Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3 and 9-month FY25 Conference Call hosted by Jubilant FoodWorks Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Lakshya Sharma from Jubilant FoodWorks Limited. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Sharma.
Thank you so much, Darwin. So a very good evening, everyone, and welcome to Jubilant FoodWorks Limited Q3 and 9-month FY25 earnings call for investors and analysts. We are joined today by senior members of the management team, including our Chairman, Mr. Shyam S. Bhartia, our Co-Chairman, Mr. Hari S. Bhartia, our CEO and MD, Mr. Sameer Khetarpal, our CEO of Turkey Business, Mr. Aslan Saranga, our CFO, Ms. Suman Hegde. We will commence with key thoughts from our Co-Chairman and turn to our CEO and MD to share his perspectives. After the opening remarks from the management, the forum will be open to 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.
We will also share the replay and transcript 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 views with you. Over to you, sir. Thank you.
Thank you, Lakshya. Good evening, everyone. The Q3 financial year 2025 was actually a really defining quarter for the company with consolidated revenue of INR 21.5 billion, aided by a very strong Domino's LFL growth of 12.5%. We have delivered an exceptional result in Q3. This really demonstrates the strength of focused execution of our strategy and the unwavering commitment of our team members. Our strategic framework, built on two pillars, is yielding results ahead of the market. First, strengthening Domino's. Multiple initiatives have been taken to strengthen Domino's business. We transitioned from four to seven-region structure in Q2 last year. This made our operations more agile and enhanced team performance and effectiveness. We revitalized our brand with "It Happens Only with Pizza" campaign to win on occasions and expand the pizza category.
We redefined the delivery experience with the launch of 20-minute delivery and delivery fee waiver, fundamentally enhancing the value proposition of Domino's. Accelerated pace of product innovation to continuously delight our customers. These initiatives helped us achieve new peaks and deliver a great growth momentum to the business. In Turkey, Domino's continues to gain share and expand network. The second pillar is accelerating the path to profitability for emerging portfolio brands. Coffee is on its way to become top five café brands in Turkey, and during the quarter, it achieved a significant milestone by becoming the first emerging brand from our portfolio to surpass the 150-store mark. In Popeyes, we expanded the network. We are equally focused on reaching the desired unit economics and payback periods. We are progressing well on our path.
Even in the softer demand environment, we have continued to make investments for store growth and technology and absorb costs to deliver value to customers. We see this benefit in higher like-for-like growth in the Domino's business. With consumption picking up, we are confident of our growth journey. I'll now invite Sameer to provide a more detailed perspective on our operational performance and strategic initiatives.
Thank you, Mr. Bhartia, and good evening, everyone. Q3 indeed was a landmark quarter for our company, marked by record performance for Domino's business. This exceptional performance is a testament to focus on-the-ground execution of our strategy and the unwavering dedication and commitment of our teams. From our food parks and stores to our technology and delivery teams, every member of the JFL family played a pivotal role in delighting the customers during the countless celebrations encompassing, not limited to, Diwali, Christmas, and New Year. Their commitment to excellence fuels our success and positions us for continued growth. Performance summary: This is a quarter of new highs, not only in revenue but also in same-store growth, store expansion, app traffic, app conversion, customer loyalty, new customer acquisition, and highest absolute EBITDA.
Group system sales are a measure of overall consumer sales across our own and franchise network, which is primarily in Turkey, reached INR 24.1 billion, a healthy 6% increase quarter on quarter. Consolidated revenue came in at INR 21.5 billion, up 56.1% year-on-year. The organic growth came in at 19.4%, while the rest is on the account of DP Eurasia sales not being in the base. Standalone revenue, for the first time, crossed INR 16 billion at 16.1 billion, up 18.9% year-on-year. Our total store network now comprises of 3,260 stores and a net addition of 130 stores during the quarter, with 67 net store additions in India and 63 in international markets. Coming to India segment, Domino's India delivered an exceptional performance this quarter, achieving highest-ever sales. Led by our own app, food tech capabilities, revenue surged 8.3% year-on-year, fueled by a very impressive 33.8% increase in orders.
