Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Deepak Jajodia. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Jubilant FoodWorks Limited Q1 FY25 Earnings Call for Investors and Analysts. We are joined today by senior members of the management team, including our Chairman, Mr. Shyam S. Bhartia, our Co-Chairman, Mr. Hari S. Bhartia, our CEO and MD, Mr. Sameer Khetarpal, our CFO, Ms. Suman Hegde, and Mr. Aslan Saranga, CEO for our Turkey business. We will commence with key thoughts from Mr. Hari S. Bhartia, and then turn to our CEO and MD to share his perspective. After the opening remarks from the management, the forum will be open for the question and answer session. A cautionary note, some of the statements made on today's webcast and call could be forward-looking in nature, and the actual results could vary from the statement. A detailed statement in this regard is available in Jubilant FoodWorks' earnings `release.
We will share the replay of the call on the company's website under the Investor Relations section. I would now like to invite Mr. Hari S. Bhartia to share his view with you. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Deepak, and good evening, everyone. Welcome to our earnings call. The quarter gone by was truly special, as JFL has reached a significant milestone of 3,000 store network across five brands and six countries. We also celebrated the opening of 2,000 Domino's store in India, taking India's share to the overall Domino's network at around 10%. With 2,029 stores in India, we are now serving consumers across 427 cities. We are humbled by the journey traversed together with the support of all the stakeholders. We are excited by the vast opportunity for our brands and have ambitious plans for all brands and markets in which we operate. Through commensurate investments in supply chain and technology, building on consumer love, we are confident that we will achieve newer records and milestones in the future.
We are very enthusiastic with the potential of brands like COFFY and Popeyes. Crossing 100 stores in COFFY in Turkey and 50 stores in Popeyes in India is a step to realize our multi-brand, multi-country growth strategy. This quarter is particularly important in our growth journey, as we are able to achieve 8.5% year-on-year growth in Domino's India, driven by 3% LFL growth. While there was no major improvement in the underlying demand situation, our sharp focus on delivery value to the consumer helped us register this growth. Product innovation, free delivery campaign, operational excellence through decentralized leadership team, technology integration to aid operations and supply chain, are some of the initiatives that aided in delivery value to our consumers.
Notably, while navigating through high inflation, we didn't take any price increase in the last 8 quarters and absorbed cost inflation through internal cost optimization and productivity enhancement program. Delivery continues to scale new record. Even on a high base, delivery LFL recorded a growth of 12.1%. Through targeted initiatives, we are also able to grow the dine-in revenue by 4.6% quarter-on-quarter, or almost 1.7% LFL quarter-on-quarter. This quarter also, for the first time, reflects consolidation of DP Eurasia account for all three months. We are pleased to report a solid start to FY 2025 with elevated growth and profitability. We also stepped up the pace of menu innovation across all markets, which have been met with great enthusiasm from consumers.
In terms of network expansion, we reaffirm our network guidance, and you will see ramp up in pace of network expansion in the coming quarters. With that, I request Sameer to share the quarterly update and his own perspective.
Thank you, Mr. Bhartia, and a warm welcome to all our conference participants. As always, we appreciate your interest in our company. For context, this quarter, we are consolidating the books from DP Eurasia for the full three months. However, it is not in the base calculation for the quarter, for the same quarter last year. Overall performance, it is indeed a milestone quarter. JFL delivered a strong quarter across all business lines, expansion in store network, and improvement in margin direct trajectory. Personally, for me, quality of growth is the biggest news, as the growth is order-led and, and new customer-led, as the company acquired new customers at the highest ever rate, beating the industry trend. Thus, indicating the belief in our core strategy of being customer first and data and technology forward.
System sales for JFL Group across brands and markets, which you may be aware, includes end customer sales of corporate stores as well as franchisee stores, came in at INR 22.4 billion, up by 13.5% on constant currency terms. Consolidated revenue came in at INR 19.3 billion, up 44.8% year-on-year. EBITDA margin was at 19.8%, lower by 85 basis points year-on-year. However, it improved 8 basis points quarter-on-quarter. The PAT margin was at 3.1%, was higher by 98 basis points year-on-year, and 68 basis points quarter-on-quarter. Group, the store network across all brands and countries is now at 3,057 stores, up 66 stores quarter-on-quarter. Next, let me describe how this performance played out in India and Turkey as regions.
Within India, the revenue was at INR 14.4 billion, up 9.9% year-on-year. EBITDA margin at 19.3%. While it was lower by 178 basis points year-on-year, it sequentially grew by 22 basis points. Domino's growth came in at 8.5%, led by record high orders, registering 16% growth year-on-year, with like-for-like growth coming in at +3%. Domino's mature store ADS, roughly about 1,644 stores out of 2,000 stores, is nearly at INR 80,000, was also the highest in the last 5 quarters. Network expanded by 34 stores, and the brand entered 6 new cities.
