 100% growth. You know, that can, that has the potential to slightly skew the mix over what you've seen in the last four quarters of last year. Q2 should basically mirror Q1.
To add to what Eashwar Iyer is saying, see, lab-grown acceptance in the West, say U.S., is much more than the rest of the world. Most of the lab-grown diamonds have been exported to U.S., and that is why you see a ramp-up in lab-grown diamonds certification in the U.S. India is like more or less stable. When you are saying the 80%, what did you say? 88%.
88%.
Yeah.
Year-over-year growth.
Yeah, that is all lab-grown jewellery.
Yeah.
You understand? Lab-grown jewellery acceptance is much more in the U.S. The U.S. was the first continent to adopt lab-growns. Of course, IGI was the first certifying body to adopt lab-growns. That is why we have the leadership status here.
Understood. Thank you. My second and final question is just on the international piece. If you could just give us more.
Sorry?
We lost Sheela.
Sheela, are you there?
Fast. Like China and Dubai.
I think let her get back on the queue. I think we can.
Yeah.
I think we lost her.
Can you hear me?
Yeah Sheela.
Okay. Yeah. Eashwar, the question is around the international growth for us. We understand the Netherlands for us is doing better than Belgium. If you could just give more granular details around what is driving the growth in the Netherlands business.
See, as I mentioned, we have the countries of China, Dubai, Israel, Thailand, Hong Kong as part of the Netherlands group. We are seeing significant traction both in the China as well as the Dubai business. That is what is driving the overall business from a Netherlands perspective.
Okay. Understood. All right. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Gopal Nawandhar from SBI Life Insurance. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Am I audible?
Yes, you are, Gopal.
Yeah. Thanks a lot for the opportunity and thanks a lot for the detailed disclosures in the presentation, which will help us to analyze your company better. My question was, you know, on this quarter, we are seeing improvement in the overall average realized price quarter-on-quarter. Is this INR 839 the sustainable number for this year, or it will again change based on the revenue mix?
Yeah, Gopal, as I mentioned, there are, as we said, the overall seasonality from a total volume standpoint is consistent across quarters. What you should probably anticipate for is a little bit of mix variance that can happen across each of these quarters. INR 889 to just to draw context versus, you know, the previous. Sorry, INR 889 was the performance for Q4 and you know, and it's INR 950 this quarter, is driven by the fact that the mix of natural diamond loose stones as well as lab-grown loose stones have actually increased versus the previous quarter. As I mentioned earlier, the Q4 mix on jewellery was higher versus Q1 of this year, driven by the fact that it was a festive Diwali quarter.
Those aspects of, you know, seasonality within the overall mix or the overall revenue is something that you should keep in mind.
Okay. Sir, is this quarter, the Q1, mix is a right representation of last calendar year, or it would be significantly different in terms of mix India?
These details are covered in the presentation as well, but for the interest of everybody, I'll just read it out. In Q1 of 2024, we had close to 73% of the mix from a revenue standpoint coming from the loose stone segment. That has moved down to 70%. Corresponding that 3%, 4% increase has happened in jewellery driven by lab-grown jewellery. That is the trend that we are talking about in terms of the lab-grown jewellery starting to accelerate its growth, you know, across both India as well as the consolidated performance.
Okay. Sir, lastly, is it a right assumption to make that India growth will be faster than consolidated growth?
Yeah, at the moment, we are seeing India growth to be faster than the consolidated growth, given the fact that all of the lab-grown diamonds that is grown, you know, a majority of that is getting cut and polished here in India. From that context, we must expect the India performance or the India business to grow faster than the other territories or the other geographies.
When we say that the volume growth should mirror the revenue growth from, say from next say three quarters perspective this year, seeing largely on LGD side, not on the overall company side.
Yeah, the LGD also is a big component of the overall revenue mix. What we are saying is, because of the pricing correction that we did in quarter one and the quarter two of last year, we will start cycling that pricing come May and June of this year. You know, from that context, is why we are saying that the revenue performance should therefore match the volume performance, which for the first quarter at least is lagging because of the pricing that we are cycling.
Sure. Thanks a lot for answering my question.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Aliasgar Shakir from Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Question is actually on the tariff. My understanding is that, you know, the, some of the, studded manufacturers have been indicating in the last few weeks, there is some kind of a stalemate with the, retailers in U.S., towards, you know, this tariff, increase, and therefore there is some softness in, demand from U.S. Just want to understand, you know, if you are observing any softness in, you know, business, you know, due to the tariff in the, in the near term?
At the moment, at least, as far as the first two, three weeks of April goes, we haven't seen any indication to the contrary versus what our performance has been for quarter one. Again, you know, it's been the normal stuff that we've been running.