New customer acquisition grew by 55%, and we have also started to see the benefit of new customers repeating and compounding happening. LFL sales grew by a strong 12.5% year-on-year, driven by strong delivery-led LFL growth of 24.7%. Mature store radius achieved a new high of less than INR 86,000. I'm also delighted with the enhanced pace of innovation, product innovation, and proud of how operationally complex products like Cheese Volcano are being rated very highly by customers and delivered to customers inside the stores and in their homes. During the quarter, we introduced three new flavors of popular Cheese Burst range, further enhancing our pizza credential, and cheese portfolio. Learning from U.S. and other Domino's markets suggests a strong salience of chicken items along with the pizza. We are materially underindexed on this salience, and hence we see as a big.
Participants, please stay connected. We seem to have lost the line for the management. Please stay connected while we reconnect the line for the management. Participants, please stay connected while we reconnect the management line. Participants, thank you for patiently holding your lines. We have the line for the management reconnected. Over to you, sir.
My sincere apologies that the line got disconnected. I'll start from where I believe we got disconnected. I'm also delighted with the enhanced pace of product innovation and proud how operationally complex products like Cheese Volcano are being rated very highly and doing very well on delivery. During the quarter, we introduced three new flavors of our popular Cheese Burst range, further enhancing the taste of cheese. Learning from U.S. and other Domino's markets suggests a strong salience of chicken items along with pizza. We are materially underindexed on this salience, and hence we see an opportunity to unlock this platform. Like pizzas, wings, and other chicken and cheese items are shareable and add to higher ticket and customer repeats.
We were patiently perfecting the customer value proposition in South India and now have launched the chicken range nationally, starting at INR 99, along with an ATL campaign. We believe this new range will drive incremental location and help us serve new customers. Our digital engagement continues to grow quarter on quarter with nearly 14 million monthly active users on Domino's India app. App install also saw an impressive 28.6% year-on-year growth, reaching around 12 million. To help you further appreciate the scale of our rider management platform, in December, we had 46,700 monthly active riders, which was up by 50% from last December, helping us meet high customer demand and improve delivery performance. This underscores the power of our digital platform to manage variable peak load and allowing us to deliver under 20 minutes. We are progressing well against our network guidance.
We opened 60 net new stores for Domino's in India this quarter and entered 19 new cities, ending with a total network of 2,139 stores now serving customers in 466 cities. The competitive intensity continues to be strong, along with inflationary pressures. The gross margin came in at 75.1%, lower by 160 basis points year-on-year on account of higher food costs for some of our new product launches, inflation, and high competitive intensity leading to higher discounting during Diwali and big days and the increase in delivery charges as the demand for delivery costs as the demand for riders increased during peak season. Standalone EBITDA reached INR 3.1 billion, up 10.6% year-on-year, with an EBITDA margin of 19.4%, lower by 145 basis points year-on-year and flat quarter on quarter.
Importantly, we are getting the leverage, as indicated by the Pre-Ind AS 116 EBITDA at 12.4%, which has improved continuously since the last four quarters and is higher by 70 basis points quarter on quarter. While we do not separately disclose brand-wise EBITDA, we would like to mention that the like-for-like growth is providing leverage to Domino's P&L, which registered a mid-teens growth year-on-year, despite free delivery and growth investments. Moving to international segment, DP Eurasia's operations in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. System sales reached INR 7.5 billion, with Domino's Turkey contributing INR 6.7 billion, followed by coffee system sales at INR 801 million. I am excited to share with you that DP Eurasia revenue crossed a milestone of INR 5 billion for the first time, registering a strong 9.5% quarter-on-quarter growth.
We believe the economy in Turkey is headed in the right direction as the government has brought down inflation from 64.9% a year back to 42%. However, this has also led to lower wage revisions. In a high inflationary environment, wage revisions trigger an immediate consumption boost. Despite these headwinds, the team in Turkey delivered comparative growth. Domino's Turkey like-for-like sales came at minus 3.2% on a base of 18.9% LFL, which was same quarter last year. Coffee like-for-like sales grew at minus 2.6%, and last year, this same quarter number was at 27.7%. Basically, high base explains negative LFL. For the nine-month period, DP Eurasia revenue reached INR 14.3 billion, with an EBITDA margin of 23% and PAT margin of 7.2%. We have achieved a significant turnaround in Sri Lanka, with a record revenue of INR 213 million in Q3, up 65.4% year-on-year.
