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. Welcome to Jubilant FoodWorks Q4 and FY 2023 earnings call for investor and analyst. We are joined today by senior members of the management team, including our Chairman, Mr. Shyam S. Bhartia , our Co-Chairman, Mr. Hari Bhartia , our CEO, Mr. Sameer Khetarpal, our CFO, Mr. Ashish Goenka, and our Group CFO, Mr. Arvind Chokhany. We will commence with key thoughts from Mr. Hari Bhartia . We will turn to our CEO to share his perspective. After the prepared 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 documents.
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 Bhartia to share his views with you. Thank you, over to you, sir.
Thank you, Deepak. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the earnings call. To start with, I would like to mention that very good work has been done by our teams in maintaining growth in spite of sustained food inflation weighing on consumption and food costs. On the cost side, we have found broad-based inflation across food categories during the year. To help you better appreciate the impact of inflation on some of our key ingredients, we indexed the prices to pre-COVID levels. In FY 2023, the cheese prices have increased by 40%, flour prices have increased by 28%, chicken and paper box prices have increased by 30%. This, of course, is in comparison to pre-COVID levels. The cheese prices are expected to remain elevated in the upcoming 2 quarters. In this context, our actions are guided by a two-pronged approach.
Firstly, we continue to strengthen our value offerings. The launch of new range of Pizza Mania will help us acquire new customers. The highest priority is being given to grow orders and improve like-for-like growth. At the same time, we have brought significant focus in bringing cost efficiency and improving productivity. The strength of our unique commissary model is continuously helping us in maintaining gross margins. Secondly, we will continue to invest in new stores and expand our network in a calibrated manner. Our new stores continue to perform well, and we continue to see unmet demand in the existing cities where we operate, and also opportunities to open new stores in new cities. We also invested well ahead of time in the new commissary capacities so that we can continue to expand our network.
Transitioning to the full year, I'm pleased to share with you that we have become the first food service company in India to surpass turnover of INR 5,000 crores in the fiscal year 2022-2023 while delivering industry-leading margins. As we look back, our company has traversed significant milestones with support from all stakeholders. Let me take a moment to highlight two of our guiding principles in the journey.
Firstly, delighting consumers with strong focus on value and product innovation. Secondly, making proactive investments to strengthen our operating model for growth. With the strength of our brands, operational execution, leadership team, commitment of our people, and support from all our stakeholders, we are confident, like all other business cycles in the past, we will be fastest to recover and emerge stronger out of this phase as well. I now request Sameer to share with you our operation highlights and progress on initiatives.
Thank you, Mr. Bhartia. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining the call today. I'm glad to inform that our strategy of being customer first, technology forward is working. First, let me give the numbers. During the quarter, we had a revenue of INR 12,523 million, grew by 8.2% versus previous year. We added 61 new stores in Q4 for Domino's, while the like-for-like growth was flat at -0.6%. However, at a system level, orders grew in double digits. Like-for-like order growth was positive, indicating customers' love for Domino's as the pizza brand. We continue to grow customer base on our Domino's app with a total of 35.1 million downloads in the last financial year.
13.6 million loyal members. We continue to improve our dine-in experience and carry-out experience. Equally, Popeyes, the customer feedback is astounding. We received very strong feedback and humbled by our response of new store opening, especially in Chennai. Despite an increase in prices, in cheese especially, we successfully curtailed quarter-on-quarter gross margin decline to just 20 basis points. The gross margin was at 75.3%. This was driven by a series of timely interventions on the food cost line items, focus on data-led efficiencies in our operating model, and partially helped by deflation in some commodities. The EBITDA came at INR 2,522 million or 2.5 billion and EBITDA margin of 20.1%.
Considering the significant change in economic environment in Sri Lanka, we have taken an impairment charge of INR 200 million in this quarter. PAT before exceptional items came in at INR 675 million and PAT margin was at 5.4%. Just giving a full year view of fiscal year 2022, 2023, revenue from operations of INR 50.96 billion increased 17.7%. Domino's LFL and SSG growth came in at 8.9% and 6% respectively. EBITDA came in at INR 11.592 billion, and EBITDA margin was at 22.7%. PAT before exceptional items came in at INR 4.029 billion and with a margin of 7.9%.
I continue to remain steadfast and bullish on our strategy of building a multi-brand food technology company, serve with an ability to serve billions of customers in emerging economies. Let me give you sharper updates with a lens on the key priorities I shared with you in our last earnings call. The first pillar, like Mr. Bhartia also highlighted, is the customer first and the market first pillar. All our actions across brands are guided by keeping the interest of our customers and markets in the forefront. For example, for Domino's. In delivery, we raised the consumer service bar by launching a 20-minute service guarantee in Bangalore. In fact, it is a first in the worldwide Domino's. A network of 174 stores, unparalleled hustle culture and deployment of technology to reduce processing time has helped us achieve this unique feat.
A first of a kind in India and first among all Domino's franchises globally. Bangalore became one of our fastest growing like-for-like revenue growth in Q4 2023. In dine-in, we have stepped up our efforts to be the neighborhood store, focusing on hyperlocal marketing activities and re-imaging our old formats or the bottom decile stores, which require refurbishment. In the next three to four quarters, we'll make the experience more unified and stores more inviting for all. In the current environment where consumers are impacted by inflation, we introduced and expanded the range of Pizza Mania. Our value range now has 13 offerings, starting at INR 49, going all the way up to INR 169. We opened 56 new Domino's stores during the quarter and 249 stores during the year.
I like to bring the focus on just a single closure of store during the entire year. I like to bring your focus on just a single store that we closed during the year. This, along with an incremental drag on PAT on account of new stores at 25 to 30 basis points, is a testimony of our performance of our newly opened stores and our science and database business development capabilities to identify white spaces with greater precision and serve demand by opening stores at a faster pace. 44% of our new stores opening in this year were in the existing cities serving a white space. Our fortressing strategy continues to yield the desired results and meet our internal targets. During the year, we opened 84 new split stores.
We entered 56 new cities in FY 2023 to expand Domino's network into 393 cities. For Popeyes, I'm happy to share with you that the customers are loving our menu offerings. The recent launch of Hot & Messy range, which we offer fried chicken in two delectable sauces, is an example of our ability to Indianize the international offering and grow the bone-in chicken category. We are greatly encouraged by the consumer affection and love for the brand witnessed in Bengaluru, Chennai, and more recently in Manipal. We will continue to cover the South systematically and look to spread out from there. In Dunkin, during the quarter, we opened three new restaurants. As per the coffee forward or coffee first evolution of the brand, we now have eight coffee first stores.
