Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Jubilant FoodWorks Limited Q4 FY 2024 and Full Year 2024 earnings webcast and conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. 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.
Thanks. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Jubilant FoodWorks Limited Q4 FY 2024 and Full Year FY 2024 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 Khetrapal, and our CFO, Ms. Suman Hegde. 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 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 document.
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, and welcome to our webcast. Financial year 2024 will be regarded as a significant year in our corporate history as it is coming together of two Domino's markets, India and Turkey. We trace a common origin with our first store opening in 1996, and eventually creating a dominant and a profitable pizza franchise. In both our markets, we invested early in our own commissary and also in the technology stack. We are excited by the potential of sub-franchise-led operations in Domino's Turkey, which actually complements well with the corporate store-driven expansion in Domino's India. We are now leading the two large emerging market opportunity globally for Domino's. This has helped us in further deepening our relationship with Domino's International.
It is heartening to note that DP Eurasia has been able to build the eighth-largest coffee brand in Turkey, which is called COFFY, in just over two years. With 100 stores currently, we view COFFY as a new profitable growth lever for the JFL group. In India, we are pleased to announce that despite the challenging demand environment, the Domino's team has been able to achieve a positive LFL growth in quarter four. This has been accomplished without any price increase for almost last two years. For the current quarter, we are already in the positive LFL territory and continue to gain market share quarter-over-quarter. The emerging brands are tracking as per our plan and continue to make good progress during the year.
With the opening of 365 stores at the group level in financial year 2024, we are proud to announce that we achieved a record milestone of average of one store opening per day. To further strengthen our value proposition and fuel our growth ambitions, it is critical that we continually invest across all facets of our business. This would translate to CapEx for new commissaries and investments in technology. Also, the delivery fee waiver would temporarily lower margins, but is helping us to acquire new customers with high lifetime value and ensuring future returns. We are certain that these initiatives would enhance the quality and substance of our future cash flows. Offering the best value to consumers with technology-based convenience has been the cornerstone for JFL Group's success all these years, and we will continue to build on it as we grow the portfolio of brands.
With that, I request Sameer to start the webcast.
Thank you, Mr. Bhartia. Good evening, and warm welcome to all our participants in the webcast and the conference call today. I'd also like to welcome our colleagues from Turkey and Aslan and Suman, who as a new CFO, has joined this quarter, our first analyst call. So welcome, everyone. I'll begin with an overview of fiscal year 2024, share the market-wise and brand-wise highlights. Suman will follow with a review of consolidated P&L. I will then talk about business outlook and network addition guidance for FY 2025. We will then, of course, take questions from all of you. We are also changing our format of the format of this call today. As I speak about the commentary on the webcast, you will see the slides. So I'll speak to the slides.
The FY 2024 year of significant shift. FY 2024 is clearly a year of significant shift for DFL as a group. It catapults us from being India's largest food service company, to also on our way on becoming one of the largest emerging market food services company. As we go to the next page, which gives you a snapshot of the network. The DFL group store network across six markets and five brands is nearly 3,000 stores. When viewed from the lens of sustainable long-term growth potential through our choice of market section, we are positioned very well to serve 22% of the world's population. Nearly a quarter, as I would say.
Our strategically curated cuisine segments match with some of the best partnerships that we have with global franchise owners of brands like Domino's, RBI, Inspire, and also in-house brands like COFFY and Hong's Kitchen, gives us many competitive advantages to, to the group, to DFL as a group. On top of it, the complementarity of the business model with corporate and franchise stores, puts us in a unique position to grow competitively, profitability and, and higher return on capital. The highlight here on this page, at least for me, is we opened 356 stores together as a, as a group, i.e., one store a day, nearly one store a day. In Domino's, we opened 240 stores in the year across geographies.
However, one of the key insights from the network update is the non-Domino's portfolio now beginning to contribute and to 27% of the overall network. So we are no longer a Domino's only company, but a multi-brand company, with 27% of the network coming from other than Domino's. They are, of course, at a different stage of development, and this will play out in the future when viewed from the perspective of gaining share of new locations for one customer, for a particular customer, but also growing the number of customers as we operate in the emerging economies. Let me talk about some of the full year as a whole. As we step back, very early, we've been very consistent on our four strategic pillars, which is highlighted on the left side of the page.
Each of the, each of the pillar, we've made rapid strides and progress in the year gone by. The first set of priorities on customer and market first. The underlying objective here is to build multi-brand, multi-cuisine, food services company, which is profitable. We turn around the Domino's India like-for-like trajectory in Q4, and the trend line continues to be positive. As you are aware, DP Eurasia acquisition adds two, two profitable growth vectors to our portfolio, Domino's in Turkey and COFFY as a homegrown brand. The new brands, the new brand performance is tracking in India, is tracking as per the plan and with a clear path to scale up and be profitable. Each of the brands operates in a very high, a very large market segment, with a lot of headroom to grow.
As you would notice, we have materially accelerated the pace of profitable expansion in Bangladesh, too, which is a large market in itself. The next set of priority is on driving operations excellence. The group places inordinate focus on continuous improvement when it comes to executing with excellence, and FY 2024 was no exception. The commissioning of one of its kind Jubilant Food Park in Bangalore significantly enhances our control over core value chains that we have sourced or built grounds up for areas like packaging of spices, chicken marination, in addition to existing set of capabilities that exist in commissaries like Greater Noida.
Our customer-facing KPIs also registered a record improvement on account of multiple work streams affected during the year, such as decision to transition from four regions in Domino's to seven, which significantly enhances span of control, greater focus on customers and stores, faster decision-making, a structured review cadence and purpose-driven market visit by leadership team, with an intent to enable our teams to serve our consumers with the best pizza in the shortest amount of time. The next set of priorities is focused on data and tech, being data and technology forward. Again, over here, we made significant changes to Domino's app, and proof of the pudding is in higher monthly active users and highest ever customer conversions. Domino's DP Rewards membership is now 23.1 million strong, and roughly contributing to half of the orders.
The continuous digitization of our operations through dedicated rider app, which is again built in-house, an app for store managers called OrderApp, introduction of tablet point of sale if the demand is very high, especially during New Year, et cetera. We have taken a single-minded approach to help our store teams to serve customers with the best tasting food. Significant efforts were also made to strengthen the foundation of people, this is something I would care very deeply about. It is a prerequisite and a must-have for anything we want to do, and all the three priorities that I spoke about. Very proud to announce that we got certified as a great place to work for the second time in a row.
And we are in the process of codifying our values, and are making fast progress on our sustainability targets to be industry-leading on all these initiatives. Notably, we have the largest owned electric vehicle fleet of 11,500 e-bikes, which is now 47% of overall fleet, and we are rapidly moving to electrify all our fleet. The successful implementation of India first, especially no antibiotics ever in poultry. So it's very different from antibiotics free. So we have built a supply chain capability of no antibiotics ever in poultry sourcing, which requires very stringent quality control, and this allowing us to scale our offerings in proper. Moving on to our reported consolidated performance. As you are aware, in line by line consolidation of DP Eurasia is effective first February, i.e., two months of the current quarter.