The strong performance is entirely driven by same-store growth, as we have strategically paused network expansion to focus on optimizing the existing store. Key initiatives such as store relocation, exciting new product launches, and focus on local store marketing and campaigns have fueled this impressive growth. We also went on TV for the first time. In Bangladesh, the revenue was BDT 173 million in Q3, up 38.6% year-on-year, scaling to a new record. For the first nine months, consolidated revenue came in at INR 60.4 billion, up 48%, with an EBITDA of INR 11.8 billion, up 42% year-on-year, translating to an EBITDA margin of 19.6%. In closing, we are delighted with our Q3 performance, which has helped us elevate the YTD trajectory of the business and remain focused on technology, delivery innovation in food, and winning store by store, pizza by pizza.
We believe single-minded focus on having technology and fast delivery capabilities are continuing, are contributing to ahead-of-market performance. These are strategic moves for us. We will continue to invest ahead of the curve, and we see momentum build from Q2 to Q3 and Q4 as new acquired consumers begin to compound and come back to buy more, and frequency has also improved. With that, I request the moderator to commence the Q&A session.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on the 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 questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from Tejas Shah from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sameer. Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on a good set of numbers. Sameer, the first question is, our delivery is gaining traction, and then doing phenomenally well. But despite the multiple interventions that you would have done in the last few quarters on dine-in, that isn't responding as expected. So any insights on that, any challenges or competitive landscape which is different from dine-in, delivery here?
Yeah, no, I think, Tejas, firstly, I don't think it is. I will not say it is not responding. It is actually responding. Our in-store lunch average weekly orders are highest in the last two and a half years. So, as you would recall, we have launched a INR 99 four-course meal available only inside the stores, during lunch hours. And there are many stores where I get customers line up to get it, and after 3:00 P.M., there is a little bit of a pushback from customers why it is not available post 3:00 P.M. So, dine-in. So if you look at our on-premise sales, there are two components: customers who come in to eat, so get their pizza, sit down, and then leave, and there are customers who come in and do a takeaway.
The takeaway channel or the customer coming in for takeaway, that has actually moved to completely delivery, and understandably so, since delivery is free. As the basis gets corrected, we are very confident delivery will also, the dine-in will also improve. In fact, our, the store experience, the new stores that have come in with higher quality of material, focus on store experience, greetings, all that is paying off. We see it in our numbers. I think it's a matter of quarter or two, you'll also start seeing it.
Sure, very clear. And second, and last, the LFL and margin relation here. So, LFL recovery. Just wanted to understand, is there a technical angle also here from here on, as most of our split stores, which were not part of LFL Club for the last two, three years, must be returning, and those are usually good locations which got split. So, and hence we are seeing very sharp recovery in LFL, but coming to that, margin expansion is not happening because of—or there are any other reasons because we expected with this LFL much higher margins in this quarter?
Yeah, and I think it's a—see, the overall demand scenario is muted, right? Starting with that, we have taken four conscious calls to expand ahead of the market to get market share and acquire new customers. Now, these four interventions are following. Firstly, give more food, through cheese, cheeseburgers, and volcano pizza to customers. So, therefore, we are engaging on with Gen Zs, and we are acquiring new customers. Second intervention was to increase our marketing investments and fix advertising above-the-line investments. Third is the, we don't want to lose share on aggregator platforms, and therefore, we are matching the comparative, discount that is happening on that platform. And fourth is free delivery, right? And partly, we've recovered through packaging charges and internal tightening. So, all these four are very conscious choices, right?
It is investment for growth and investment for new customers that we are acquiring. At any time, I think we are very easy to kind of dial a bit down and let that flow. But I want to assure you, Domino's P&L is actually getting the leverage, maybe slightly lower than what we would like, but these are all investments for growth, and you'll see compounding happening and just flowing to the bottom line. We are very clear about how and when this flows to bottom line.
Yeah. And if I may squeeze in one last, Popeyes, four-store addition in a festive quarter looks underwhelming. So, any plan of scaling up there?