In Hong's Kitchen, we continue to see progress with growth in orders and net promoter scores and customer love. We opened one new store during the quarter and taking the total tally to 13 stores. Turning to international operations. As we celebrate our fourth anniversary of Bangladesh operation, we have stepped up the pace of store expansion in Bangladesh by opening record 4 stores, taking the network tally to 17 stores in Dhaka. In Sri Lanka, we continue to operate our business amid heightened macroeconomic challenges. We opened a one new store and taking our network to 48 outlets. Our second set of priority relates to data and technology forward. Technology and data sciences take customer offering to beyond immediate physical boundaries of our store. It's an important enabler for customers to have a unified and a seamless experience.
Under this, we are working on four work streams which elevate customer experience, build next level platform capabilities, advanced analytics and data science, and digitizing the entire value chain from commissaries to the stores. When seen in unison, all the four work streams help us lead the industry and thrive in this digital era. The consumer engagement levels across different metrics continue to remain elevated. The cumulative enrollment of Domino's Cheesy Rewards grew by 28.3% quarter on quarter to 13.6 million, and the loyalty order contribution reached 45% in March 2023. The quarterly app download was at 8.5 million, up 10.4%, and MAU, monthly active users, at 11.1 million is up 22% year-on-year.
During the quarter, we launched a new redesigned unified experience or user experience on the Domino's app, which is immersive, engaging, and enhances the menu and offering, making the customers buy more and also faster checkout. Our third priority is to continue to drive operations excellence. Last quarter, I shared my thoughts around executing with excellence around the theme, what I call as the JFL way. We have made significant progress in further improving our operations with heightened focus on improved guest satisfaction, reduction in costs, and not shying away from making long-term investments on behalf of our customers. We have enhanced our focus on measuring and enhancing NPS scores during the peak hours by giving a seamless experience to customers. Even in peak load, we will enable the virtual cycle of growth by enhancing repeat rates.
A case in point being in Gurgaon, where we were able to deliver marked improvement in all our operating KPIs while improving NPS, leading to higher and positive like-for-like growth. We introduced environment friendly lidless dine-in boxes. The use case of box with lid, with lid for dine-in where the consumption begins within seconds of receiving the order was weak. This led to significant savings with the reduced paper consumption in a box. We also sense opportunity when it comes to format innovation. During the quarter, we opened one new container store in an educational campus. The time it takes to open such a store is significantly lower. It is on wheels. It is carried on wheels. The CapEx is a fraction of what we for a regular large format store.
We are running as per schedule to commission our commissaries, our largest multi-brand commissary in Bangalore. Once fully scaled up, we would be able to serve more than 750 stores in the region. Our fourth priority, essentially a prerequisite for delivering the first three priorities, is the foundation of people and culture. I am pleased to share with you that as a reflection of high trust, high performance culture, we were recognized as great places to work, another marker of beginning of a journey to be the employer of choice. We also organized JFL's first ever hackathon with an intent to transform innovative ideas to inspiring solutions. Teams were 72 hours in office for a three-day-long event, hackathon and a coding event.
We got meaningful, needle-moving, customer-facing ideas. We also filled a critical position in the leadership team, and I'm pleased to announce Mr. Sameer Batra joined us as Chief Business Officer of Domino's India about eight weeks ago. Sameer will be responsible for steering Domino's to the next phase of growth, pivoted upon best-in-class experience, operations excellence, driving like-for-like growth, and leading us in a digital era. In closing, let me share the outlook on network growth for next year. While we continue to operate in a dynamic business environment, we will continue to focus on driving like-for-like growth, along with identifying white spaces, will execute with speed and serve the unmet needs.
As per our current assessment, we are targeting about 200-225 new Domino's stores in India, 30-35 new Popeyes stores. With that, now let me turn to the moderator to initiate the questions and answers for the session. Thank you so much.
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 touch-tone 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. The first question is from the line of Nihal Jham from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you so much. Good evening. Three questions from my side. First was on the loyalty part. As you said, if you're seeing an increase in the cumulative membership, ideally should that reflect in the improvement in the monthly active users? Just trying to understand how that would play out in terms of, say, better improvement in performance for us?
Sure, Nihal. Nihal, thank you. I think you are probably referring to a flatter like for a flatter monthly active users. I think that's more seasonal. Actually, we are seeing higher repeat rates, right? I mean, from a in our frequency per like, frequency of pizza ordering is improving since we launched, and it is targeted towards the customers who are loyal. That bit we do see.
Got that. A follow-up there was that when you say you got a double-digit volume growth, is there any element of the redemption of, say, the free coupon given it's already a year in that double-digit volume growth or double-digit order growth that we are speaking of?
I think he's asking, Ashish, you may know. He's asking that the order growth, and the positive order growth, on the like for like, but negative... I think it's driven by more-
Sorry, not clear on the question. If you can just repeat that, please?
My understanding is that when someone is redeeming, say, the points that they've accumulated over the last six to 12 months as a part of a loyalty program, that automatically ends up becoming, you know, a free pizza that they redeem. I'm not certain if that gets counted as one order or two pizzas get counted separately. When you're saying you've seen a double-digit growth in the orders as a part of the opening statement, are we counting that and is that relevant, first and foremost? It's a clarification, not a comment here.
Nehal, not very relevant because the redemption anyways are very low right now. It's a one-year cycle, and you have to accumulate six pizzas to be able to get your seventh pizza free. Therefore you have to of course place an order, and within that order you will get a pizza free. The order count will include this order as well, but it's not very significant as of now.
Point taken. The second part was that on the cheese inflation, as you said that there is clarity now, maybe these prices are gonna sustain. I guess by the comments, would it be right to believe that we don't try and plan any pricing action in terms of increasing prices at this point in time?
Sorry.
Price increase.
Again, at the moment, no. I think we don't plan to increase or take prices at least in this current quarter. We believe these gross margins are, like, protected, at least, as I can see, no plan to take price increases.
Just one final question, was that, if you could give a sense of the number of cities we are looking at. While you mentioned 200-225 new Domino's store and we entered 50+ in FY 2023. Any sense of the spread between new cities and existing cities Or the number of new cities we're planning to enter in FY 2024?
Yeah, I think no, like, we do have a plan. Like, when we plan initially, for about these 200, 225 store, we will look at an opportunity set of more than 500. It includes new cities, split stores and white spaces in the existing cities. The bias always is to expand to white cities in, white spaces in the existing cities. That's where we have a team. That's where we get the maximum leverage. No, like, no guidance in terms of how many new cities we'll go to.