Hence, growth figures aren't comparable to prior periods, but two important highlights are here. We are introducing system sales as a new metric. The sub-franchisee owned store sales will not be part of company revenue, and hence it will be reported as system sales to give you an understanding of the overall business and customer demand. This is a margin-accretive acquisition, hence it elevates and will continue to contribute positively to the group's overall profitability. Consolidated gross margin came in at healthy 76.3%. Operating EBITDA is at 20.2%, and PAT margin, after excluding net one-time gain of INR 1.7 billion on fair valuation of equity stakes held before acquiring control was 4.1%.
So overall, PAT declined 34.7% year-over-year, due to increased investments in building our network, network portfolio and operating capabilities for the future. On pre-Ind AS 116 basis, operating EBITDA margin came in at 1.6%, and PAT margin was 5.1%. We'll speak more about underlying drivers of margin decline and our thinking behind the same in the subsequent slides. If you look at the consolidated revenue walk, as you can see from the reported revenue walk, Domino's India added INR 1.943 billion to revenue in the year. The two months contribution from DP Eurasia was INR 2.174 billion, and all other emerging businesses incrementally added INR 841 million or INR 0.841 billion to the revenue.
To better appreciate the scale of our business, the overall revenue for DP Eurasia for full year would be INR 69 billion, and the normalized constant currency growth, including DP Eurasia, even if FY 2023 base would have been ten point eight percent. So the business, if you were to, to, to do a pro forma, would have grown at 10.8%. Similarly, the system sales would have been at INR 80.3 billion. This is mentioned in the quick note, right? Moving on, let's now look at the market-wide highlights, first focusing on the India segment. In India, Q4 revenue grew at 6.3%.
Domino's grew at 4.9%, which in turn was an order lead growth of 5.5%. Let me now hop on to the next slide to talk about Domino's and like-for-like growth, before I progress to share an update on the margins. So despite high inflation in the past and a challenging demand environment, we not only resisted the allure of taking any price rise increase in the last seven quarters, but worked firmly on three work streams. First was sharper on the ground execution, with an intent to improve customer KPIs. Moving from four regions to seven, although required additional infrastructure regionally, investment in teams, but it also catalyzed but also the key catalyst to drive necessary decentralization to take our teams and management closer to customers and our store managers.
As you can see, our customer satisfaction scores improved, our delivery under time, under 20 minutes, performance improved, and we registered record growth in new customer acquisition. The re-increase of bottom AP score resulted in a double-digit improvement in dine-in orders. Secondly, we made proactive decisions to sharper value equation and drive order growth. As against any price increase, we moved step further to sharpen the value on offer to customers, with the waiver of delivery fees, after successfully piloting, testing, controlling, fine-tuning for nearly five months before we took that decision. Thirdly, the growth initiatives. As you are aware, through a national relaunch campaign, It Happens Only with Pizza, we are doing a 360-degree change across the brand assets, including the communication to grow share of pizza consumption and improve the brand health.
This was validated with improved brand score, top of the mind recall, engagement by youth, and and brand love. We also invested behind a differentiated regional leadership team, who have prior experience, not only in in handling online sales, but also offline retail management. So kind of they understand both digital and physical world. This has led to a sharp turnaround in the overall trajectory. Specifically on the India segment, this as was expected in gain on our margins, and we decided to invest ahead of growth. While the gross margin came in at 676.6%, an improvement of 135 basis points year-on-year, led by Project Vijay and commodity deflation, the operating EBITDA margin came in at 19.1%, down 100 basis points year-on-year.
The savings created by Project Vijay across all cost lines was reinvested back into the business by giving value back to consumers through delivery fee waiver, to revive growth in a subdued demand environment, and also further investments were made to build up our network, operations, technological capability, as we prepared for a market turnaround. While we are conscious that the results in the short term drag the margins, however, it will help us grow orders to a rapid pace, increase the new customer acquisition rate rapidly. This is reflected in the improved new customer acquisition, and we hope, or we believe rather, that this will result in compounding as customers will be customers repeat three times a year.
Order growth, as you are aware, is the primary driver of sustained growth in restaurant segment, and this in turn will reduce the negative operating leverage quarter on quarter, lending support to the margin recovery. As you can see, we are consistent with the theme of building and growing the share, share of pizza occasion through It Happens Only with Pizza. This is so, rather, it is a series of It Happens Only with campaign. During the IPL time, we launched free delivery campaign and of course, we'll be back to It Happens Only with Pizza. On expected lines, delivery continued to chart new quarterly records, and the delivery mix growing now at 67.9%. The channel revenue was up 12%, while the delivery order growth came in mid-teens level. We saw a decline in ticket price on account of free delivery waiver.
The decline in ticket price is partially offset by introduction of packaging charges, incorporated in end of March. The delivery like-for-like growth came in at 7.8%. So there is a big turnaround in the like-for-like growth in nearly two-thirds of our business. On the revenue trend for standalone, the highlight here is the new brands have now beginning to contribute to our growth. The contribution this quarter was 1.4% to revenue growth, and is a step up from 0.2% with last year. The profitability trends, standalone gross, gross margin is in healthy, healthy range, and our focus is now sequentially improving pre-Ind AS 116 operating EBITDA margin through focused cost optimization measures and driving higher order growth leading to sales growth per store. Let's move to international segment.
Let me now share key highlights from our international segment. With the acquisition of Turkey, or the business in Turkey, on an annualized basis is 23% of our consolidated revenue. So the contribution of Turkey, of business in Turkey, is 23% of our consolidated revenues. In Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Q4 FY 2024 witnessed strong market-leading performance, with system sales at INR 5.877 billion, up 28.1%. These numbers are post IAS 29, and hence comparable to prior periods. Domino's Turkey like-for-like growth was strong at 18%. Domino's Turkey delivery channel mix was stable at 74.4%. India and Turkey are large growing markets with one of the highest-
The Coffee system sales came in at INR 461 million, up 209% and now contributes 7.9% to DP Eurasia system sales. The revenue contributed for the reported two months came in at INR 2.17 billion, with an operating EBITDA of 26.5% and a negative PAT of -6.2%. Moving to Domino's Bangladesh, the revenue came in at INR 134 million, up 52.1% on the back of accelerated network expansion. Sri Lanka revenue came in at INR 119 million, up 4.1%. Next slide. Moving to brand-wide highlights.
I think this slide, to me, sets the tone of our strategy and how we are positioned within the Domino's system to to leverage and be, and continue to be the largest franchisee operating in in some of the very under-penetrated high-growth markets. So Domino's and JFL Group partnership is a long-standing relationship between the world's number one pizza company and one of the largest emerging market franchisees. I can't think of any other parallel like this in the Domino's world. Here are a few things which differentiate us from any other partnership and goes well beyond the strict contours of a franchisee-franchisor relationship, as we are determined to grow in these emerging markets. Firstly, we have exclusive full territory rights for under-penetrated, high-potential markets.