Clearly, this is a testimony of the underlying strategic initiatives, which are transitioning from 4 regions to 7 region structures and 35 circles below, with each region ready to scale to INR 1,000 crore as a region, and circle, in each circle led by a market maker. We are witnessing strong uptake in underlying customer metrics, and there is more to achieve there. The quarter, this quarter, we fully completed the movement to microservices-based architecture for our customer app, and we've witnessed a record high monthly active users of 12.1 million customers, which was up 17.5% year-on-year. The brand refresh, it happens only with pizza, help us significantly improve our brand scores and is helping us win share of occasions. In delivery, we saw a growth of 15.7% year-on-year.
Orders grew 29.5% year-on-year, and the delivery LFL growth was at 12.1%. We also increased the pace of new product introductions to drive in-store growth during lunch hours by introducing the renowned value or best value, as we call it, in the QSR, that the QSR chain offers, i.e., a lunch thali, a four-course meal at INR 99, available in stores between 11 A.M. and 3 P.M. To improve attachment of beverages, we launched a range called Chillers. For customers looking for indulgence, we launched a globally acclaimed Domino's Cheese Volcano pizza meant for cheese lovers, creating new excitement in the category. Moving on to the business in Turkey.
As you know, we have-- we operate with two brands in Turkey, Domino's and COFFY, and store network of 707 and 105, respectively. We added 4 stores for Domino's and 8 for COFFY. 80%, 88% of the network in Turkey is franchisee-operated, which makes the model asset light, hence it is important to look at both system sales and the revenue that the company earns by serving the franchisee. Domino's Turkey system sales was at INR 7 billion. LFL was 10.3%. For COFFY, system sales came in at INR 656 million, and LFL was 8.7%. The revenue from DP Eurasia came in at INR 4.6 billion, higher by 15.4% year-on-year at constant currency rate.
EBITDA margin came in at 25%, 871 basis points year-on-year improvement, but -100, -150 basis points lower quarter-on-quarter. PAT margin was strong and accretive to Indian business at +9.2%, which is 666 basis points increase over year-on-year and 300 basis point increase quarter-on-quarter. This is in line with our core thesis of acquiring the business, which is, asset light and an accretive, accretive business. Key highlights from other emerging brands. In Popeyes, we crossed a significant milestone of 50 stores and now serving customers across 21 cities. We filled an important gap in our offering by launching Popeyes Baskets. We continue to remain bullish on store expansion, the customer feedback that we are getting, sales and margin improvement for the business.
In Dunkin', we added 5 stores, launched Bubble Tea during the quarter, which helped us enhance the beverage mix and dialing up occasions for donuts, and also improving the performance of the brand and the stores, especially around restaurant profitability. In Hong's Kitchen, we added 5 new stores, taking the store network to 33. The successful Hong's Kitchen wrap range was further bolstered with the introduction of 3 new wraps, starting at INR 99. In COFFY in Turkey, we surpassed a significant milestone of 100 stores and now are 105 stores strong. The franchise store count is now 80, spread across 19 cities in Turkey, with strong demand from franchisee partners to further expand. Let me share the business outlook.
I had shared with you our business strategy in the prior call for FY 25, in the previous call. We are making progress on driving growth across brands and geographies, and are equally focused on driving margin expansion in India. It is important to emphasize that this is now the eighth straight quarter with no price increase in Domino's, and we have waived off delivery fees, which has enhanced the value quotient of our customers materially. The consumers, in turn, are reciprocating their love for the brand and appreciating the outstanding value along with high quality of service. Equally, on margins, we are keeping a hawk eye and pushing to get the leverage in the PNL. As indicated, we expect the margins to improve from the lows of last quarter, i.e., Q4 2024.
There is no change in our network guidance as indicated earlier, even though we recognize the pace of expansion in Domino's was slower this quarter. In closing, I would like to thank my team across all geographies for making progress and executing in a challenging demand environment. We will stay focused on our core set strategy across four pillars outlined in the last call. With that, I would request the moderator to initiate the Q&A session. Thank you.
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'll take our first question from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jham from Ambit. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening to the management. I have three questions. The first was: What is, in your opinion, the reason of such a stark difference in the delivery and dine-in growth that we are seeing? And did the INR 99 lunch menu launch have any significant impact, on the dine-in performance in terms of a positive, performance impact?
Sorry, the first question is, what is the?
I'm asking why is there such a divergence in the delivery and dine-in growth? And did the 99 menu launch have any positive impact on dine-in sales this quarter?