Sure. Point taken. I'll come back in the queue. Thanks, Samir.
Thanks, Nihal.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vivek Maheshwari from Jefferies . Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, Samir and team. My first question is on store additions. You know, last year, if you look at about a third of your stores, you know, were split stores. Does that number go down as we head into FY 2024?
Yeah. That number, Vivek, as you know, we have already, like, it has come down. Again, like I said, the, we are not targeting a number of split stores. Split store decision is when the existing store is unable to manage the volume, the customer metrics are hurting. That gives us a trigger to split the store. Let me assure you that even when we split a store, even in cities like Noida and Gurgaon, we actually find enough white spaces because cities are expanding. It is rarely a perfect split, right? We continue to capture more white spaces, which is a good thing for us. No, like, I don't think it'll come down, but I also don't think it'll go up either.
Sameer, do you expect it? The reason I'm asking this question was, you know, let's say the gap between SSS and the LFL is about 3 percentage points, and a third of the stores are split. If that number goes down, obviously, you know, the efficiency, prices move up, so. You think that split store as a percentage will continue to be about 1/3 in that context ?
It may be slightly lower, as we see. Like I said, let me say this, I don't think it'll go up. It may have a tendency to be a little lower, or at the same level.
I see. Okay. Second, a very basic question. Sameer, when you look at, let's say, or when you promise a delivery of, in 20 minutes in Bangalore. Apologies if it's a, let's say, a stupid question. But let's say a 20 minutes to a 30 minutes or rather 30 minutes to a 20 minutes, is there a big difference in overall customer satisfaction, number one? Number two, how do you ensure, I mean, what does it entail?
Store pick will be one part of it, I'm guessing, but the other part will also be, let's say, if a typical store in a 30-minute delivery timeline, let's say needs X employees, then does that mean a 20-minute delivery will require, let's say, 1.2x or whatever that number is? Does that mean in 20 minutes while customer satisfaction certainly is higher, therefore ideally throughput should be higher order in frequency. Does it also imply that, you know, the margins go down in the first bit? Again, it's okay if margin goes down from our perspective, but just want to understand fundamentally how does it work.
I think it's a great question, firstly Vivek. Actually, the margins don't go down and we do get more deliveries per hour from the same rider, right? Riders actually should make more money. Because see, the way this has happened is we have about 175 stores in Bangalore. We have only guaranteed 20 minutes when we believe the ride time from the store to the customer location is about seven to eight minutes. If you add seven to eight minutes and seven to eight minutes of reverse leg, theoretically, you can do four deliveries per hour, right? We are obviously not at four. There is huge headroom to be more efficient. Anyway, this is the workforce we pay is per delivery. From a cost perspective, it doesn't add.
From a customer perspective, it materially improves the net promoter score almost to the tune of 500 to 1,000 basis points on net promoter score uplift we have seen if you do it consistently. That gives us the confidence that, and like I mentioned, Bangalore did grow positive double digit in LFL, right? That gives us the confidence that if we double down on it, we give a consistent experience and customers will love us and we will be the most reliable and the fastest pizza delivery or a QSR delivery chain.
Interesting. Interesting. Okay. The last thing, you know, Sameer, after you have taken over, we have heard a lot from you about on dine-in side of things. You know, one of the things that you mentioned on the customer experience in dine-in store, does that entail a reasonable amount on CapEx? If you can quantify, you know, how much will be the CapEx in case if you want to make, let's say, a dine-in experience far better compared to where it is today?
Yeah. I think it's, there are four or five elements over there in terms of few things which don't cost money, like greetings, table service, timeliness of service, the experience of eating the pizza inside the store. These are more softer aspects. There are a few harder aspects like reimaging the stores. These are stores which are fully written down 15-16 years plus in terms of aging. Sometimes we do relocate them and we get rental savings, right? In fact, the ROI is positive. Wherever we change, there is a high bar on the overall sales of the store, including the dine-in store. We treat this reimaging or as a new store internally and have the financial discipline to look at payback periods.
These are not too many stores, right? I mean, we always focus on bottom 10% store, which we always assess what is the best way to improve, either drive the growth or improve the margin. In many cases, the answer is actually we need to do reimaging, as we call it. There are 3 archetypes of reimaging also, right? It's not always a full breakdown the store and then sometime it is about highlighting the elements of the pizza. Sometime it is about fixing the façade and the entry. There are various pieces to it and not necessarily like a full new store CapEx over here.
Got it. Got it. Thank you and wish you all the best, Sameer and team.
Thank you, Vivek.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manoj Menon from ICICI Securities . Please go ahead.
Team, I got just two quick questions for clarification. One on the loyalty piece. You know, let's say ceteris paribus, you know, you are, let's say you are expecting to grow same-store revenue growth at X. What is the sort of band of, let's say, incremental benefit you are likely to get, you know, in the next 12 months or so? Is it a 0%-5%, or is it 5%-10% based on the initial reaction or the consumer behavior of the cohorts, you know, who are your, let's say, heavy users?
Yeah. Vivek, allow us for this. Sorry, Manoj, my bad. Manoj, allow us for this program to complete a year, right? It is the seventh or after sixth pies you get on your pizza, right? The frequency overall is lower than that. It takes a year to stabilize. We have various models around it. One thing that I can assure you is customers eating pizza more than six times, more than nine times, more than 12 times in a year, that cohort is increasing, right? In terms of absolute and not in %. That gives me the confidence that this is working.
We see customers which are, have enrolled their likelihood of churning because of any, let's say, a service recovery issue or poor service issue is also materially lower. They are in some sense more forgiving or more invested in the brand.
Awesome. Understood. Just one follow-up, if I may. You know, are we then, essentially trying to decode, one part of your statement, let's say there is a consumer who's ordering every 30th day, are we saying that, you know, we are seeing some early signs that we are able to get frequency improved to, let's say, 29 days, let's say one day improvement or something like that?
See, overall frequency is improving, right, since the launch. That is very clear. Therefore one way to interpret is the mean time between a reorder is coming down. I have not done that calculation. I'm just only deducing it based upon the frequency increase. I will do that and probably there are certain trends that we can share in the next earnings call. I noted it down.
Understood. Understood. Understood. Good luck. The second question is actually on your own app, your own property. You know, you had the great success in terms of, you know, consumers getting to download your app and your online ordering being fairly high, close to 100% now. If you could talk a little bit more about the conversion of consumers who have, I mean, sorry, download your app versus that they're actually using it. The activities or actions you're taking, you know, to let's say, you know, to get the consumers to use your app far more than what it is today?