We operate with one of the strongest value chain equations through our unique commissary model based on the sourcing model, and therefore controlling the significant part and the value of the back-end supply chain. In all geographies, we have developed self-delivery and our own app infrastructure to directly interact with customers. All these capabilities have been built ground up, both in Turkey and in India, like you know. We have a unique culture of hustle with a maniacal focus on operational execution to succeed in a store environment, which drives one of the highest throughput per store. So Turkey and India are among the top. India, of course, is one of the highest or is the highest throughput per store volume. Turkey definitely is among the top quartile within the Domino's system.
Deep local expertise developed over decades across all markets, and most importantly, the long-term vision to make growth investments ahead of the curve for durable and sustainable growth. Next slide, please. As you can see, these territories are strong, and we have leading position. So JFL Group operates nearly 2,800 stores now, and we have podium position across all territories. India, Turkey are large growth markets with one of the highest profitable metrics within the system. In Bangladesh, we recently achieved market leadership and have also registered mid-single digit EBITDA during the year. Azerbaijan and Georgia, albeit small, are franchise profitable markets with further headroom for growth.... The task in our hands is to effect the turnaround in Sri Lanka business.
We are on it, and we'll come back to you with an update by the year-end. We have reviewed the potential of all territories and confident to profitably scale Domino's network to 5,500 stores, as we see a significant headroom to grow the immense potential in the territories that we operate in. Next slide, please. Coming to Domino's in India, we are nearing 2,000 stores in Domino's. As you can see, we have accelerated the pace of new city expansion. We have added 28 new cities in the last year, and now have presence in 421 cities. Technology is an integral part, and this last year has been, again, a watershed year in terms of our technological transformation.
As you can see on this page, we had a very clunky, old, old world app, when we started the journey. This is a picture of how we were in 2022. A lot of customer friction, non-intuitive user flows, and lot of latency issues. Where we've come to, on the next page, we can now, we have materially enhanced not only our user experience and interfaces, but also tremendous backend capabilities, which allows the team to configure promotions, change the menu, and also change the, change the area that the, that the store serves if there is a rain or there is a rain event. It has allowed us to, to have the, the improved conversions, and the conversion in the last quarter actually has been at an all-time high.
So here are some of the metrics that we care about. App installs continue to be at 9.9 million a quarter, more than 9 million a quarter. As you can see, in typically Q4, the monthly active users drop, as the Q3 is typically the or typically Q3 is the highest effective period. But as you can see, we reverse the trend. Q4 is now higher in terms of monthly active users, and we continue to be on that trajectory. Cheesy Rewards cumulative membership is at 23.1 million. Rider and rider ecosystem is another capability that we have to build upon, and we are very cognizant of it.
During driving further our technology agenda to digitize operations, we launched a dedicated rider app that is helping us significantly improve quality and speed of service delivery. Coming to Domino's in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. We've added 48 new stores in Turkey and Azerbaijan and Georgia, and percentage of network franchise improved by 2.1%. So starting 89.2% of stores operating in these territories are not company-owned, but are franchisee-owned, where they deploy capital and our teams in Turkey actually supply to them. The team in Turkey also launched very exciting range of Mexicano Pizza. As you can see, we also showed you a glimpse of stores, as you can see. Very similar to India, Turkey has its own app infrastructure and delivery infrastructure.
The app installs were 0.76 million in the one quarter, and it has a monthly active user base of three million. In Bangladesh, we added 11 stores. Again, you can see through the trajectory, we are stepping up the pace. And on the right-hand side, you can see we still don't cover the whole Dhaka, only we find, only we find the entire country. So then this year we are going to grow. We entered two new cities in Bangladesh, Mymensingh, which is on the outskirts of Dhaka. Very similarly, you can say how Faridabad is, and Chittagong, or now it is called Chattogram. So these are the two new cities that we entered. Very similar to our playbook in any emerging economy, we are localizing the taste and flavors.
What we see in Bangladesh is a very heavy rice eating market. What you can see is we launched Oregano Rice with a fusion of toppings from Domino's. It's doing very, very well. Again, this market is primarily a non-vegetarian market. We have enhanced our garlic bread range to introduce Chicken Teriyaki Stuffed Garlic Bread and also with larger bits and more number of bits. Moving from Domino's in various geographies to Popeyes ... At the moment, we seem to have a glitch. Yeah. Popeyes is all about product security with modern digital guest experience. This is how Popeyes is winning share in U.S.A, and this is how we want to progress in India as well.
Through suitable adjustment to localize the flavor profile, to the Indian palate or Indian consumers, I'm happy to share with you that the product fit is also now firmly established. We made huge strides in improving the gross margin on the product range, and we've also evolved the portfolio and operational parameters. We also established product security using fresh chicken for marination in our Bangalore commissary, and then supplying to all stores while ensuring there are no growth antibiotics or no antibiotics ever administered to the chicken that we sell to our customers. We have obviously accelerated the pace of expansion. So now for the last few quarters, we've added 10 stores each and present in 15 cities.
We have gone through a steep learning curve and are getting better and better in our execution and unit economics with every successive store launch or any city launch. Here are a few glimpses of lines outside the store. This is day one of Chandni Chowk. So we opened our first city in Delhi NCR. As we call it, Chandni Chowk is heart of Delhi and heart of India. So we very similar to the brand credentials of, having a heart, or love your chicken. We opened the first store in Delhi NCR in Chandni Chowk, and you can see glimpses of the line, while it's a new mall. Moving to COFFY, is one of the fastest growing, profitable cafe brands, and we are excited to share with you, the progress the brand has made in a short period of time.
The idea behind COFFY is also noteworthy. Quality coffee without excessive price tag in a market with high coffee consumption and again, being digitally first. So value and digitization targeting the youth is the clear proposition of the brand. COFFY is now eighth largest cafe brand in Turkey, and I think we are making rapid progress in making it among the top two, top three brands in that geography. Please, Bhavin, we have invited some issues. Yeah.
And we need to come back.
Hi, I'll just check, sir.
Is it okay?
We have the slide of COFFY on the screen at the moment.
Okay. Yeah. So I thought I spoke about this. As you can see, from this picture, a digital first targeting youth, focused on value, and high functionality, for heavy, heavy consumption of coffee in that geography. Here is another picture of how the stores look like. As you can see, customers sitting both inside and outside enjoying their cups of coffee. In a very short period of time, this has become the fifth largest brand in Turkey, operating nearly 100 stores and with a medium term potential of 350. The average weekly order for the store is 2,000+. It also inspired us for other emerging, and also inspired, other, for business. It also inspired us in the other emerging economies to have such high average weekly orders.
We view the medium-term potential of 350 stores. Talking about Dunkin' and Hong's Kitchen, we added 10 stores for Dunkin', and we are like, as we told you, we pivoted to beverage first or beverage and a donut strategy, and we continue to progress well and launch new products and gain new customers. Hong's Kitchen, it operates in a very large segment as with Indo-Chinese as a segment. And we added 50 new stores, and launched a new chicken range, along with the beverage range, in Hong's. We are stepping up consumer engagement across all brands and markets, and are confident that this will pay rich dividends in the near term as overall consumer sentiment picks up in the coming quarters.
With this, I hand over to Suman to give you a quick overview of the financials, and we will come back to you, to speak on business outlook and the questions that you may have. Over to you, Suman.