Yeah, so I think we've drawn up a list of top 100 locations, and it is a matter of finding those locations. So, let me assure you, the average daily sales for Popeyes is improving. Margins are improving. CapEx is actually materially low from where we started. I think it's just we don't want to, because look, getting the location is a one-way door, right? If you get a wrong location, then you have to, like, live with it for a long time. And therefore, we are very, we can open 100 stores as long as we get those 100 locations. And some of the locations like that we've opened, like Pacific Tagore Garden, right, in Delhi, right? These are testimony of that outstanding locations, and these stores are exceeding our expectations.
Perfect. Well, very, very comforting. Thanks and all the best for coming quarters.
Thank you. Thank you, Tejas.
Thank you. Next question is from Jignanshu Gor from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sameer. Congratulations on a strong quarter. I think I had one question on the gross margin. So, what has contributed to that, and do you expect improvement in gross margin as we go forward, either in the form of price increases, or in terms of premiumization of in-store customers? So, how would you think about that?
Yeah, I think internally, we have targeting the 100 basis points improvement of gross margin, right? In the next two to three quarters, right? That's what we are planning to do. There are named initiatives on correction of wastages, on correction of the other like packaging material, etc. So, there are multiple initiatives on that one. We're also seeing where we can tighten the discounts, right? And so definitely, it should improve, in my opinion. The reason is very simple on gross margin, actually. It is we didn't want to lose share. In fact, we have gained share, as you can see from the numbers.
Yeah.
It's a very conscious choice. Then part of it is also delivery because there is a base we are probably comparing quarter on quarter, but there is this period generally has more discounting, right? Because everybody is on air, they're giving deals. So part of it is festive period also, which should go away starting, obviously, January.
Okay. Fair. Okay. I think the second question was, in a way similar to the previous one on Popeyes, right, that we had a medium-term target for 250. So is it fair to say we are figuring out our product market fit there, or do you think it's a, what driver are you looking for to determine that this is now a growth story versus still trying to find where our positioning within the QSR space?
No, I think—to me, like, there is definitely no challenge on customer value proposition, product market fit. I think there is huge headroom driven by one large competitor in this space. So, I think it's purely about execution. So, India is a 70% chicken-eating market. We started in South, and therefore, that's the right place to start. That's where the densest of the market and highest ADS per store is there. We are present in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana. These are the right places to be in. If you come to NCR, we are looking to launch in Mumbai. So, it is about finding the right location. We fixed a lot of unit economics in the last three or four months. We expanded the team. I have already put in a team that will carry me from here to 1,000 stores.
Absolutely no bearishness on the outlook for Popeyes. We just have to find the right location. That's all. And if we find 20 right locations, we'll build 20 stores. And we are in several such discussions with all the right properties that we want.
Okay, fair. Are you looking at Popeyes also as a largely delivery-led model, or do you think dine-in is where that will be focused on?
See, the learning from rest of the world and Domino's is that on high street, when even I look at some of the great competitor brands who are more dine-in-focused, their dine-in or on-premise business is declining. And delivery tailwinds are universal and worldwide. So, what we've done, we have refitted our store size to about 1,200 sq ft on high street. As you know, we have our own app. Our own app, Saliens, is growing. And like Domino's, we deliver Popeyes.
Okay.
Delivery will grow, right? That's a universal truth. We have to be present in the right locations in malls where there are food stalls, and we have to be in the right locations with the right CapEx model, delivery-led stores in high street. Both, we know how to do it. The second one is a Domino's playbook, and we are seamlessly copying over there.
Okay. Fair. Let me circle back for more. Thank you so much, Sameer.
Thank you, Jignanshu.
All right. Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from Arnab Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, Sameer and team. And again, congratulations on a great set of numbers. Now that we've seen good evidence of your strategies working out in terms of consumer traction, would it be reasonable to expect these levels of LFL to sustain going ahead, or are there some base effects and other things which we should be cognizant of, in terms of how we expect this to move ahead? And also, a linked question to this is, as you rightly said, you've invested a lot to get this growth. Would you want to, like, dial back that investment a little bit, focus on margins, and therefore, that could be a reason why the LFL could be a tad lower than what you've delivered this quarter going ahead?