Okay. I think the first question, what's causing the divergence? Number one, Domino's delivery is, or this delivery and Domino's are synonymous in terms of customer memory structures. We have doubled down on delivery, as you know, that we're always pushing the boundary. Nearly 70% of orders are now delivered in under 20 minutes. And the free delivery campaign that we tried during the IPLs only told us how much upside that is there on delivery. So a combination of brand proposition, excellence on operations, free delivery, and in general, as you would notice, world over and across all QR charts, delivery as a mix is growing. So there is also a consumer trend that we are riding on. So that's one reason.
And on the dine-in and takeaway, I actually see it as an opportunity versus a weakness. And we are beginning to capture a part of that consumer cohort by launching a INR 99 Lunch Feast, which to me actually is a breakthrough innovation from the giving value to the consumer in store. So that has helped the quarter-on-quarter decline. And in fact, Q4 was lower than Q1, and there is actually growth of +2%, just like-for-like, quarter-on-quarter, if I just look at dine-in takeaway. So very focused on both delivery and dine-in.
Sure, Sameer. The second question was, when you speak of improvement, ideally Q4 to Q1, we, we do see an improvement if I look at historical seasonal trends. If I have to look at it on a year-on-year basis or the like-for-like trajectory, is that also seeing a decent improvement when you're looking at, say, the first month of Q2?
No, actually, see, as an operator, I think of the world as improving week-on-week, month-on-month. That's how we run the business. See, there, for the last four quarters, there has been a decline in our dine-in weekly orders. Now, from Q4, we have started going upwards, and my take is that trajectory, if we execute and give value to consumers for dine-in, continue to iterate on the menu and menu side, we should see the growth. And plus, we have refurbished quite a few stores. That is also playing out. Any store refurbished at least sees 10%-12% growth in dine-in.
Got that. Just one final question from my side would be that ideally for our margins, we've been looking at 21%-22%. I just wanted to check if that is the range you are looking at for this year for the standalone business.
Well, I think it's a good push. For the moment, I want to make sure we capture the growth, acquire new customers, and serve them well. Like, I do have that number in my mind, and we are focused on it, but I don't think it is going to be achieved in the coming quarter for sure.
Sure, Sameer. Thank you so much, and I wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Shirish Pardeshi from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sameer and team. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations for the good recovery. Starting from what we understand, most of these step-in companies are crying and there is a challenge. People have seen heatwave and other issues around. But it seems that past is behind and we are now on the good wicket, so whatever strategic actions we have taken, it started delivering the good fruits. My bigger question is that when I look on slide 20, you have said that the monthly active users has moved from 10.3 million to 12 million, which is almost 2 million customers we have added. Can you qualitatively speak something? Because when I see the delivery part, which has fueled the growth of 12.1%, but ADS has not grown to that level.
So maybe if you can give some color, how we should read this number?
Yeah, I think Shirish, thank you. See, I think this is how I read it. For context, there is of course a demand slowdown, and consumers are conserving their pockets. And we saw this four or five quarters ago when we saw larger pizzas being downgraded to medium and medium downgraded to regular. We have called that out. Now, in this environment, the most important piece is to provide value to consumers, acquire new consumers, and retain our existing consumers. So it is therefore it should show in our consumer the new customer acquisition and total customer base. So this nearly 15% increase in monthly active users is actually showing the result is in the sales of our mature store, which is at an all-time high.
Or at least in the last five quarters, the mature stores have grown. Now, in terms of quality of consumers, I generally believe consumers will go where they see great taste and outstanding value. So of course, it is early how this will pan out, and we don't know, but I'm very confident that these consumers are not just deal-seeking consumers, and who will, who will not value great service like 20-minute delivery or pizzas like Volcano Pizza. So I'm quite confident they will say it is not that we are attracting consumers who are very poor in kind of their life cycle quality.
Okay. Just one follow-up. If Domino's India would have grown 8.2%, is the value which is coming down and volume is going up, that's the presumption which I had. But anyway, I'll go with your-
No, that is correct, and that is correct, and that is by design. Right, and because, because free delivery, we, we brought it slightly, the threshold for free delivery is INR 150, right? So from that perspective, it is, it is giving great value to consumers, and therefore, somebody who wants to have INR 150, INR 155 in pocket now get like couple of pizzas and get a free delivery. Versus like before COVID, when it was free delivery, it was the threshold used to be INR 350.
Okay. Okay, got it. My second question on Domino's Cheesy Rewards. Now, cumulative membership has now reached almost 25 million. Would you have any numbers to say how many people have enrolled second time, third time, fourth time, or maybe how many, what was the redemption or conversion which people have reached to six pizzas?
Yeah. So, so what we look at is, cohorts of how many customers have, redeemed one pizza, how many customers have two pies, three pies, four pies, and the overall frequency. While the overall frequency has not materially changed, but the cohort of high-frequency customers who order almost 15 times in a year, that base has materially grown. So it has provided a lot of stickiness and the, and the churn rates or, customers who would probably go to some other platform, it has definitely dented that. So, at least, and that was the core thesis of this launching this program, was to give stickiness to consumers, and that is what it is doing.