...Good evening, everyone. Quickly taking you through the highlights in the financials, which you would already have had a chance to go through. For the full year 2024, consolidated revenue increase came in at 9.6% for the group. Like-for-like, excluding the two months of DP Eurasia consolidation was stack up at 5.4%. Gross profit increase was driven by increased gross margins, led by deflation and productivity initiatives. Personnel costs have been kept up due to minimum wage and salary increments in the range of 8%-9% through the year, and resourcing of new stores, commissary, and tech teams. Manufacturing and other expenses, while they've seen an increase in line with the new store openings and orders increase within the group, the operating leverage on the same due to subdued revenue growth has hit the margin.
Overall, interest and depreciation costs are up on the back of increased investments, as highlighted earlier. Therefore, profit before exceptional items before tax for FY 2024 stands at INR 3,156 million, against INR 4,887 million in FY 2023, a decrease of 35.4%. Post the exceptional entry on the one-time gain of INR 1,702 million on fair valuation of the previously held stake of the group in DP Eurasia, consolidated tax now stands at 7.1%. Moving on quickly to the Quarter Four financial review. Consolidated revenue increase was at 20.9%. Again, like-for-like, excluding a few months of DP Eurasia consolidation, this would stack up at 6.7%. Personnel costs and manufacturing other expenses increase is primarily driven by the similar reasons as I highlighted earlier for FY 2024.
Interest costs increase on the back of debt taken within India, for India business, and also in the Netherlands part of the group for the DP Eurasia acquisition. Profit before exceptional items before tax for Q4 FY 2024 stands at INR 5.9 million, against INR 534 million in Q4 FY 2023, an increase of 2.7%. Post the exceptional entry on the one-time gain of INR 1,702 million, consolidated tax for Q4 FY 2024 stands at 13.3%. With that, I hand back to Sameer to conclude.
Thanks, Suman. Turning to some bit of forward-looking guidance, and outlook, also priorities for FY 2025. I think we are still operating in an uncertain demand environment, so therefore, our focus is on volumetric growth, acquiring customers, and gaining market share. We'll innovate on the, we'll innovate, continue to innovate on the portfolio, better our assets, get more customers, serve customers multiple times. So therefore, both focusing on value and the premium end will come on, on the product that we launch will continue, across brands. We'll continuously improve our service as the world becomes more delivery and more and more the share of delivery grows, we realize service even the service standards are improving. Service standards being asked by customers are ever-increasing. We'll continue to invest in technology and operations.
We'll find occasions in category shares to new brands like chicken, coffee, and Indo-Chinese food. I think there is always opportunity to improve costs, be more efficient, and I am a firm believer of that, and will continue to do so. The annual network guidance for FY 2025 will be 180 stores for Domino's India, 50 for Domino's in Turkey, 20 for Domino's in Bangladesh. In COFFY, we intend to open 70 stores. In Popeyes, our guidance stands at 50 restaurants and 25 for Hong's Kitchen. With this, I request the moderator to open the floor for Q&A. 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 withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants, please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jham. I'm sorry, that's Nihal Mahesh Jham from Ambit. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Am I audible?
Yes, Nihal, loud and clear. Thank you.
Wonderful, sir. So if I look at the initiatives that you've been working on with this iHop, or say, splitting the businesses from four to seven territories, and even the recently launched delivery waiver. What seems to have done pretty well is obviously the pickup in the delivery revenue. So is it that mainly the waiver of the delivery is something that has really driven the improvement in the delivery performance? And why is it that, you know, the sales on the dining still remain pretty disparate, say, the iHop and the territories that we've been present for the last, say couple of quarters at least?
Yeah. I think good, good question. So, firstly, I'm positive that the like-for-like growth is seeing, for at least for the last three months, a very positive trajectory. It is in a subdued demand environment, it is first important to grow, whether it comes from delivery or dine-in, that's the first thing we want. And like I said, the delivery growth is like-for-like growth is at 7.8%. Now, it is of course aided by a free delivery waiver, but equally, we have to execute well and under 20 minutes or ensure that our delivery promises are kept. So it is both on the back of execution.
As you can see, if the like-for-like growth for delivery is at whatever, 7%-8% for a store, it means materially different type of operations inside the store. It still has to be served, and served with a better timeliness and service quality. The on-the-ground teams that you are, I think, referring to, are actually taking that growth and delivering that. We have taken several steps also for dine-in, some of which we have spoken about. Some has been already been executed in the last month or so, and we're actually seeing that the decline in dine-in has also been arrested during months over. Several things are under motion. There is a tailwind when the world is moving from on-premise to off-premise or dine-in to delivery, right?
That's happening across the world. We don't want to resist it, we want to ride on that wave. I'm confident that we will also kind of arrest the decline in the dine-in also.
Okay. Just a follow-up with even though you get the sense that the market has become less sensitive to pricing or operation, maybe that so giving the waiver on delivery is leading to this kind of acceleration, or maybe there will be more acceleration required to keep this growth sustaining?
Yeah, I think, firstly, it's a good problem in some sense to have if you are having growth in one channel, which is quite material at a store level. So at the moment, we believe the full potential of even free delivery campaign is not fully there. We've not reached the full potential. And yet the awareness on this particular piece is, I would say, limited, and there is significant headroom on that one. Now, the most important thing over there is our base of new customers have increased materially. Now, some of them will buy once, but many of them will buy three times. The average is three. That's what we've seen historically. And if that happens, the compounding will begin to happen, right?
Because if compounding happens in dine-in, carryout, delivery, aggregators, right, we obviously want compounding to happen. And we are seeing little bit early signs of upticks in repeat rates also for the new customers we're acquiring. Of course, it's very new, so I don't want to comment too much. But the fundamental point I am making now is that there is a compounding. Every customer you acquire have a lifetime value of not just one transaction, on an average of three transactions, and we are monitoring that. So this will take... Then, of course, there are other initiatives, which once we launch, we will communicate.
Final question, if I may. You've been mentioning that so the last three months or at least the current quarter, you're seeing a good traction. Could you just mention about delivery, dine-in, and if it shows improvement pick up from the 0.1% level you saw in Q4?
For the last three months, like I said, from February onwards, we are seeing an uptick in like-for-like growth. Given that we are sitting in May, so therefore I cannot comment about April. April also was positive. And in April, we took several steps on addressing the decline of dine-in, and those are also working. So I don't want to anything over-promise, and it is still one month of data that I am covering for the current quarter. Delivery continues to grow with material headroom to even grow further. Dine-in, several steps have been taken, and those are also we are tracking and paying off.
Sure. Thank you so much, Nihal.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Abnesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. My first question is on the recent development. We have seen India's foremost multiplex operator come out, and they are working together with one of your competitors in terms of the malls and food courts. This brings cross-promotion synergy benefits, which gives your competitor better understanding of the mall and obviously better rental and re-rental rates also. So is that a concern for you, at least from a mall growth perspective? And globally, this is also quite prevalent in some of the developed markets. What is your thoughts on this? Yeah, I think it's. I think it's. Obviously, we'll learn and we'll let it pan out.