Yeah, I think the.. I'll talk about the activities, if I understand the question. You're asking what activities or initiatives you've taken to drive improvement in monthly active users and the conversion, right? That's what I think you're asking.
That's right. Because as a consumer I have multiple options. Let's say I have these three simple options, right, or maybe four. Your app, Swiggy, Zomato, and maybe, you know, ordering over the phone. Out of the 4 options, from your point of view, you would prefer, I presume, that I order only through your app.
Okay. I mean, I'll tell you my answer first. I'm here to serve customers. It doesn't matter where they come from, right? I want customers to love the pizza and the experience delivered by a Domino's delivery rider. That's kind of my approach when I look at the channels. Now, specifically, we control the experience far more in our own app, which has a dominant share of delivery. The activities we have done are the following. Firstly, we are in the business of serving hot pizzas, we want the customers to visually get enticed by hot and fresh pizza. For example, giving them the immersive experience of high quality images, videos, making the experience more, I would say, efficient in terms of get to what you want.
Take for example, if I order a Farm House and a garlic bread, The top widgets will be the most frequently ordered items by that customer, so that in three or four clicks she can actually check out and order. Number 3 being, our usual sides that are the hero products like Choco Lava Cake and garlic bread or crust upgrades to Cheese Burst or thin crust. Those are available right at when you select the pizza, we remind the customer, "Do you want to upgrade the crust or change the crust?" When you are checking out, "Did you forget to add a garlic bread or a Choco Lava Cake?" These elements are now been put in motion in the last quarter.
Of course, topping it up with the simple, Cheesy Rewards. You see the image on the top right-hand corner, how many more pies you need to get a free pizza. Then reminding you that, "Hey, you have a free pizza. Why don't you redeem it?" These initiatives are done. Several more are planned, which will make the app experience more immersive, and also more efficient. Last but not the least, we did launch a spin-the-wheel game. We also treat this as a platform. One of the hackathon ideas was to gamify it, and we did launch a spin the wheel kind of a game during the IPL time, early part of the IPL time.
Understood. One last question, if I may. You know, like in the last 12, 24 months, is it a fair hypothesis for me to state that you would have faced the, let's say, relatively higher competitive intensity in the lower priced pizza, not necessarily less than 100, whether it could be less than 100 from a competitor or it could be regional brands or, you know, XYZ brands? Is it fair to say that you would have faced the lower competitive intensity from, you know, from lower priced products versus the higher priced products? Where are you in that, you know, journey currently, and what are you doing to tackle it?
At INR 49, at least my competition is the samosa and idli and vada, right, and not pizzas. That market is much larger. Manoj and I have always been saying that, from INR 49 entry-level pizza to a 699 gourmet pizza, delivered from the same store as delectable, as appetizing as for both sets of consumers. Actually, the competition to me is. Actually, the real deal over is internal, getting the internal teams focused on the white spaces, unmet demand, and serving various cohorts through technology. That is where the. I don't think entry-level pizza is actually a meaningful competition.
Yes, fair enough. Fair enough. Sameer and team, super good luck. Thank you.
Thank you, Manoj.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Sachdeva from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, everyone, and thank you for taking my question. Sir, given that demand environment has been challenging and like to like growth has turned negative, while demand remains challenging, you have obviously taken several actions, which is affordability, consumer service level to product innovation. As you go with this playbook, as you go into the current year, do you see that this year as a transient of gradual build in demand or it could be something like, you know, first negative becoming broadly flattish and gradually moving more? Do you expect somehow the rebound can happen, and what sort of demand environment is playing out given the success of, say, Bangalore or, you know, some other markets that you see these products are working and service levels are working.
Do you see that as a potential for, you know, in the current year, your target of, you know, like to like growth mid-single digit could be achieved on a full year basis, or you would say that it will still take more time to do so?
Yeah, I think the from a demand perspective, Or, from a consumer sentiment perspective, I don't see things will change in 1 quarter, right?
Sure.
More near term than the question that you asked. Again, I'm very much focused on the internal opportunity, and there is loads of it. Let me assure you that. The team knows where to fix, what to fix, and when to fix, where are the opportunities over there. My first goal is to make sure my, all my customers who are coming to me, they are happy, they are enrolled in Cheesy Rewards. we continue to expand stores because this, I believe, is transitory. It is not something which is cast in stone forever. When the demand like picks up or the sentiment picks up, we will be the fastest of the blocks, both in terms of driving the growth and also, expanding the margin pool.
Again, I'm being more calibrated at this stage because world changes very quickly. One event can cause major disruptions in food inflation or consumer sentiment. Things look more stable, Amit, versus the last earnings call.
That's good to hear that. For example, as you go in April and May, are you feeling little bit, slightly eased up or it stays the same, or are you saying it is at least stable, it's not worsening any further? Is that?
Yes.
the kind of message that you-
Yes. Yes, it is definitely more stable. At least from food inflation standpoint, cheese is elevated, but other commodities have softened. We have more internal levers also to work upon. Some of these levers will just take a bit of time to get executed. Therefore, I'm being more cautious. Whatever seasonal upticks you get in during the IPL or during the summer season, holidays, et cetera, those obviously come in.
Sure. Sure. No, that's very helpful, Sameer. Sameer, if I may just ask the interplay of, for example, fixed costs in the system. If I were to just roughly do the math, I would probably think that at store level, costs would be inflationary at about 2%-5% ballpark at the store level year-over-year, more or less. In case the like-to-like growth is, say, flattish, if not negative, do you see a scenario where margins at the EBITDA margin level, some of your cost efficiencies and other initiatives that you could take can arrest some amount of EBITDA margin pressure? How one should think about the overall dynamic of gross margin staying 75%, 76% levels?
How one should think about these demand pressures to still, you know, cost pressure at the store levels and things like that in terms of VAs and rentals and things like that? How one should imagine the EBITDA margin picture for this? I'm not asking for specific guidance. What I'm trying to say is if things don't materially improve in demand front, is there a risk that EBITDA margin can stay or at least under more pressure or, you know, do you have levers to contain that?
Amit, I'll take that. I think the biggest unlock for EBITDA margin improvement from here would of course be, as Sameer was alluding to earlier, would be unlocking the LFL growth. I think that's where the incessant focus has been on improving and driving all the levers to make sure that we start getting like-for-like growth and therefore operating leverage within the store. Having said that, I think we are also working on looking at every single cost line, and we have actually launched a pan-organization program called Vijay, where we are looking to take out cost from our systems and drive efficiency and productivity across all lines. That in our to my mind, will at least ease off or help us retain the current level of margins without negatively letting that it get impacted negatively.