To my long memory, I think somewhere I picked up, the Cheesy Rewards customers were contributing almost 45% of the business. Has that number changed significantly now?
It's more than 50%, right? So, so that number is obviously inching up, increasing, and consumers are noticing. And once you get a free pizza, Sriji, then it becomes like a, a self-fulfilling kind of a cycle, where they know that this works, I am getting a pizza. And when you have to make a choice of from ordering from outside, then this becomes top of the mind, and we are seeing that in our numbers.
Okay, that's wonderful. Just last question on the DP Eurasia. You, though you have given that INR 450 million crore, you have delivered in this quarter, INR 461 crore, which has grown almost a strong double digit. If you need to model this number, because obviously it will take four quarters to build the numbers, if you can directly say that, what is the quality of growth? What is the number of stores you are expanding? Maybe some direction on the same store sales growth or LFL growth in that country.
The LFL growth rate is 10.3% for Domino's, and it is 8.7% for Popeyes. I'm talking in rupees terms. Therefore, it is very indicative and business is . The quality of growth is very strong. And in fact, as a market, having now visiting every quarter, I see the strong consumer pool, young population, and the habit of eating out. Clearly, it is a very vibrant economy. We - if we were to take, if this was in the base, then this number, the growth would be 15.4%, right? 15.4% year-on-year.
Okay.
Like, the true base to base comparison is 15.4% growth, so which is very healthy.
But is there any seasonality, quarter one, quarter three is better, or quarter four is going to be stronger? I mean, I would understand, the seasonality is also going to be there.
So, I think the Q2 is typically higher, again. But when you are looking at Q1 and Q2, there could be because there was Ramadan, which was in different quarters. But I will not read, Shirish, on that. I will not read too much into it, and this 15.4 is a fairly representative number, actually.
Okay. Okay, thank you, and all the best.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Percy Pantaki from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. For the standalone business, would you be able to tell us the adjusted EBITDA margin for political contributions, if any?
It's about, Percy, it's about 40-50 bits. So yes, you know, if, if you're looking at a standalone business result of 19.3% that we've declared, so it could have been closer to 19.7%-19.8%.
Okay, understood. Secondly, I wanted to understand for Popeyes, would you be able to give us some idea now in terms of what do you see the shape of financials for the stores which have been open for more than two years, in terms of what is the ADS, what is the restaurant operating margin that they generate for the cohort as a whole? So that we get an idea as to, I mean, how they are - how the format is performing for stores more than two years old.
I think we definitely want to build this. We are bullish about it. We see customer traction, and for those reasons, Percy, we are refraining from not giving any guidance till we hit a store count of 100, and that's been kind of our stated position for the last couple of quarters. But in terms of quality, we are seeing very strong uptick in orders, in our delivery growth. The baskets and the new flavor that we have launched on Hot and Messy, all of that is actually very positive. We have worked materially hard to reduce the cost of goods sold.
So in fact, our margins are now very healthy when we look versus competition, and we have brought down the store size and CapEx to suit, to fit into Indian kitchen. So very confident how this has been panning out. It's been just two years in the system, and we know it takes some time to build a strong brand. But from a team management bandwidth capital, we are fully invested behind growing this brand.
Sure. But for us as financial market participants, and when we are giving a SOTP or a separate value to the format, would we be right in assuming that, in the medium term, this format would be able to do restaurant operating margins similar to that of Domino's?
It's a different business. I think we should compare this to more chicken and burgers as-
Sure.
As a category, right?
Sure.
Because the input cost is different. The cost in a pizza is more opaque versus, let's say, bone-in chicken. So therefore, it has different dynamics, right? From an industry structure standpoint or category structure standpoint. It should similar, it should mimic what it is adjusted for scale.
Understood, understood. And, finally, just wanted to understand, if you can give some store guidance for Domino's India store openings for this year and next year?
So this year, I think as stated, we are targeting 180 stores opening, and I think at the moment, we feel confident we'll increase pace in Q2.
Okay, okay. Yeah, that's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Devanshu Bansal from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Hi, thanks for the opportunity, and many congratulations on a good delivery performance in Domino's India, and a strong sequential pickup in DP Eurasia. Sir, the Domino's India volume growth is about 16%, but value growth is about 8.5%, which is almost a 7.5% decline in bill size for us in Q1. So what is the reason for this, since we introduced the packaging charge as well?
Yeah. So I think we obviously are giving customers or putting INR 40 per order back in customers' hands or wallets. Packing charges, where we have introduced, are limited and does not cover even 50% of what we were charging the customers. Second is we have reduced the threshold of free delivery to INR 150. So customers today can make a cart of INR 170-INR 180 and check out. So, which is increasing the volume, which is increasing the new customer rate, it is we believe that will also result in repeats, because people are now having different group sizes at different occasions. Whether you're ordering for a family or yourself, you get free delivery.