Yeah, no, I think a set of great questions. The, Arnab, and right, that's a constant balancing act we have to do as operators of the business, right? And when we realize the, the like-for-like growth for the entire industry is tanking, we had to look at some self-help measures, and we went all guns blazing, right? And now we're seeing that growth. We are now balancing in terms of margin should also flow in. We should get the leverage, and trust, trust me, the teams are focused on it. In terms of momentum, right, we've put a lot of fuel into, into the engine, so it is growing. We do see growth momentum continue from Q2 to Q3 and Q4, right? So, so from that perspective, I feel very good about the growth story. Margin story, we will correct. Like I said, I don't really worry on it.
What will happen in Q1, Q2, Q3, right? Some could be a base effect, but I don't think because delivery growth year on year is not a base effect, right? The way some of the stores, even after splitting, we see they are coming back, getting into nearly 50-odd new cities in the last three quarters is not a base effect. And in fact, I feel good about this. And absolute profit is increasing, right? So, it is not that absolute profit is coming down. So, our EBITDA, standalone EBITDA, grew by almost 11%, right, despite investments in new brands. So underlying business remains healthy. Margins can always come in, but I don't want to take the foot off the pedal on growth.
As the momentum picks up, I know this will flow through into the bottom line.
Thanks, Hari, for that detailed reply. My second question was more of a bookkeeping question. So, this gap, we have seen a gap in the sequential trend in the Pre-Ind years and the Post-Ind years EBITDA margin. Could you just help me understand what has driven the trajectory change, and is it going to continue going ahead, given how the accounting works, or this should, like, start converging? The trajectory, the direction should also start converging.
Hi, Arnab, Suman here. Let me take that question. No, so it is actually a very bookkeeping accounting point of view, right? We do understand in Pre-Ind AS 116 years, the rental costs are above the line. And rent costs are not increasing in line with the kind of growth we are seeing. So, if you look at the differential, it's predominantly all coming from the leverage impact that we are not seeing in the Post-Ind AS 116 years numbers on account of rent leverage coming through in the P&L. It's 100% that itself, right? So, if you ask me my view, if these kind of growth continue, which is growth ahead of rent growth, rental growth in the market, which at this point in time is lower than where our trajectory on growth is, these won't be, you know, we might see some of these headwinds going forward as well.
Difficult to predict, of course, because it is an equation between two growth numbers. But, this is a normative headwind. And hence, as a business, we focus more on the operational EBITDA, which is the Pre-Ind AS number. So, I think that's the right metric to choose.
Sure, that's very clear. Thanks, Suman, for my time. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Percy Panthaki from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. I just wanted to understand in the India business what is the YOY decline in the average bill value, and how much of this is due to the delivery charge waiver, and how much of it is due to downtrading or any other impact?
Yeah. So, I think it is, we don't disclose the average ticket size. It is fair to assume the entire decline is through delivery charges, partially offset by packaging charges. So the Domino's India revenue grew by 18%, and the order grew by 34%, right? That should give you some indication. It is largely delivery rate, but it is also leading to 55% new customer growth, right? I think you have to look at these three in tandem, and this one customer acquired, it is a three times in a year. So, that compounding, we are seeing in our like numbers because now this is the fourth quarter of pre-delivery. So, the customers that we acquired in Q1 of this quarter, now we are seeing that those coming three times in a year? The answer to that is yes.
Therefore, I'm very confident about this investment, and that, to me, will give us the real leverage.
Okay. So, the AOV decline is only because of the delivery charge waiver. There is no, downtrading. And there could be a third reason. There could be additional discounting in addition to delivery charge. So, is that also one of the reasons because 19 versus 34, that differential is quite huge?
Yeah. So, I think it is there, but not too much. So, it is largely delivery-led, and that is the only reason. We also had a cut, so what is downtrading, right? So, typically, we used to define downtrading if a customer eating a medium pizza goes to a regular pizza, and a regular pizza goes to a pizza mania, right? So, that's how we define downtrading. On the reverse, we're actually seeing increased salience of core pizza ranges, right? Our customers are moving away from pizza mania, right? And free delivery allows them to order more, and which we want customers to order more. If one pizza is over, they want to get another pizza, it breaks the shackle of ordering more. So, I think it is largely on account of free delivery.