Got it. Ashish, if I may sort of paraphrase what you're saying is even in, you know, given the cost efficiencies, even if there's a lackluster like-for-like growth in the worst case also the margin will be contained, but if like-for-like growth happens, then probably it will be a big plus. Is that what you're trying to sort of allude to or?
Yes, Amit, I think that's the endeavor that we should. Once like-for-like growth comes back and all the cost initiatives, we should be able to see an uptick in EBITDA. I would refrain from giving any margin guidance because I think the environment remains very, very dynamic.
Sure. No, just wanted to understand, Ashish, is that in the scenario of, say, no like-for-like growth, whether you are sort of structurally preparing for at least containing the EBITDA margin. That's what really I wanted to understand.
Absolutely.
That's always the endeavor.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Structurally, I think we're doing a lot of intervention, looking at every single line of our cost, looking at extracting more value from every single line of fixed cost. I think there is a full program in place, and that's our endeavor. Endeavor is not only just on the cost line, but also in terms of improving our mix, getting more sharper and targeted in terms of our discount deployment. I think there's a lot of work happening in terms of, you know, keeping the overall health of the business at a very elevated level.
Sure. In that case, you know, the INR 49 pizza and, you know, affordability range, has it made a material difference in the market? Can you give us some sort of anecdotal aspect of it that how one should think about that affordability strategy helping you solve the problem of, say, dine-in footfalls being higher where it was targeted to? How this strategy has sort of translated into some gains here?
Yeah. I think the cornerstone of our customer value proposition is hinging on three pillars, right? The number one, value. Number two is delivery excellence, and third is the taste and the, like, the amount of cheese or toppings we put in, which we all launched at our all-new Domino's. Firstly, this INR 49 has not diluted our gross margin, right, which you see it in our P&L this quarter.
Sure.
It is at INR 49, trust me, from a customer mind share perspective, it is a big hook It has elevated the value credentials in customers' mind. Therefore they come in. Then it's an opportunity using our app, using our loyalty and using our store experience to upsell and cross-sell. There we have not seen the average order value decline because of this, right? Whatever decline we see is more because of inflation and the price increases on sentiment. This alone does not count. Actually, the volumetric growth gives us the confidence that customers do want to come back to this brand and therefore we have tremendous opportunity to kind of wow them with better experience and also with Cheesy Rewards program.
If I may just add to what Sameer said, Amit, it also allows us to move and recruit a lot of customers from the unorganized market, as you would know that two-thirds of the market is unorganized. If you're able to play at that price point without any material impact on our gross margin, I think it will give us a long-term role in terms of it being able to keep converting and recruiting customers from the unorganized segment of the market.
Got it. Understood. Thank you so much, Ashish. I'll come back in the queue. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Amit. Thanks.
The 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. Starting from the first experience, what you mentioned that you are trying to delight the customer and unmet consumer demand. Let me be a little candid and consumer voice. Sitting in Bombay, we see your La Pino'z has picked up very well. Whole science behind why La Pino'z has picked up, and if I check a dipstick within our office and my friends and consumer, the quality is one of the big thing which the local competition is offering at the price. I would not say. I'm sure since you are in the business, you know about it. The quality over a period is a big question mark for Domino's customers who are not coming. If I look at the traffic, which has improved.
Are you trying to solve the problem of quality with 20 minutes delivery or saying the redesign or timing? Maybe I want your candid assessment that what is it that we are trying to improve the quality or is there any efforts we have already made?
Yeah. I think good question, Shirish. Firstly, thank you for being candid. I think it's a consumer who's speaking as an analyst, right? I acknowledge that. I think the proof of the pudding in this case, the proof of the pizza is in eating it, right? We can talk about the value, we can talk about the store experience, we can talk about 20-minute delivery. The moment of the truth is when the customer opens the box and when she eats the pizza. That doesn't change. I also am not saying that the delivery will compensate. I did say that we have three pillars to our consumer value proposition. The taste and the product, which is paramount, the value and the price that we offer, and delivery.
All three should come in together. One cannot replace the other. I cannot give a great-tasting pizza, but after 45 minutes, that also doesn't work. In few pockets we have room to fix, and hopefully we can delight you with a far superior experience in Mumbai, and we are cognizant of the gaps that exist. Let me assure you, we will continue to offer the best on all three dimensions. Wherever gaps are, we will fix it.
One follow-up here, Sameer. Thanks for your reply, that's helpful. Does players like La Pino'z worry you? Today, if I look at the scale which La Pino'z has built up, I'm sure Delhi there is Oven Story. There are many examples you can take regional. Is the regional competition is one of the big thing which worries you and that's why when you sit in the drawing board or when you sit with the team, is that the driving factor?
I'm just trying to again, with all humility, we operate more than like 1,800 stores, and we know the challenge of running a ship tightly, efficiently, with highest amount of food safety, quality, and serving on the core value proposition. I'm just focused on that. Shirish, to be honest, internally there is tremendous opportunity. If I unlock that, I mean, at INR 49 going all the way to INR 699 with the offerings of the pizzas that we have, I think it is for my team to execute and get that growth. I'm not. I don't focus on...
To honest answer, internally, in my team rooms, I don't focus on competition, I focus on my customers, and I know I have a job to do over there.
Okay. Okay, that's helpful. My second question, if I benchmark quarter four, as LFL -0.6, and if I look at from your lens, you have done a lot of interventions in Bangalore about 20 minutes promise, then you have done some redesigning of stores in Delhi NCR, which I've seen, that's a phenomenal work which is there. If I look at and -0.6, what is the LFL growth, if you can add maybe quarter four, some flavor in this area?
You are asking for guidance at this stage?
No, I'm not asking for guidance. Is it significantly, I mean, materially it is, say, if it is flat, is that these interventions or what you have done, redesigning of the stores and experience and dine-in has significantly higher delivering double digits?
I think wherever we'd like, we have done 20-minute or redesigned the stores, of course, like, we see the effect in four weeks, right? That gives us the confidence. It's just that you don't have a magic wand to turn entire, whatever top 7 cities into 20-minute overtime or reimagine the stores overnight. All of this takes time. It takes landlord to agree. It takes teams to get organized, get the equipment, shut down the store. It is done in a calibrated manner. Wherever we do, let me assure you that this pays off far more than what even we internally estimate.