I can, I have visited several malls, and we have stores, both Domino's and Papa John's in several malls. In terms of throughput per store, Domino's are typically number one or number two in every mall that we operate in. It is the go-to brand when it comes to pizza for, for any mall operator. We get very preferential treatment in terms of location, invitation, access. So I don't think that is going to change. Ultimately, it is not about access, only access to space, it is also about demand and the value that we serve. So we stay true to the value to consumers, great tasting pizzas at great price, and Popeyes is the world's famous and, and best chicken. I don't see at least concerned with it.
We'll obviously watch closely, and if there is something to learn, we will learn. Sure. My second question is on the Popeyes. So clearly, your aggression seems to be increasing from five stores in first quarter, it became 10 in next two, and now you are targeting 12 third quarter. So two, three questions there. One is, would you go beyond these seven, eight states which you currently have, or mostly the expansion in FY 2025 will be in these seven, eight states? Second is when you say getting better with every new store and city launch, could you give some anecdotal evidence, some data points? What exactly do you mean by this? Because clearly aggression seems to be matching the statement, but it's a generic statement. So what exactly you mean by this?
Hello, please stay with us. We are just reconnecting with the management.
So, Abneesh, if you can repeat the question, I think we lost you midway. You were talking about Popeyes.
Yeah, sure. So want to understand when you mentioned that, getting better with every store, what exactly you mean? If you could give some anecdotal evidence, some data point, because aggression clearly seems to be improving. And will you go beyond the current, seven states in terms of expansion in FY 25?
Sure. So I think we will expand. See, and you understand the reason. So if you look at Jubilant FoodWorks, we have our own commissaries, and all stores of Domino's in 421 cities are served on every third day from our commissary.
So we have the infrastructure to do chicken marination, sourcing of never, ever antibiotics and use, and the logistics, multi-temperature logistics. So that allows us to open store and write down the logistics, and supply chain that we build for Domino's. So therefore, it's easier that way versus some of the competition. So therefore, we will expand wherever the market is, and that's what we've been doing. Then, of course, when we go to a city, we then add the second and the third, so we try to serve the full city. We sure, we, yeah, the ambition, the ambition to open stores is coming from three or four things. I think I alluded to it. Firstly, see, ultimately, we are in the business of serving food that customers are eating.
So the first piece is on customer, actually, the customer liking the food. Popeyes has a unique Indian, I would say, closer to Indian palate, with a bold Louisiana Cajun flavor. Second, the battering process that we ultimately a fried chicken, the battering process that Popeyes is using is unique. Therefore it makes the chicken more crunchier and tastier. And number three is the chicken sandwich, which pop stars like Beyoncé and other celebrities have craved for it. So there is something in the brand which allows us, on the food side, that allows, gives us the confidence, and the food is loved by the customer. As you can see, the lines across the new stores that we open. They open at materially high average weekly orders.
So that's the. I think the confidence is coming from the customer love. In parallel, of course, this is a US brand coming to India. And in India, we know things work differently, price points are different, economics are different, the CapEx requirement, the space requirement, manpower, everything is different. So we've taken, like, last year also to perfect it. So we have dropped down our food costs to improve gross margins. We fine-tuned our labor model. We are actively looking at restaurant operating costs. So the underlying theme being, we are more confident of building a profitable franchise, right? So and that kind of feeling, I would still say that there is huge headroom to grow. While the pace has grown from maybe four to 12, I think we can do even more. Sure.
Last question is on your Domino's delivery channel. It's a decent growth, and clearly, you seem to be growing faster than the other listed players. My question here is, we are seeing a lot of the quick commerce now start to charge in terms of the convenience and delivery, or they have the loyalty charge, et cetera, which is also indirect way of charging. So against that, when you are offering free delivery, and it clearly seems to be working, but not fully to the optimum level. So is this more against a regional change? Because the listed players seem to be slowly definitely losing market share. So if you could comment on why this has been done more towards the local kind of regional players, if...
How is the performance versus them? Because those are unlisted, but you have more clarity on their performance.
Yeah, no, I think we track all competitors internally, and we are gaining market share across and within the category. And I mean, I have been a very vocal advocate of it. In a $1 billion category, with 70% market share, that's not the game that we are playing in. We are operating in a $50 billion market, and we have to grow the category. So that's the task over here. Having said that, nobody has or no player has opened 180 stores in the year. Delivery growth of nearly 8% in this environment, like-for-like growth of 8% in this environment.
As we track internally, we have not seen any of the competitors to have such kind of growth. So we have gained share, and it is not due to Zomato or any other player. It is done to grow the category. That's what we are single-mindedly focused on, our customers. And we did this after thorough analysis of maybe five months of experiments in like 40 different parts of the country and to come to this conclusion.
Sure, thanks, that's all for me. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tejas Shah from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity, and thanks for a very comprehensive presentation. The first question pertains to Vijay. So Vijay has boosted our gross margins, and then has offered cushion in difficult time in recent times. So just wanted to know, are there any more benefits which can come through this year? And second, despite this gains and improved LFL, EBITDA margins were lower this quarter. So is this a trade-off that we'll see between LFL growth recovery and margins going forward in the near future, at least?
Thanks, Tejas, and good to connect with you. So Tejas, it's so firstly, like, being a consultant in my previous life, I always see margins as an opportunity, and I see actually more margins as an opportunity across line items. So we would have delivered close to INR 200 crore of margin expansion or profitability improvements in the last year. Actually, we are only doubling down, and the team feels there is even more to do it. We are systematically going after rentals, manpower productivity. These are some of the areas that we were not able to capture as much as we wanted last year.
As you would see, the large part of it flow into gross margins for things like, like I've spoken about, doing the radius boxes, corn localization, smart sourcing of cheese, so, and bit of commodity deflation. So from that perspective, I see more, more over there. We've also opened up a new front on CapEx. We're also looking at CapEx reduction, partnering with landlord on investment of CapEx, and that can actually ... Someone is reminding me that our CapEx can come down by almost 15% per store. So and we are seeing that, by the way, in our numbers. So, a firm believer that this is also a big area, and as an organization, we have a retail organization, we have to continuously react, including technology, GNMA, electricity.
We are rapidly moving from petrol bikes to electric bikes. So all of those things actually add to EBITDA. Price increase is obviously our last resort, right? Or I think some of the other analysts were asking, would you change anything to platform fees or that fees or convenience fees? Passing on to consumers is our last resort. Internal efficiency brings a smile on my face.
Great. So second, we have revised our medium-term target of Domino's India from earlier we used to say 3,000, now we are targeting 4,000 stores. So could you share this key insight that would have prompted us to update, upgrade our guidance A? And B, additionally, how should we think about this medium term in terms of years?
Yeah. I think medium term, I mean, I view it more as a kind of a five-year period, thereabout, something between four or six, but somewhere around that. Now, I think the why we are revising it upwards is the following: firstly, the teams are using data and technology. Like you said, we see there is about 12 million monthly active users, right? And over a year, this is another like 40-50 million monthly active users that users that log on. About 10%-12% of our consumers still see out of service area, or we can't deliver to you. That's the best signal we are getting. Somebody has our app, but is unable - we are unable to serve because the store is not there.