So that is where I think we are seeing the growth, and this cycle starts playing into repeat customers and starts compounding. So that is the thesis behind that, and, and that is why you are seeing, a higher than whatever INR 25-INR 30 drop, in order, in order, order ticket size, and it is by design, and we have experimented it for six months.
Right, Samir, and this should continue at least for next two quarters also, right? So because Q4, I guess, we experimented, but for next two quarters, this decline should continue in bill size?
Quarter-on-quarter, it should not, but yeah, I think year-on-year, it will.
Year on year. Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay. Next question, I just wanted to understand the financials of DP Eurasia, sort of, better. There is a strong 40% kind of pickup sequentially, if we adjust for three-month number that we gave in Q4. So is there a big seasonality between Q4 and Q1 there? What has driven this strong increase in DP Eurasia?
Suman, you want to take that? There is no-
In terms of top line, the question is, or in terms of, bottom line? Can I just clarify.
Suman, it is for top line. So we reported about INR 217 crore in Q4 for two months, and if we adjust it for three months, it would be closer to, say, INR 300-INR 320 crore, but this time around we have almost reported INR 420-INR 430 crore. So I'm talking about that 40% jump between Q4 and Q1.
Yeah, so it's a bit of, you're right, it's a bit of seasonality that does kick in, and like we said, so from Q1 into Q2, into Q3, H2 is higher than H1. There is a bit of that, and of course, there is also what I think Sameer alluded to on the movement between when Eid is and when, you know, the Ramadan period is on. So there is a factor of that also playing out between Q1 and Q2, which sees the uptick in Q coming.
Got it. And likewise, gross margins have actually fallen sequentially, and it's a big fall from about 75% to 62% if you look at only the subsidiary gross margin. So what explains that?
So there are two things here, and I think it's good, as we also understand DP Eurasia business better. Gross margins of the DP Eurasia business, structurally, because it's a franchisee-driven business, will be lower than, JFL's standalone results. And that's also because a lot of their income comes from a cost markup or whatever they do with, you know, recovery from franchisees, which would be there in the cost, but the income wouldn't be to some extent amount when you sell, sell to normal customers. So fundamentally, this business averaging a gross margin of 64%-65% versus what you would see in a JFL at about 76%. Right? Now, coming to your question of why sequentially there is a drop. Sequentially, actually, there's no drop in the business's intrinsic gross margin.
In the first two months of integration, based on the way Turkey reports its numbers and where, or how they conclude gross margin versus how the India requirements on how gross margin is reported, there was a mapping changes which had to be done, which we have done and corrected for. So it was more a mapping issue, which happened in the first quarter of our integration in more in terms of understanding their ways of accounting versus ours. But if you look at an EBITDA level, it kind of squares off, right? So I wouldn't, you know, long story short, I wouldn't worry too much about the gross margin. There's no decline in the gross margin intrinsically of the Turkey business. It's more a correction that we have done versus what we reported in Q1, Q4 versus what was done in Q1. EBITDA being at where we are.
Understood, Suman. And last, just small follow-up on debt reduction, which is expected for DP Eurasia. Can you sort of highlight the timeline for that?
So I wouldn't, I wouldn't give you a firm timeline on that. I do-- I don't think that is right to give any forward outlook. But yes, it's a big focus area. A lot of the debt also of DP Eurasia, within the Turkey DP Eurasia business per se, is driven on short term and how they manage the economy on an ongoing basis. It's not long-term debt. It works more on their working capital management, given the franchising model, and also given the high inflation, what they invest back into inventory to give that benefit back to the P&L. In the long term, we do see and substantial Q1, they have brought the debt down in Q2, and we see this trajectory going in as we exit this calendar year and into next year.
The plan is that we should start getting dividends out of this business sometime maybe by mid or early next calendar year.
Thank you, Suman. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Latika Chopra from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi, Sameer and Suman.
I'm sorry, ma'am, can you use your handset more, please? It is not very clear.
Yes. Is it better? I'm using my handset only.
No, not very clear.
Okay, let me come back a little again.
It was little better now, ma'am. You can go ahead.
Okay. My first question was, you know, on demand. You know, same-store sales growth trends, you know, at 3%. Could you share, give us some flavor, how sequentially through the quarter, these really played out? I heard you talking about, you know, the broader market remains challenging, and it's your own initiatives, you know, which are kind of helping you outperform the category growth rates. And I'm just trying to understand, did we see an improvement gradually through the quarter, how the exit SSG numbers were like? And in your view, would you require price increases to improve this SSG, or you still feel that the initiatives that you've taken, you know, still have more to deliver, assuming the broader market remains, you know, the way it is?