Got it. And if I look at it sequentially, that is 2Q versus 3Q, in 2Q itself, this year, was the delivery charge completely waived off, or, it was only partial, and only in 3Q you have had the full impact of delivery charge waiver?
No, it was waived off during IPL last year, which was end of March, 2024. So, we are almost nearing the anniversary of it. So, Q2 to Q3, the delivery charges have been the same.
Okay. So, the sequential decline in gross margin of 100 basis points is mainly because of additional discounting and inflation and got nothing to do with any other factor?
That's correct. That's correct.
Okay. Understood.
It's basically that we invested in cheese, right? That's what we are saying, like, because we gave more cheese per product, and right? And that is the lever that we always have, right? So, we can always reduce the discount on those products.
Understood. Secondly, I wanted to just touch upon international in the sense that if I do a consolidated minus standalone net profit, it is about INR 9 crore for the quarter and about INR 29-30 crore for nine months put together. So, that's the 30 crore is about the net addition from the international business post the funding cost of the acquisition, etc., etc. So, how do we look at this number going ahead into FY 26? Should we, like, grow it largely in line with the international top line, or is it going to have some other drivers in addition to that?
No, there are no drivers. In fact, the nine-month numbers will give you an indicator of how strong the business is. We don't see any surprises over there. In fact, teams are working in this environment to have a better operating cycle and release cash from the system. We've said that by second half of calendar year, ideally, they should also give some dividend to us. So I think there is absolutely nothing over there. But I'll let Suman give you more specifics.
Hi, Percy. So, okay. So, just on the international business, you're right. I think in quarter three, we have seen a bit of an aberration there. Now, we need to understand. I think we do. Turkey goes through hyperinflation accounting, right? So, there are a lot of inflation adjustment accounting entries which happen. So, quarter on quarter, we will see some variance, right? And hence, Sameer alluded to the 9-month number, which is more representative on how the underlying performance of that business is. So, full year, like you asked, it will be more in line with the revenue growth which will come through where you—how you should estimate the profit growth to happen. The margins, of course, there could be slight improvement or flattish numbers. We don't—as you—we're not estimating any declining margins coming through.
But because of the nature of the business and the volatility in the accounting standards within Turkey, quarter on quarter, we might see some aberrations.
So, even nine-month basis is about INR 30 crore difference between standalone and consolidated net profit. So, this is a tad lower than what we would have expected a year ago at the time of the acquisition, right?
No, it is not actually lower than what we had expected at the time of the acquisition. Still, if you look at Turkey from a PAT margin perspective, it is highly accurate as to where India's standalone margins are, and that continues to be the case. Of course, we saw a bit of an aberration on Bangladesh business because of, you know, where the improvement was being seen in the overall profitability, which took a hit because of the disruption on the ground. But if I look at Sri Lanka, that has improved its margin status, and even Turkey is holding on or just getting slightly better on the PAT at a PAT level, right? So, full year, we should not see any, deviation on that. And as well, in fact, it's doing better than what we were expecting in terms of expectations. The economy is strengthening.
The business underlying metrics are improving, be it in terms of their inventory levels, which is ensuring that they don't have a higher cost coming out when, you know, the inflation accounting comes in next month in P&L. Their interest costs are coming down. Their debt overall is reducing. So, healthy shape of the business as the economy also recovers there. But yes, there will be variations quarter on quarter, which we can explain to you offline on how it works.
Sure, sure.
But no real reason for concern.
Yeah. I think that in summary, the Turkey business case is ahead of plan, right? So, I think the performance is ahead of the plan, what we had in this question.
Got it. Got it, sir. Thank you very much. That's it from me, and all the best.
Thank you, Percy.
Thank you. The next question is from Aditya Soman from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. So just one question from me. In your presentation in the sort of mature stores number, that's actually dropped for the last two quarters. So, is this a function of just higher store splits?
I think you are at least when you look at the mature stores, it is. I don't know which maybe you are referring to last, like, what it is 85,959 in Q3 2025, and last quarter was 79,467.
No, no, not the ADS, the number of mature stores. So, the number of mature stores compared with what you reported in 2Q and then 2Q compared with what you reported in 1Q, each quarter has been a sequential decline in the number of mature stores.