At an aggregate level, so we are using data and technology to put the next store, and that is giving us the confidence. Equally, there are, and I've gone on record in saying, there are 34 airport terminals that matter. We've finally opened one more in the last year or so, in the last quarter, so we are still present in six or seven. There are 1,000 colleges in India where we believe we can store. We are present in about eight or nine. So when I look at the opportunity and how our teams can execute with a small store format, with a lean team, delivery, technology, I think the potential is a lot more, right? And I always say this to my team, I always ...
If one brand in China can have 11,000 stores, we can surely have 4,000 stores in India of Domino's.
... Sir, last one, if I may, on DP Eurasia, has the better experience in dining versus us, A, and B, how does working capital changes in a franchising model versus our COCO model?
There the delivery contribution is about 75%. You see, Domino's as a brand is largely delivery-oriented, and that's the ethos of the brand. What the team has done exceptionally well is carry out. In India, it is not, I would say, delivery and dine in, where customers sit down. In Turkey, it is delivery and carry out or takeaway, as it is called. They have wonderful offers for consumers to come into the store and carry out. On the working capital, like, Suman, you have a point of view, you want to answer that?
So yeah, I think looking at DP Eurasia, given the franchising model, there's an interplay between your capital and your working capital, right? Your fixed assets. So you then have lower CapEx operations within, of course, DP Eurasia. But from a working capital point of view, the model of franchisees still operates that they have their own commissary. So all the supply of materials still happens from DP Eurasia to the franchisee. So you still have material coming in, so you have your payables and your inventory still sitting there. So you service those stores. But of course, the receivables might be a little different because the receivables in DP Eurasia case as against India's case, where India is, you know, cash and the receivables will be two to three days of reconciliation that happens here.
There, the receivables will be in terms of royalty and the credit terms that they'll have with their franchisees. So the receivables might be a little higher than what India will be. But it's a trade-off between working capital and actually fixed capital that we work on. So of course, it is, that's a broader principle of it. As we get into the details of the business further, yeah, so I think-
I'm going to confirm.
Yeah. Thanks, Suman.
Maybe, yeah, we don't have too much of working capital involved because your creditors versus receivables kind of net off. Of course, you have a bit of inventory on your book.
Yeah, it's a very frugally run business by an entrepreneur. So each and every penny and or whatever lira is counted with, with millimeter for detail. So I can assure you there are no such leakages.
Very clear, sir. Thanks, and all the best for your future inside.
Thank you, Tejas.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vivek Maheshwari from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Two questions. First, you know, when I looked at your presentation, it appears that, you know, in the past, in the history, if you go back 10, 15 years, you have experimented with brands and the focus was, you know, Domino's and building brands, beyond Domino's, but primarily in India. You know, when we see your presentation now, it appears that you are doing too many things, you know, both from brand perspective and internationally, and then there is a, you know, a new dimension, which is a new geography and a new brand there. How... I mean, how do you think about the management bandwidth, and, and is there a risk that you are spreading yourself too thin?
So no, absolutely not, Vivek. In fact, as you know, that we decided to actually focus on doubling down on Domino's in India, I'm talking about. And the playbook in Sri Lanka or Bangladesh is absolutely the same playbook. In fact, you can treat it as, in some ways, two other states of India, right? Because I don't want to in terms of management bandwidth, right, but for different geographies and so we respect the nationalities over there. The only place we are like increasing the pace is Papa John's, where everything like has gone on record and saying that we will treat them as startups. They have startup teams which are contained, and they're given capital to experiment.
So we are very well organized in terms of leaders, chefs, marketing teams, and the, and the real estate development team. So it does not take away any bandwidth, and we have consciously taken calls to move away from Ekdum! Biryani and ChefBoss. Now, DP Eurasia, it was something that, we have slowly acquired a minority stake to up to 45%-48%, 49%, to natural- the natural outcome or the natural or logical step for the organization to take control of the company. We looked it, we will leverage our relationship of, Domino's, drive for profitability, and it's a very asset-light model, run by a very competent team, by a, a founder who's run this for 27 years, joined the team then, as a store manager, literally.
So absolutely not, we are very sharp on making our choices and very clear on our strategy. Nothing has changed, in my opinion.
Okay, sure. Just to follow up, if we take, let's say, a three-four-year view, do you think on the international side, you are done, and the, you know, the expansion will be more organic in those geographies? Or do you still, are you still open for international, you know, acquisition if something comes by?
Well, I think at the moment, we are not looking at anything. Anything we are, anything we are saying, we actually said, no, we have - we are hands full. It's important to India continues to be a, like, a big opportunity, and I'm actually amazed and positively surprised to see the opportunity in Turkey and what the team has done in COFFY. Hands are full. We are, we are doubling down, focusing on what we have at the moment.
... Got it. The second question, Sameer, on, you know, again, I know it's a, it's probably an unfair question, but I'll still go ahead and ask you. You know, you have done well with the Domino's delivery in this quarter. But when you look at, I just want to know your impression or reaction when you look at, let's say, someone like a Zomato's number, which, in food delivery has, let's say, grown, you know, 28%. What do you think about, you know, because end of the day, you peg yourself as a, as a pizza brand, and therefore, you know, a billion-dollar one.
Or you say that, okay, if, if, you know, if a billion-dollar, monthly, sorry, quarterly GMV, if Zomato is doing and growing 28%, how do you reconcile with the fact that, you know, let's say, Domino's or you have done about 7.5, 8%?
So, Vivek, great question. No reason why we should not be growing faster. I think that's the point you are making. And we, with the delivery fee waiver, we have taken this add-on. I think quarter-over-quarter also, as we look at the numbers, we should also look at quarter-over-quarter. I think you'll get some of the answers over there.
Okay. Okay, sure. And last bit, on India business margins, do you think, you know, you are at somewhere close to the bottom of margins, let's say, on a pre-IndAS basis?
Yeah, we believe so.
Got it. Thank you. Wish you all the best.
Thank you, Vivek.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arnab Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, my first question is again on the margins. So I want to understand, is there a minimum level of LFL growth that you need to start recovering your margins, maybe slightly above which you had in the entire FY 2024? Or do you see it more as the first task is to get the LFL back, and therefore more investments that you need either to get dining back or advertising will do it, and therefore, margin recovery is not like the primary objective at this stage?
No, I think as business leaders, we can't say that margin recovery is not a priority. We have to do both, right? Actually, the beauty of our business is, if you get top line expansion, bottom line at least closes in a large fixed cost business. Second is, there is no better way of driving this is like-for-like growth. Now, we are seeing it in one part of the world or the large channel of our business and at some investment. We are recovering part of that investment in packaging charges. Part of it will be recovered as the new customer growth that we have seen, they start coming back and eating multiple more times. We are seeing the repeat rates, however small it may be for a month, improving actually.
So I'm confident that this is. We should not look at this only for 1 quarter or so. It has a big compounding impact. Equally, I'm very focused on improving margin across all price point item. I think internally, if you do back-of-the-envelope calculation, at about 2.5%-3%, our margin should be closer to 21%. That kind of equation I have in my mind. If we get to 3%, we get to about 21% in EBITDA.