Just trying to sense check whether, you know, this 3% SSG can it improve towards 5, 6, 7, as you know, we progress through the year? Thank you.
Yeah, I think that is the endeavor over here, right? I mean, you are aware of the competition set and therefore indicating the macro demand environment. Equally, the delivery is growing for all and the aggregators. So, it's kind of a two-faced market as I see it, right? And delivery comes at a cost to consumers, so they are actually willing to pay that cost for convenience. So, we need to first recognize the trend, organize ourselves and our resources to go behind delivery, and that's what we've done. Now, clearly, 3% is whatever, 800 basis point higher than where the rest of the industry is landing. I think there is more juice to it, but of course, will require execution.
This is not a natural tailwind in the industry and demand that is there. One has to find ways to give value to consumers, and they make sure you deliver on the promise that hot pizza delivered in 20 minutes at home. So it is. I think definitely I would agree there is more juice, but it is more execution-led and not necessarily macro-led.
Sure. And sequence, you've not seen any material trend changing through the quarter. Is that right to assume?
So, like I said in my last earnings call, we have begun to see increase in delivery growth rate, and we continue to see delivery growth rate in the positive, LFL territories that we continue to see as we enter this quarter. Despite rains, despite heat, whatever the weather condition, we are seeing an uptick in delivery, and that's what we are banking on. Then on the dine-in side, we have gotten our act together, and I have been a big vocal proponent of it for the last now five or six quarters, where store refurbishment, dine-in experience improvement, and value through Lunch Feast. So we are actually in several places, the engine is beginning to do more experiments and learning from there.
Some will definitely land, but I cannot say that this 3% will go to 5% the next quarter.
Sure. And within the delivery fees, has the inroads of your own app contribution versus the aggregator contribution, has that balance changed in any material way over the last four quarters?
We don't give the exact share, but qualitatively, our Domino's app, like I said, you've seen the monthly active user growth rate. I can very proudly say that we have delivered the best ever conversion in this quarter, on the app, and we continue to acquire new customers mostly through our own app. So from that perspective, our digital strategy or data and technology forward approach has played out in a free delivery context even more.
Understood. And the last bit, anything that you want to share on, you know, your operations in Bangladesh? Any recent trends? That's the last question. Thank you.
Yeah. So I think the quarter one was the best ever quarter for us. In terms of profitability, the Bangladesh business turned profitable, and we saw obviously material same-store growth. It is too early. In fact, the situation has been better in the last couple of days. Stores have started opening. Our few stores also got opened. We believe it should normalize because the police was on strike, and once that returns, so you'll have more normalcy on the roads. So a little bit wait and watch, but I'm happy to say that our store staff is safe, and we've not incurred any material loss to our store and property. And it is less than 1% of our consolidated revenue.
Understood. Thank you so much, Sameer.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Aditya Soman from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. So the first question is just on, I mean, clearly with free deliveries, we are, we seem to be incentivizing customers to sort of shift from dine-in to delivery. Now, would this lead to some level of a margin impact? Because obviously you're incurring a fixed cost at store and this delivery comes, the delivery obviously comes with delivery cost.
Yeah. For the same food size or ticket size for food, delivery is dilutive versus a customer coming and taking away the order from the store, right? So that is there. So it does. That mix change leads to margin improvement. That is showing in year-on-year EBITDA reduction, but it is also giving us positive same-store growth, so you are getting the leverage of that in the PNL, and that is what we are counting on. And as this compounds and the customer, these new customers that we acquire, they start repeating, we get greater leverage in the store. So in the short term, yes, and if this were to compound, we will be able to negate it. Plus, there are several initiatives, like I said, I've been a big proponent of Project Vijay, that we do to kind of internal efficiency.
But price increase is definitely not on the table as I have always been saying. This is a time to give more value, gain more share on versus the competition.
Thanks, Sameer. No, no, that's very clear. And then this MAU increase, right? So to a certain extent, that would also, I mean, the reduction in delivery threshold to INR 150 would also drive that conversion, right? From dine-in to delivery, because earlier people would walk into the store to get that delivery at for a small ticket item. Now, maybe they are delivering. Would that explain some of the shift in MAU?
Absolutely. The, when, so, this is a great question, Aditya, and we ran an experiment across 12 different cities for 6 months before we arrived scientifically at what should be the delivery charge by type of a city and commensurating packaging charge. So we did see when you do free delivery and a very low threshold of packaging delivery, the first business that goes away is actually your takeaway business or carryout business. That's quite material because now there is no incentive for the customer to go to the store and pick up the order. And the only friction that you have right now is packaging charge.