Okay. My second and last question on the dine-in piece. I do give merit that past company head has tried to drive the margin and other things, but dine-in is one of the piece which we for a long time trying to stitch up. What are the efforts or what are the initiatives you think, and if it is residing at 36% for FY 2023, where do you think this dine-in piece will move within next two-three years? What are the initiatives you are taking at this time to drive the dine-in experience?
Firstly, if I have to grow in like healthy double digits, then all channels need to grow in healthy double digits, right? Because one channel is not insignificant that it can grow faster, right? These are all materially chunky channels by in itself. For dine-in specifically, I think there are three or four things that we need to do. One is to have inviting stores wherever the stores are older. Have a better dine-in experience in terms of the staff being more courteous, being more proactive to customers. Number three, help the customer navigate inside the store, order quickly, be efficient. We are not going to become a fine dining or a casual dining outlet.
We will remain true to our values of we give great value, efficient service, and have a comfortable environment. If we do all of these things, I think in some places, this is not right up there, and we will fix it. The initiatives are around same, making sure the product quality is outstanding, the service for what we stand for and what customer pays for, is right up there. The restaurant ambiance is what we have promised or what we envisage when opening a new store.
That's helpful. One last follow-up on the same point. Today when I look back and I do have this monthly visit and weekly visit to certain Domino's stores, and the whole Domino's stores looks like a machinery that you get the order and you run away. While you are taking these initiatives for creating that customer experience, do you think that the whole element of culture, the service delivery point, which is much different than enlightening the customer sitting in the store? Does that mean that we need to do a lot of activities to get the people skill development in terms of culture and that therefore, is there any investment also behind it?
Yeah. I think I just wanted to make an overarching statement and then maybe answer your question. We don't want to become fine dining or casual dining. We want to be efficient. We want to stand for our stores have one of the highest throughputs in the country and probably in the Domino's system. We are a culture of hustle and efficiency. That will not go away. At the same time, it should not be hurting the customer. If a customer wants to sit down for seven, 10, 12, 15 minutes, finish her pizza, bring her friend into the store, use the washroom, want something extra on the table, we will go ahead and do it. Therefore, I'm not stretching the boundaries of who we are beyond a certain certain realm. It should not hurt the customer, right?
It should make peace the customer is what my mantra over here is. I think that can be done. It will require training, of course. It will require changing some of the systems. Again, these are more, I would say, more behavioral and more training related changes and some hardware related changes inside the store, but nothing beyond that. We are not going to become a gourmet pizza shop.
Wonderful. Thank you, Sameer, and thanks for your time and thanks for the opportunity and all the best for the future endeavors.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sir.
The next question is from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL Securities . Please go ahead.
Hi, team. I have a few questions. Firstly, on the CapEx you have done on cash flow basis about INR 770 crores of CapEx. Would you be able to give some kind of break up on what this entails, how much of it is, commissary, how much of it is new store, how much is remodeling, how much is IT, etcetera?
Percy, I think bulk of it is new store. We have done one bulk CapEx on commissary on our new Bangalore commissary, which was about INR 250 crores is what we had indicated. Other than that, most of it is attributed to new stores, and for some amount has gone into reimaging of our store and our digital and IT investments that we do on a regular basis.
INR 250 crore is in the cash flow of this year itself?
That's right. That's right.
Okay. Secondly, on the margin, the key takeaway I'm taking from your discussion with my friend, Amit, is that this margin this quarter of 20.1% seems to be the bottom. If I'm correct in assuming that, my question here is that if, let's say, a few months down the line, cheese prices come off, etcetera, what will be your response to that in terms of consumer pricing, promotions, etcetera? Will you pass on the deflation to the consumer? Do you think that you'll retain it because we have not passed on the entire inflation itself? In light of this strategy, where do you see your medium-term margin stabilizing?
I mean, see, a couple of years ago, you had touched highs of 25%-26%, which definitely don't seem to be sustainable in the long run. On the other hand, this margin of 20% also seems to be on the lower side. Where do you think is the sweet spot for you where you will be comfortable in terms of margins?
Firstly, our constant endeavor would, of course, to improve margin. Given the dynamism that we are facing both on the commodity cycle and the production integrate because of the sustained inflation and the way the consumer demand is panning out, I think it will be very difficult to give a guidance at this stage. As I, you know, alluded to earlier, we are structurally looking at reducing costs, becoming more efficient, becoming more leaner. Therefore, as and when the cycle turns, we should be able to take advantage of that.
Yep. As far as the cycle turns, I mean, do you have any kind of visibility as to when the SSSG will turn positive? I'm talking about SSSG, not LFL.
As also what Sameer said earlier, Percy, I think it's difficult to again give a prognosis at this stage. The cyclical demand does take two to three quarters to come back. I think it will be anybody's guess at this moment as to when we will start seeing a full recovery.
Again, I would just like to add that my team sees good internal opportunities for us, in many places as we look for either store expansion or within the catchment that we serve. I'm, again, focused on the internal opportunity that I see, and I want my team also to be fully behind that. That's kind of my answer, in addition to what Ashish said.
Sure. Lastly, on Popeyes rollout, it's been almost 1.5 years since the first store was launched. Just wanted to understand why is the rollout so slow? Only 13 stores till now. Why if you believe you've got the business model right, why not accelerate and add, like, 50-60 stores every year?
Just for context, right, we offer antibiotics-free chicken and fresh chicken, right, which is not frozen. That takes time to build the back-end supply chain. Like for all our products, we want to fully have traceability and visibility to the origination point, to the point when we serve the customers, we want to have a good control. That's what takes time more than opening stores. Actually, opening store is the easiest part, but fulfilling it, making sure the quality remains, it takes time. You will see, like, a faster pace of store expansion going forward.
Right. Right. Thank you very much for answering all my questions. Just one suggestion from my side. You had given SSSG last quarter. This quarter you have not given your guidance for the full year. If you can start giving that on a quarterly basis again, it'll be very helpful. Thanks.
Thank you.
I think we give on annual basis. That is what we had disclosed. We take that as a feedback and come back and evaluate if it should change that.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jay Doshi from Kotak . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is on demand and primarily because I think, you know, in one of the earlier responses you mentioned that there is no improvement in consumer sentiment, whereas then you talked about seasonal uptick. Typically in June quarter, for most QSR companies we see a high single-digit sequential improvement in ADS, and that the seasonality which we've seen in Domino's also prior to pandemic. Are you seeing a similar level of uptick at this point of time, or are you seeing no uptick at all? What does the, you know, what does stable environment mean? Is it like similar ADS levels as Jan, Feb, March quarter or, you know, a seasonal uptick?