Thanks, Sameer. That's very helpful. And my second question was just I wanted to understand this new metric that you have given on new customer acquisition. Is this a YOY metric? Is this basically the number of new customers this quarter versus a year back? And just looking at your MAU number, it looks like flat on a YOY basis. So just wanted to tie up this growth with the MAU kind of remaining similar.
So I think mentioned this three quarters ago also, that we had shut down two channels of where the quality of customers were... I think this happened three quarters ago, if I'm not mistaken. Therefore, you see a blip, and then you start seeing the number going up. That's the only reason. So I would rather say, please look at quarter-over-quarter. That's a more, year-over-year is not the right metric. At a large channel that we felt that was inefficient, we moved away from it.
Sir, just one clarification. This new customer acquisition is people who are ordering through your app, or does it include those coming through aggregators for which you would also possibly have data?
Across dining, our app, and aggregators.
Okay. Thanks so much, Sameer All the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shirish Pardeshi from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Hi, Shyam, Suman, and the team. Thanks for the opportunity. Shyam, openly, there are two congratulations. One is that, whatever you've done, the work has started showing positive LFL. Positive momentum has started. Second, congratulations on the DP Eurasia acquisition. I think systematically, steadily, you have done this. Coming back to India business, I think primarily my question was on Slide 23, where you have given the same annual numbers. Partly you have answered, but what it takes, I mean, in your understanding qualitatively, is the IHOP communication or maybe the menu innovation? Because certainly I see that there are a lot of changes in the price points and, innovation we have brought in. So maybe qualitatively, if you can say that what has worked, what has not worked, and obviously, innovation is a continuous process.
But I was more interested, looking at how the same annual number will move over next one year.
So Shirish, firstly, thank you. We, I think the, the question is a good one, in my opinion, but how do you drive faster pace of growth in an environment which continues to be demand constrained? So, in such an environment, what at least my learning for the last 19 months has been, value works like magic, and delivery excellence or operations excellence drive repeat. So these are my like two, if I just cut the noise, if you focus on these two, it works. The marketing job to be done is to be present in $50 billion market and grow the category. So that's kind of the crux of this, how I see, right? Then there is a premiumization happening, so therefore we launched Gourmet Pizza, and we are continuing to iterate with visit.
I know that you know, we did launch an INR 99 four-course meal from 11 A.M.- 3 P.M. during lunch hours. It's about a month old, and therefore we are seeing traction, traction in the lunch hours. So at this stage, the job of a market leader like us is to grow the penetration, grow the category, get new customers, grow volumetrically, and gain share. If that is happening, I think you are building a very stable, high quality business, and if the demand were to even go from negative to demand, we'll grow very rapidly. So that's what we are preparing. At the same time, we have to tighten our belt, count every penny and not make sure the margins remain and we generate cash. So these are the priorities I say for the business.
Specifically, to drive consumer value, delivery excellence, and product innovation, we continue to be, will be there.
Exactly. Because in your outlook, you said that volumetric growth, so obviously reimaging stores will create that experience. But, I think, are you confident that whatever initiatives you will be able to drive that kind of volumetric growth you have in mind?
Yeah, I think it is. Of course, it does give us the encouragement that this is working. And the new customer growth rate is also telling us that this is actually something that we should double down. Having said that, like, this is not the only thing we will do, right? We'll not rest from here, in fact it's giving the team to look at the second wave, third wave, fourth wave of driving growth. So volumetric growth is not only now seeing it in delivery, we are also seeing, beginning to see it in dine-in. So again, we have enough initiatives to make sure that we stay ahead of the demand environment.
Okay. My next question is on slide 20, slide 33, you have given, something about the stores. Now, we obviously now gearing up, so our scales will improve. But give us some qualitative, information, what is the ADS, what is the system sales or maybe LFL, or maybe what is the contribution? And more importantly, in the absence of app, this is, what contribution we are getting from delivery? Or maybe this is primarily driven by the timing. Something more qualitative, in terms of numbers.
Yeah, I think I wish I could, Aslan, I understand the ask over here. Allow us to get to 100 stores. I think that's what the marker that we are giving internally. I want to make the team focused on execution. And ADS has to stabilize, right? I mean, there are stores which, like you say, which like in the, if you visit the stores, like there is a line outside, right? And then it stabilizes. So no point comparing the ADS at this stage. I think we one of the things, couple of things that we want to call out, we also launch with our own app and own delivery, very similar to Domino's playbook. We...
You're right, dine-in is a bigger component at this stage because the marketing efforts are first done to actually know the brand, which means what is Popeyes, what is Cajun, what is Louisiana, what is New Orleans chicken? So that experience when customers come into the store. So my framework for growing Popeyes is know me, like me and love me. So we are still in the stage of knowing the brand, what it is, what is the mystery around Cajun flavor. So that, we believe is happening very well. Delivery and all these channels will continue to grow, and there is huge, again, headroom to grow, and we are partnering well with aggregators also over there.
Okay. Just last little request, maybe now we are consolidating DP Eurasia number. Maybe if you can give one slide, what is this commissary for DP Eurasia? That will be helpful for us, for modeling.
Yeah, I think we've given that in two months in the Q4. The finance teams have worked like day and night to just get the consolidation done, and close the books. I think we should spend more quality time, and some of you we will invite actually to come to Turkey with us, to see how the business is and how vibrant the market is.
... So, so please allow us some time to come back.
So we will come back on comps numbers. And as you understand, it's a highly inflationary market, so there's been a lot of understanding also giving relatively right comps, right? Because it's not reported the same way as India, and make it easier for all of you to understand. So give us a couple of quarters, and we will come back with a proper comps team on Turkey, given how significant it is to the overall consolidated group numbers.
Thank you, Suman. Thank you, Sameer. All the best.
Thank you, Shirish.
Shirish, we have already given you two months numbers, operating a bit of lag in the revenue. So we can also probably discuss in detail offline.
Sure. Sure, sure, Lakshman.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vicky Punjabi from UTI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. It is my pleasure. Can you just—I mean, while I understand you're not giving, I mean, that the format is working well, and we are, I mean, expanding at such a fast pace, and, you know, the historical experience of Dunkin' going fast with restaurants and then closing down stores, what all do you see there?
Yeah, I think we, I think two separate questions for me, right? I mean, the past should not color our ambition in the future. That's a little bit of a philosophical answer to your question, but specifically, five things are working for me. Number one, the customer feedback we are getting. The food satisfaction, product satisfaction are among the highest in the world. Secondly, we built a supply chain where, through our unique commissary model, logistics model, we are very confident about the unit economics at an order level, number two. Number three, before we launched the first store, we launched our own app and delivery.
Number four, the world over, because of this great taste and sandwich, in fact, this is in U.S. and many other geographies, Popeyes is like among the most preferred brands. So I think that, that's also due to global warming. Number five, so we got this brand about a couple of years ago from U.S., with a U.S. playbook, right? In terms of the kitchen sizes, the how to manage the store, the space requirements. We have taken some learning from the first 30 stores to fine-tune that, and partnered with our global teams to make a India-centric model. So all of that work, we believe, is behind us, and that is giving us...