So we're fully cognizant of it, and therefore, we have to work on the value leg for how to get more customers to come into the store, whether dine in or take away, and that. So therefore, this lunch piece, as we call it, or thali, was launched simultaneously when we launched the free delivery. So that's why it was a very thoughtful intervention, more of a plan, but very thoughtful in how we execute it.
Absolutely. Very clear. And maybe just one last follow-up on this. I mean, the LFL versus SSG, is there any meaningful difference now, given that the proportion of new store adds has been coming down?
Yeah, I think SSG is positive, so we annually disclose that. So it is, SSG is now closer to 2%, I think, or 1.5%, somewhere in that range. So it is positive because, again, I have said that we are reducing the number of split stores, because if LFL was not there, then the need for split comes down. And I actually hope that cycle turns around. We have more LFL and therefore there is greater need to split and we expand further. But if you look at last three or four, last three quarters at least, our new city expansion has materially increased.
Because we are, as part of our network expansion strategy, we are moving to more wider and greener areas because the LFL was negative, and that is beginning to pay off in terms of the differential between LFL and SSG has come down.
Thank you, Sameer and team. That's very good and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Ashish Kanodia from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team. Thank you for the opportunity. So the first question was around the margins and, you know, on the delivery initiative which you have taken. So, you know, there are a couple of headwinds. First, delivery fee waiver, and then secondly, you know, your ticket sizes are also reducing. So at what point do you think, you know, this margins kind of start to improve? Because, you know, at least for the next two, three quarter, you know, things will remain subdued from a ticket size perspective. So, first, you know, apart from the Project Vijay cost initiative, is there a, you know, like a LFL number, which will help you to improve the margin over the next two, three quarters? That's the first question.
... Yeah, I think from a margin perspective, so we've launched, and certainly the way we are executing this is the following. In terms of our marketing campaigns, we are focused on indulgence, and you'll see throughout this month, the world-renowned Volcano pizza that we've launched, and that obviously is more cheese, higher, higher in ticket size, and we are seeing very strong traction of that product. We therefore, we have now followed it up with a TV campaign, which got recently launched. So, so our endeavor is to increase the ticket size by offering greater cheese and, and more indulgence to consumers at the same time when the free delivery is, is there. So that's how we are tackling it. I don't expect like a massive uptick in margin in, in the current quarter or...
But as this starts compounding, if 3 were to go to 4 and 4.5, 5, then I will get far more leverage in my P&L, and that is what we are gunning towards, plus Project Vijay.
Sure, Sameer, that's helpful. And second question on the Popeyes side, right? So if I just compare, you know, what has happened between, say, 2Q to 1Q, there's almost 28 store addition, but at the same time, you have also entered into 60 new cities. So, you know, like, if you look at the next one to two years, are you looking at more in terms of getting into newer cities? Or the idea is to maybe, you know, double down on the existing cities because, you know, Popeyes is still scratching the surface, so would like to know, get some sense on that.
Yeah, I think the cities typically can be a little bit of a misnomer, because you will include Faridabad, Gurgaon, Delhi, right, as three different, and Ghaziabad as, and Noida, as five different cities. So right, so there is a bit of that over there. So I think we are looking at the right clusters. That's how internally we track it. So Delhi NCR is one cluster, right? Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula is one cluster, but they will be the three different cities. So we are focused on right locations and chicken-eating markets. It is the number of cities are greater in South, and that's why, like, whether it be Bangalore or Mysore or, Salem, right? And in addition to Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.
So, that is why you see greater footprint of cities, but these are cities with very large chicken-eating population, where the brand is doing very well.
Sure, fair point. And just last bit again on Popeyes, you know, just maybe from a qualitative perspective, when you look at delivery versus dine-in performance for, say, more than 1.5-year-old stores, any sense on how both these things are performing?
Yeah, I think we followed a bit of a Domino's playbook over here. We have stores in malls which are 100% dine-in, right? We don't do, we tend not to do delivery from there, and we use our high street locations to do deliveries. That is the approach we've taken. So therefore... And we have a much larger mix of dine-in store. So therefore, our delivery share is lower and dine-in is higher at the moment.
Sure. That's very helpful. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Sheela Rathi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. I have two questions. Sameer, on the basis of all the interventions which we have made, both on delivery and dine-in side, it seems that on the delivery side, things are starting to look, look up for us, but not necessarily on the dine-in side. So is it fair to say that next few quarters we'll continue to see, you know, delivery growth ahead of dine-in growth? Or, you know, there are other thoughts around it?
Yeah, I think the endeavor is to double down and tail-capture the tailwinds and our execution capabilities on the delivery side and flank dine-in and takeaway, right? So that it doesn't decline. So I would concur with the first statement that delivery should continue, and we'll double down, and there is more to do over there. But on dine-in side, we have... And delivery is about 70% of our business, 69% of our business. And on dine-in side, like I mentioned, we have at least from last quarter, we had arrested the decline, and we have more ideas to kind of bring customers back into our stores.