I think at the moment it is a seasonal uptick that we are witnessing, which we do see, in India as a has lot of feast and fast coming, and those cycles can also change. IPL is another boost to the pizza eating time. Whatever seasonal upticks we have seen that we see, we are definitely seeing that.
Thank you. That's helpful. Second question is how do you think about, you know, balance between your own app, own platform and market share on Swiggy, Zomato? Are you making any investment to ensure that you maintain the market share on food aggregator platforms? Okay.
Yeah, I think I did allude to this earlier. I see any customer opportunity to serve Domino's is as one, right? Whether it's a dine-in takeaway, our own app or Swiggy or Zomato. These are customers looking for Domino's Pizza. We control the delivery experience, and we make the pizza, right? Pizza box never leaves our hands. It is to me like that if customers do choose to order from Swiggy and Zomato, I do want them to give the best experience and not be partial towards one versus the other. Having said that, there are few pieces which are available on our app, which is for the Cheesy Rewards loyalty program, is only available on our app.
Those pieces are there, but except for those, I do want to serve the customers. The experience on our own app is more in control, right? If you want to nudge, let's say, a garlic bread and a Choco Lava Cake or change the images the way we want to, I think those are easier to execute. For that, I think I want to serve all the customers and all there. In fact, I'm pushing my team, find out more channels to serve the customers. Why these four only?
Understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashish Kanodia from Citi . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. Sir, the first question is on the 20-minute delivery. You know, you have already rolled out to Bangalore. When you look at FY 2024 end, do you see a possibility with the existing store density and the new store coming up, this being rolled out in maybe the top 6, top 7 cities as well?
I do want to roll it out to top 7 cities where it, where the consumers for it matter the most. I will not take shortcuts in terms of doing this without the right store infrastructure, rider tracking and technology in place, and most importantly, the rider safety. Therefore, I will, I mean, I do want it, like, from an ambition standpoint, but when the infrastructure is there, we will roll out city by city.
The reason why I'm asking you this, sir, is because you'll see similar to Bangalore, say, in the top, other three, four cities, right, you will still have a good store density. I understand the point on the safety measures, right, but this will also help to drive the NPS scores and the like for like growth as well. I mean, what are, what's your ambition here, from the next 12-24 months perspective? Do you see this, because tech, I'm assuming the tech is already there, right? Do you see that possibility of rolling out in the next 12-24 months?
Yeah. I think what has happened, Ashish, is that just by bringing greater focus on it, our, like, 30-minute delivery promises or delivery against the promise has improved. Therefore, cities like Gurgaon, Noida have, like, witnessed high growth. Therefore, I may need to add more stores to even get to 20 minutes now. The long story short on this one, be consistent and be most reliable and consistent on your delivery promises first. That's the first phase of growth that we'll get on delivery. Second is get the network and technology to expand, only then launch it. I want to do this as soon as possible, but not compromising on these elements.
Sure. Point taken. The second question is on product now, on both Domino's and Popeyes, right? Firstly on Popeyes, right, if you look at, say, a entry-level code or burger, it's at INR 109, first page, right? Based the consumer feedback, do you see there a need for, you know, something which is say at INR 49, 59, right, which psychologically attracts to a large consumer, something similar to what you have done in Domino's. Second, on the product development on Domino's side is, you know, when you look at the, you know, the Domino's currently menu offering, right, there will be a timing where the demand is very high, maybe during lunch and dinner.
At the same time, you know, there will be slots where, you know, the demand is very low because desire of the product is not maybe, you know, consumed relatively very low during a particular timeframe, right? I'm not talking about breakfast. I'm just looking at the, you know, between say 11:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M., and there could be a time between say 3:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. and, you know, 3:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. when the number of pizza orders is relatively less. Within that, do you see a scope to, you know, kind of increase the menu beyond what we currently offer in the site? Or do you have any, you know, examples of probably any something of similar sort was done and which helped to increase the ADS?
I think two both great questions. For Popeyes, especially let me even step back. Customers are always looking for value in any country that you go to, so we have to be respectful of that and find ways to give value. At the moment, my endeavor in Popeyes is to make sure we have the right footprint in South of India backed by the right commissary model and serve the customers with the unique sandwiches and bone-in chicken that we have. That itself should give me a tremendous opportunity at this stage. I don't know if Definitely I do want to attack the value segment. I'm not saying that I don't want to. That's always on the horizon. Regarding Domino's, I believe your question was on.
Ashish, can you please repeat the question in the context of Domino's?
Yeah. obviously what I was saying is, say for example, pizza might be, you know, being consumed relatively very high during lunch.
During the day part, yeah.
Yeah, day part. Yeah.
A good one. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. I think it is a fact that, like, globally it is ordered more in the evening, versus during lunch hour. That presents an opportunity. I agree with you that there is more opportunity during pre-lunch and post-lunch, right, as I also see it. One of my themes on being customer and market first is to innovate for many Indias. Our teams are experimenting or building, sprucing up the menu as we speak to tackle this. Equally, the opportunity is on the technology side. Can I have better combos targeting CRM activities during these hours? Yes, again, that is definitely on the anvil.
Sure. Sure. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Avi Mehta from Macquarie . Please go ahead.
Hi, team. I just had two questions. One, I wanted to understand the order decline, if you could clarify what drove it, because you pointed that INR 49 pizza menu was not the material reason. If you can kind of help just understand what drove that decline across both delivery and dine-in?
Order has increased. I thought that's what I mentioned.
Sorry. Per order, per order size, sir, realization.
Okay, average order.
Yeah, average order.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Got it. Got it. That is not on account of the INR 49 launch. It's more about consumers, like somebody was eating a medium pizza, going in for a regular pizza, right? Somebody wanting additional side. They're trying to protect the amount that they spend, not necessarily INR 49 is definitely not the answer over there.
Okay, sir. Okay. Got it, sir. That's clear. Second, sir, if you could give, just a bookkeeping, what would be the CapEx likely for FY 2024, given the store addition guidance of 200-225?
Avi, I think, we are in a high CapEx cycle right now. Even for this year, FY 2024, we are expecting a CapEx in the range of INR 700 crore- 800 crore because we'll also be investing in our Mumbai commissary this year, like we did in Bangalore last year.
That would be commissary would be, say, similar, 250, 300 like Bangalore?