Yes. Yes. Yes, Aditya, it all, it always happens. In quarter one, we have the highest number of store count. It progressively comes down by quarter four. In quarter one, again, of FY 2026, you will see a higher store count.
Understood. So, then we just see that jump, and then that could, that would lead to ADS coming down again, or because last two years won't have been?
We saw the small store numbers. As we've reduced the number of store splits, the impact of reduction in the restaurant base from 1,610 to 1,591 is not material.
Yeah, we are not seeing, like, a ADS drop.
Understood. Thank you. So, there should be no change in that ADS number also, right? Next year, when we see a bigger jump in the mature stores, that ADS should also continue going because not only is that ADS down. Yeah.
Yeah. I think we ADS is rock solid. New stores are opening at a higher ADSs than ever before. So, I'm not worried on that metric. It's more accounting how what you include in a mature store or not. And we'll probably next time onwards, we'll give you a better footnote on the quarter on quarter mature store ADS drop also, so that the calculation is very clear.
Better. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's all.
Thank you. Next question is from Devanshu Bansal from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Hi, thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on a very good LS&P Cup. Sir, your aggression and market share gain is obviously not good news for smaller competition that, sort of popped up over the last few years. I just want to check your views on, continuation of this aggressive strategy of yours, and are we also sort of seeing initial signs of consolidation in the marketplace?
Yeah. No, I think we, I would say, like, I mean, what we control is our investments, our actions, and every company wants to grow market share, right? So, I think with that, I don't want to step away from driving growth because growth is the best help that you can give to the business and also in terms of margins and cash ultimately. So, in terms of competition, see, this is how it is when I just remove myself from my current position. The growth is definitely muted, right, for the industry and listed players and the large players. To me, they are actually doing better than some of the unlisted and smaller, medium chains. There is a big question mark on dark stores, right?
So I do expect, with this kind of an environment, business moving largely towards delivery and the competition of speed, whatever, 10-minute, 20-minute delivery increasing, some of these business models are under threat. But that might be more the take of somebody who works in this industry. And that consolidation opportunity, to me, is sooner rather than later.
Understood. Sir, very clear. Sir, second and last question, I sort of wanted to build on Farshid's question. The difference between order growth and revenue growth in Domino's has increased over the last three quarters, right? So, it was 7.5% in Q1, which increased to about 12% in Q2, and now it is 15% in Q3. So, what is leading to a continued drop in realizations for us? Because delivery waiver impact was there in all the three quarters.
Yeah. I think it is more delivery growing faster, right? That's the only thing which is happening over there. Channel mix is moving towards delivery. One thing that you must note, when we did free delivery, we moved to minimum order value of about INR 200 or INR 99. Earlier, there were higher delivery charges before INR 350. So, we changed that purposefully. Therefore, you see the growth in new customers on account of that. That's the only thing. Otherwise, there is no downtrading happening. It's not that we are selling more pizza menus or we are selling one single item. The items per order is not really declining. It is largely the customers have a lesser threshold in terms of ordering. So, barrier has been broken, and delivery is growing.
Just a follow-up here, because the barrier, or maybe the threshold is lower. So, from a margin perspective, does that sort of hamper our model, or, we will still be able to sustain our margin because delivery cost for the order will remain the same?
Yeah. No, I think this is how I see it. See, to me, I see this as an investment for growth, right? Now, once you are investing for growth, the question to ask is, how will you recover? No, we recover on two fronts. One is when the compounding happens, SSG continues, right? And second is the further tightening of costs, right? So, we, like I said, we have an aim program on improving margin by 100 basis points. We are looking at rentals very closely. We are looking at manpower, and we are getting the leverage in manpower. Where we are not getting the leverage, and there is a higher than expected headwind, it is the delivery cost because delivery as the channel is growing, which puts more pressure on riders.
Therefore, to keep the same service level of nearly 20 minutes, we are actually paying more to the riders during the festive season. That is the only headwind which is, you say, which also will get corrected, in my opinion, as we find newer ways of working.
Understood. Sir, just last one small question. So we have launched chicken products after sort of experimenting in the South. So I just wanted to check if you could qualitatively share what was the kind of ADS pickup for these products that we sort of saw in the South region, which gave us sort of confidence to sort of launch it in India?