So how many quarters we would be away from seeing, you know, similar kind of growth in both the channels?
So I don't, can't... I think both will be different. I think the decline in dine-in will not be there. That's what I'm saying. So I think delivery will continue to grow fast, and that's a worldwide industry phenomenon. So I think for all QSRs in India and also outside, and if you read the commentary of whatever international brand, when they have declared the results, everybody's talking about higher proportion of business coming from delivery and carryout.
Right. Just to follow up here, what would be the differentials in the average bill value for dine-in versus delivery now, say, where it was, say, couple of years ago?
Yeah, so, so, delivery has higher ticket size, even now and before. It's just that the INR 40 has gone off from that, and the differential has come down, actually. I don't want to comment how, by how much and all that, I don't even have the number, what is the differential before versus now, but the differential in, qualitatively has definitely reduced.
This is like-for-like, right? Not including the delivery fee.
Yes, yes.
Okay. Just,
Yes, talking the differential between delivery and dine-in right now in the current period versus what it was a year ago.
Understood. And my second and final question was, you know, you talked about Popeyes strategy. You know, also observed that, you know, in Hong's Kitchen, we have almost doubled the number of stores. Even for Dunkin, you know, last two quarters, we have been expanding the store count. I just wanted to hear your thoughts on what the strategy here is.
That's why I think the strategy is clear that we prioritize Domino's and Popeyes as our big growth vectors, and we make sure that Hong's and Dunkin' they find the right customer value proposition and store economic model. And I can assure you, both are on track. In fact, Dunkin' is even like more on track to kind of achieving high store-level profitability. So that is the approach. Expand rapidly unconstrained Domino's, expand rapidly in Popeyes, drive profitability in Hong's and Dunkin', and before we further expand. We'll continue to expand a little here and there as well.
Just one follow-up here, Sameer. Do we have a store count target on these two formats for this year?
We are, we have shared a guidance, so about Hong's, we'll add 20-25 stores. But again, these are not like a number that we are chasing as a goal. Rather, we are chasing customer satisfaction scores, store throughput in terms of revenue, and the restaurant-level profitability. So these are the goals. Once we see it, we then figure out what formats are working. Those formats, we can always dial up and dial down. So it is not lack of team intent or capital, it is more finding the right economic model.
Understood. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take a last question from the line of Manoj Gori from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Yep. Thanks for the opportunity. So we have seen some improvement based on the efforts that we have taken, especially on the LFL side. Just want to understand that the entire positive impact has been based on the efforts that we have taken, or probably we are seeing some improvement in demand environment as well?
Yeah, I think. So, Manoj, like, maybe you've not connected, and I'm a big proponent of Domino's through execution being ahead of the market, and I think that is now playing out. And I personally don't fully understand the demand or macroeconomics myself fully, so more focused on execution, what is in our control. I would like to believe, given how the other results have been, that this is largely execution-led.
Sure. So secondly, on the other expenses side, we have seen roughly around 20% growth. Sorry if I may have missed, but can you, highlight, like, what are the key main line items where we have seen the increase, or probably it is because of the waiver into delivery fees?
No, so I think on other expenses, if you look at the increase that we've seen coming through, it's not really waiver of delivery fees, because that really goes and sits on your gross margin-
Correct. Correct.
So predominantly, I think we're seeing, but we have really invested ahead of the curve on a lot of areas. So one, on our technology. Second, on when we decentralized from a four-region to a seven-region structure. We have stepped up and called out in the previous quarter as well, when the results have been heavily invested in advertising, during the IPL and the World Cup season, which went into quarter one. So there has been advertising spends also, which have been stepped up. So there are a couple of expenses that we have increased intentionally, and our belief is, and as you've seen, that some of the growth coming through on that, and as we go on, the leverage should start coming through on these lines.
So these investments should continue in the coming quarters as well?
So not so much. Like I said, some of them are investments, so technology investments, the decentralization of structure, those investments, of course, are now baked into the numbers, right? So it's not like we are going to keep increasing that exponentially. Yes, there are expenses around marketing, and we are, have stepped up marketing, and we'll keep calibrating that. There have been higher spends on that account. Plus, in quarter one, we also had this time, you know, higher costs in some of the stores that we were running. You know, we had a very high peak summer season across most of the markets, and we did see some of our consumable and utility costs going up across the stores, which should moderate now as we move out of the peak summer season.
So there are reasons, but of course, if you see quarter-on-quarter from a leverage perspective, our other expenses, we have seen that leverage benefit come through as growth has come through. But on year-on-year basis, of course, it is higher, as we've noticed that, but that's also on the back of investments that we've made.
Sure. Thanks a lot, and wish you all the best.
Thank you. Thank you, members of the management team. On behalf of Jubilant FoodWorks Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.