I think we have to learn to walk to before we can actually run, and that's what we have done in the last couple of years. So that's giving the confidence. It's the experience which is telling us. Gross margins are improving, ADFAs are improving, customer feedback is improving, so and our CapEx is coming down. So these are the markers that we look at, which are true financial metrics.
Okay. Okay, sure. And just last one, I mean, so, I mean, this year, I don't think you generate, we've been able to generate free cash flow and there's been a boost CapEx. Now that we are investing behind, scaling up Popeyes as well, and then there is leverage on the books. How are we looking at free cash flow generation going forward in CapEx in that context?
Suman, you want take that?
So you're absolutely right. You know, given that, and we also know that we are now better on our books. I think what we are looking at, predominantly is at, at an India level and the group level, of course, we have, the acquisition loan also taken. As long as the return on investment coming through, we are going to continue to invest. So we have investment going behind our commissaries, we have investment going behind our stores, and you've seen that network, that's coming in. Generating more returns from that investment is also going to be key to also support the margin recovery that we spoke about. But, at least for the next couple of years, this will be a high CapEx model as we continue to expand our network, both in India and across other countries within the geographies that we manage.
So at least for the next year, you won't see net of CapEx, you won't see any cash flow generation coming through. Yeah, and Turkey, whatever loans were taken, I think it came up in the Turkey conversation when we had initial call in February on saying, "Well, how will that loan be serviced?" Turkey does generate cash to stand alone as a business, and it's also, they will be servicing the debt that they have on their books by the end of the year. So we will be getting that cash also as dividend to service the loan that has been taken on the DPU acquisition. So Turkey business generates free cash flow that will be going towards taking off the servicing of the loan taken on the DPU acquisition.
India, there will be at least a couple more years of high CapEx expansion across the business, given the return that we want to generate and the headroom we see for growth across the emerging brands and the Domino's business. So I think it'll take a couple more years before we generate that free cash flow in India.
Sure. So the increase in leverage, I mean, do we have any markers of, you know, where we are comfortable with in terms of leverage?
So currently, India business currently been trying to be buying for leverage. It is comfortable leverage in a growth market like India. We're not uncomfortable about it. I think the key metric for us is, are we seeing what our operating EBITDA pre-India is? If they are growing at a healthy pace, and, you know, like, I think our earlier questioner came and saying: You know, do you see further deterioration? We don't see further deterioration. As growth comes back in, we will get the operating leverage to kick in. I think the key thing that you should be really asking is, are we generating more earnings? And in a high growth market, I think that's going to be the standard, which even from internally within the business I track, right? Of saying, what's the growth coming through?
For the investment that we're putting in, what are the earnings that the business is generating?
...And if then you want to exist with a 0.2-0.5 debt to EBITDA ratio, I think it's fairly healthy in this market environment. There is no harm in having some debt in your books, as long as the returns is more than the interest cost that you're bearing on the same.
Sure. Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now take the last question for today from the line of Percy from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi. A couple of questions from my side. Sorry if they've been answered, I joined a little late. In that case, I'll just go back to the transcript. Just wanted to understand, firstly, what kind of margin impact do we build in for FY 25 on account of ramp-up of Popeyes or Hong's? Since these formats might be sort of marginally loss-making or just about a very low margin. What would be the sort of blended average impact on the company margins on account of the ramp-up of these two formats? That is my first question.
Well, it's a little early to, to comment about it. I think, like I said, I don't think margin dilution should happen further, at least from this point on. That's the only thing I can say at this point. We'll do the right thing, right? From a, from a growth perspective, investment perspective, we are maniacally focused on return on investment and payback period. So those financial discipline we will not lose.
Just a clarification. When you say from this point on, there won't be dilution, are you talking about Q4 level or full year FY 2024 level?
Quarterly, I was just saying, like, it will be all the delivery.
Okay.
I'm talking more about the tailwind or the headwind because of free delivery. I think we will be able to recover some and we'll be able to optimize. That's what I was referring to when I mentioned earlier also. Specifically on account of Popeyes, it's very hard to say at this stage.
Sure. Secondly, on the Domino's format, only if I talk about, what kind of LFL do you need in order to maintain margins at a flat FY 2024 level in the next year? Like, is it possible at a 3% LFL, or you need a 5% LFL to maintain a flat margin? What is the math here?
Yeah, I think 3%, 3%, 21% is what, like, my, like, broad math. That's the number that I, I actually ask the teams to deliver, and it's possible.
Right. And last question is, as per my estimate, given on whatever data you're given, your dine-in SSSG this quarter would have declined somewhere in the region of a 15%, YOY. So that's a really huge decline. I can understand that you want to focus more on delivery and not so much on dine-in, and therefore, if it's a 3-5% kind of decline, it's understandable. But 15% decline in this kind of a channel, what really explains that?
Yeah, no, it is not 15%, but 10%. I mean, that's also, also large, right? I think that's the point that you are-
Right.
You are making. So I think it is natural if you provide such heavy ammunition to one channel, which has inherent structural tailwinds, where dine-in takeaway is moving to delivery. So we are fueling a higher growth channel, so we are capturing that. But first we have captured the growth. Now we are taking several steps. So therefore, I said earlier, we debated this four to five months to capture where the losses are. While we launch free delivery, we also launch a few other initiatives to suppress the growth or arrest the growth in dine-in. So those are also under work. I'm not too worried about it, by the way, on that part. So firstly, get the growth of 3% LFL, get to those numbers, no matter which channel it comes from.
Secondly, look at further leakage points. That's what we are doing and arresting.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Sameer. Basically, if as long as there is vacant capacity in your restaurants and a customer comes and dines in there, the incremental profit that you get from that kind of a transaction would be much more than a delivery transaction, right? Because I can understand if your capacity is -- I mean, if your restaurant is running at capacity, and then you have to do dine-in, and you have to increase seating, et cetera. But here there is a huge fixed cost leverage you get if you just fill in one vacant spot in your restaurant. And I'm sure your restaurants are not at capacity, right?
Hello, Percy, please come in. We have first waived off the delivery fee in tier 2, 3, 4 towns, where anything that overall delivery contribution is low. So we are trying to get the positive operating leverage back, and that's what Sameer sir is also trying to highlight. Our all our stores are very efficiently made. You understand our cash-to-cash payback is 2.5 years, 1,100 sq ft, and therefore, this is the right thing to do. If dine-in traffic is not coming on account of external headwinds, we are doing what it takes to probably grow the business. And we are sure that on account of multiple initiatives, which we will roll out in the subsequent quarters, even the dine-in decline will be arrested.
We are more happy with 68% of the business growing at 7.8% LFL, rather than some decline in dine-in LFL.
Yeah, I think it is important. Our stores are efficient. We, like you know, we have 1,200, about thereabout, average sq ft, average store size. So of course, we want to grow in dine-in, we want to grow in delivery, right? So that remains, and we're not shying away from doing it. Wherever the structural tailwinds are there, it's important to capture those.
Got it, sir. That's all from me. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for any closing remarks. Over to you, sirs.
No, thank you so much, and we extended a bit, but we also this quarter changed the format. Look forward to engaging with you. Thank you all.
Thank you. On behalf of Jubilant FoodWorks Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.