Similar. I think we are looking at a similar INR 250-270 crores of investments in our Mumbai commissary as well.
Okay, sir. That's all from my side. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tejas Shah from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sameer and team. Thanks for the opportunity. My most of the questions have been answered. I just want-- left with one. Sameer, you spoke about that you are pushing your team to find more channels to reach out to customer. We have suddenly this allegedly disruptive technology, which is ONDC, which is coming our way. Do you see it as an opportunity to have one more channel or to reach out to a larger audience? You see it as a disruption because we have a very good IT infra ourselves, digital infra, in the cap to digital infra that we have. Do you see it will empower people who are actually lagging on that side, you see it as an opportunity for us to scale much faster and go beyond just these two route to market food aggregator that we have?
I think we do want to get onto the ONDC bandwagon. We are in discussions or rather we are organizing ourselves to launch it on ONDC. Again, I see this, my overarching piece will be wherever customers are, I want to serve them with Domino's Pizza. Therefore, we will if ONDC is a channel, we will obviously get onto ONDC.
Have you already locked it? There's a beta version in Bangalore going on, and we have a very good network there. Have you already participated in this?
Yes, I think teams are getting the technofix. At this moment, teams are getting organized to do the technology scoping and integration. Whatever time it takes to launch, we will go ahead and do it.
Great. That's all from my side. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Vora from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. My question is on cost. How has the freight and delivery cost trended in FY 2023? This number had jumped from INR 120 crore in FY 2019 to 2021, all the way to INR 270 crore in FY 2022. If you can explain the spike which you saw last year and where is this number been since? Freight and delivery cost.
Sorry, can you repeat the question, Kunal? I didn't get that.
Yeah. The question was that, in the freight and delivery cost, in FY 2022, you had a spike, from INR 120 crore in earlier years to INR 270 crore in FY 2022. I wanted to check, what resulted in the spike in FY 2022, and where has that number been in FY 2023.
I think that is all largely on account of the variabilization of manpower costs, where there is a reclass which happens because of the way we account it. I think underlying cost has not changed, but I think at a headline level, because of the way the variable manpower costs are accounted for, you're seeing that change.
Okay. In FY 2023, it will be-
You'll see that in more detail in the annual report. I think you'll get more color there.
Okay. Okay. The jump in other expenses and depreciation, like, what's driving that? It's mostly because of the store additions?
If you're referring to quarter four.
Yes.
The depreciation increase, Kunal, is largely attributable to the store opening, both because of the asset depreciation and the ROU that we create on account of these liability. The other expenses have gone up this quarter, one on account of the mix change, because again, when you have a differential mix in terms of your own manpower versus variabilized manpower, it reflects in other manufacturing expenses. Also this quarter we had deployed slightly higher level of marketing inputs because of which the other expenses seems a little high.
Okay. Just lastly, on the Cheesy Rewards members, have their ordering frequency increased? What has been the cost in terms of rewards and other metrics which you've seen so far in line with what you were expecting?
As Sameer mentioned earlier, Kunal, the overall frequency, we are seeing some uptick, especially in the cohorts, which are high and medium. The frequency is improving quarter-on-quarter, and therefore, we are already seeing the early signs of benefits coming through the Cheesy Rewards program. In terms of cost, this is accounted as discount upfront, and it's currently getting funded from the discount, our overall discount spend itself. There is no incremental cost that we are incurring on this program.
Understood. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take the last question from the line of Sheela Rathi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. My first question was with respect to, you know, we're reaching almost 1,800 stores now. Are we having any plans around, you know, shutting down any stores which are, you know, because of, you know, various reasons, maybe move from dining to delivery or delivery to dining? Do we have any such plans next year of shutting down any stores in any parts of the country?
Those are insignificant, if at all, right? I mean, we do constantly relocate our stores, right? That's wherever we believe some parts of catchment has changed or the rentals have gone higher and we are not able to get better rentals. Those are par for the courses, which is a relocation in the near vicinity. Other than that, I think there are shutdowns because if a mall or an area has completely, like, become dead, which is very far and few, Sheela.
Understood. When you say we will be adding 200 to 225 stores, that's the gross number or will that be the net number?
It'll be gross number, Sheela.
Okay.
Anyway, our closures have not been very high.
Yeah.
This entire year, we just closed one store, and we keep looking at our bottom performing stores. I think our hit rate has been fairly good, and we do not anticipate any significant amount of closures this year.
Any relocations we do, we don't report it as part of this. That's, I mean, it's.
Yeah.
Relocation of existing store.
Understood. Ashish, the next question is to you with respect to the efficiencies you talked about Project Vijay. What are the kind of measures and what are the kind of costs we are trying to address, you know, in terms of, you know, improving our efficiencies? Is it on the COGS side or, you know, any other costs?
To give you one example, Sheela, for example, we have looked at our, and Sunil also gives that example. We have introduced lidless boxes in dine-in. The lid on the box in dine-in was completely redundant, and by taking that away now we have not only taken away cost, but we've also made it more environmental friendly. Similarly, we are looking at energy consumption in our stores. We have installed electric meters in each and every one of our stores. We are looking at that very, very closely. We are looking at energy consumption in our factories. We are looking at our digital costs, our cloud costs, our IT costs, our infra costs, our connectivity costs. The, our, manpower costs.
I think every line of cost, I think there is opportunity to optimize it, value reengineering it, and in some cases renegotiate it given the environment that we are operating in. I think if we do the all of that well, we should be able to squeeze out significant amount of efficiency from our existing P&L.
Is there a number in mind, say 5% or some number in mind in terms of cost savings?
We have a target, Sheela, but I would refrain from sharing it. We are working towards it, and hopefully we will be able to deliver some efficiencies and goodness into the P&L.
Sure. Just one final question, with respect to our international businesses, you know, Nepal, Bangladesh and even Russia, Turkey, I think. How are the things panning out over there?
I did mention in my opening comments about Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Bangladesh is we've expanded maximum number of stores. We had a strong Eid last month. I think again, I personally visited Bangladesh during our last earning call or right before our last earning call. I do see an opportunity over there. And I think it is We are a larger brand over there, at least when it comes to pizzas. I think we will continue to expand and we see good traction in that country. Sri Lanka, I think the macroeconomic environment, we are in a kind of a wait and watch mode over there.
I do want my existing assets to bring the right set of return on investments and capital. That we are being more cautious when it comes to Sri Lanka. The other parts of the country, we are a minority investor in a listed company. Whatever information they give us, we'll share it with you.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. On behalf of Jubilant FoodWorks Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you. Thank you.