Okay. All right. Got it. This is quite useful. The other question is on the volumes. Given that we have seen very good volumes, you know, growth in Q1, you know, the only reason why the revenue impact was because of the one-time correction in prices that you have taken. Now that that is behind us and in the base, should we expect this strong volume growth to translate into revenue growth in the coming quarters?
Yes.
Hello?
Yes, yes. We should expect.
Got it. All right. Yeah, those are my questions. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ashutosh Garud from Ambit Wealth PMS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Am I audible?
Yes, you are, Ashutosh.
I just wanted to check, why did we take the, why did we adjust the realization at a pricing, change we did two, three quarters back. Why did it happen? Second, why would, I mean, will there be another round of pricing cuts, let's say, a few quarters down the line? Just your thoughts on that, and why did that kind of price change y ou had to do two, three quarters back, and why wouldn't it happen again?
Okay. I think from an industry context, the industry had seen a pricing correction as far as lab-grown diamonds were concerned. This pricing correction started sometime in quarter four of 2023 and extended till quarter one, 2024. So that is the reason why we had to take the pricing correction in April, May to sync in with the market realities as far as lab-grown certification prices are concerned. If you were to look at our document, which is our DRHP, we have actually done a bit of industry analysis to understand what could be the potential downside as far as pricing for lab-grown diamonds are concerned.
With the heavy CapEx and the OpEx model that these guys, the manufacturers operate with, at $170-$200 of wholesale prices for lab-grown stones, we estimated that their ROIs is in the 8%-10% range. That gives us confidence for the fact that there is not much elbow room now available for them to therefore drop prices further. Over the last three quarters, we are seeing a lot of stability on pricing as far as lab-grown stones are concerned and correspondingly, the certification charges that we charge. I think, basis that, you know, I don't expect any major correction to therefore happen as far as lab-grown diamonds are concerned.
It would be safe to assume that, from Q3 onwards, your volume growth and revenue growth would mirror each other overall.
That's right.
Correct. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Chintan Sheth from Girik Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, you are, Chintan.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Great set of numbers. Congrats to the management. On the ramp-up path you mentioned about, you know, on the resource addition and the infra capability improvement. If you can guide us in terms of how should we look at, you know, OpEx impact as well as CapEx impact in our balance sheet for the year or the couple of years. Any update on the ad spend, because if you look at sequentially, our OpEx has been flatter. You did mention about your international rationalization of costs. But if you can, you know, help us understand or segregate the marketing spend, how it has been, you know, incurred over this quarter.
What is the accrued benefit we can expect through the rationalization with, you know, strategy which we are, you know, executing currently in the international business?
Chintan, what we are seeing is rapid growth in the volume.
Right.
Take care of the volume. We have already taken steps. Like I said, mentioned earlier, I think in my commentary that we have 130 gemologists which we have recruited and we are training.
That this takes care.
Right.
I mean, it's an operational cost which we have to take.
Correct.
The CapEx is minimal. You understand? It doesn't really affect much on the OpEx and CapEx. We are just beefing up our capacities and our ability, I mean. Our expertise remains the same, our trust factor remains the same, and at the same time, if we are able to handle the volumes, it's the better turnaround times are given to the customer, and thereby we have given a better service to our customer. You know, better turnaround time means translate into money and more volume. We are taking all that into account to see that, you know, we continue our leadership status in the lab-grown sector.
Okay. The cost structure right now, which we have seen in Q1, on an absolute basis, do you feel that, there will be hardly any, you know, inflationary, apart from the inflationary impact, there will be hardly a major, you know, increase, one can expect, or, it will be steady state and the Q1 trajectory on an absolute basis, dollar basis?
See, Chintan, we will continue to do what is right for the business because, as we speak, recruitment on people, et cetera, is continuing because t he paramount importance for us as an organization is to ensure five-star customer service. Okay?
Correct. Right.
We have to put people to meet our customer expectations and also to meet the volume growth and the turnaround times, et cetera. We will continue to invest in the business.
Got it.
As I mentioned, that is continuing as we speak.
Got it. On the revenue front, if I may, on the volume growth which we have seen this quarter, you know, 26% on group level, at India level, we have seen growth of 22% again. What we are seeing the guiding, in terms of 15%-20% growth, barring the first half impact, due to the pricing, we are very confident about delivering about 20%+ growth on the volume side. That is what one can expect, right? Given the optimism we have on the volume front.
Yeah, that continues to be the endeavor of the company to meet its strategic objectives for the next three to five years, Chintan.
Got it. Of course. T hank you. Thank you and all the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, that would be the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
Okay. Thanks, everyone, for the call. Obviously, you know, we just have an hour for these calls. If any of you all have further questions, please reach out to us, and we shall be happy to answer any of your questions and give you proper clarifications, et cetera. Thanks for taking the time, and it's been a pleasure talking to each of you all. Thank you very much.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you. On behalf of International Gemological Institute India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.