Yeah. I think we, I'll tell you what was the thesis and give us, like, time till this quarter because we went on air only 10 days ago, with the first time, like, Domino's coming out, and ATL campaign focused on chicken feast. So, this is how we see our data in the world and also in India. North India has the highest weekly sales of stores. Yet, our share in pizza category on aggregator is lower versus South, where the throughput per store is lower than the North, but the share is higher. So, that explains that the customers are looking for other products along with pizzas, or they are not eating pizzas as much as they probably eat in North. And that is the insight we drew. They are looking for more non-vegetarian options.
They are looking for more bone-in chicken. Therefore, we launch wings. They are looking for rice along with chicken. Therefore, we launch cheesy chicken meals. They are looking for crunchy non-veg bites. Therefore, we launch poppers and boneless wings. So, I think we have we heard the consumer. We experimented. Actually, South is after the launch has become the fastest growing or one of the fastest growing regions among the seven regions that we have.
Understood, sir. Very clear. Thanks for taking my question.
Thank you. Next question is from Latika Chopra from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question was, you know, your new customer growth is very strong.
Latika, we can't really hear you very clearly. If you are on a hands-free, request you to use the handset.
Is it better? I'm on handset.
Slightly better, Latika. If you can just speak louder and maybe a little slowly, we'll try and catch you what you're saying.
Sure. Thanks, Sameer. So, I, my first question was around, you know, new city additions. You have added almost 60 cities over the last four quarters, and you have added this year in nine months almost, you know, 145 new Domino's stores. I'm just trying to understand how many more cities potential you see to expand into, and how does that feed into your store addition ambition, you know, on an annualized basis over the next three, four years, considering you're moving more towards pre-focused kind of, you know, unit?
Yeah. So, I think we firstly, we are seeing opportunity on both, right? And, and I quote this example a lot. When I joined a couple of years ago, we had about 30-odd stores, in Gurugram. We are now reaching nearly 50, and we believe we can add another 20 more, right? So, densification as cities expand, as new, shopping areas, new, congregation points like movie halls and, and other things come up, there is always more opportunity, including metro stations and, and, and highways, etc. So, firstly, we are seeing tremendous opportunity in, in the city where we are fully covering, like Gurugram. Secondly, there are cities like Ahmedabad where we don't cover the full city. There are enough white spaces, and these are not only restricted to Ahmedabad. It is in Lucknow and Kanpur also.
Then the third piece is new cities, which is whether it's a Giridih or a Sasaram or a Budaun or a Latur, right? So, so I think definitely we see more and more opportunity of those. We are present in nearly 500. We believe there are 500 other cities that we are, we can get to. And we are still present in, in the biggest, like, or the district center, right? And these are, these some of these districts are like more than seven, eight, 10 lakh population. We have not gone to the, the biggest Taluka, right, over there. So, for context, KFC in China is present in 10,000 cities. Sorry, 1,000, 1,000 cities, my bad. 1,000 cities. So, so there is definitely room, room, room to get to more.
Sameer, in any sense, you know, I don't know how you cut it, whether, you know, the salience of top 20 cities in your revenue mix, how has that behaved over the last five years for you? Has that materially changed? If you can share some color on that. And also, in terms of profitability metrics across cities, new cities are not margin diluted for you necessarily.
They're creative, actually. Slightly creative in percentage terms, lower in absolute profit because their costs are also lower. Dining takeaway is higher in these cities. Delivery salience is lower. So, but throughput is lower. So, we are. I think, Latika, the best question to ask is the payback period lower in these cities, right? So, the answer is no. So, we continue to maintain two, two and a half years of payback period. As long as that is coming, I think that's the mother metric that we chase.
Salience of larger cities, anything that you have to share on track?
No, I think we just, I think we are expanding. Again, like how we run our new business, like I said, for poppers, same thing the team from Domino's have done. They have a list of thousand stores that they want to open, whatever, in the next three, four, five-year time frame, right? So, as long as they get those locations, they will continue to open. So, these thousand locations, some of them are in places like dense, like Goregaon and Gurugram, and some of these are in Budaun and Latur and in Giridih of the world. So, wherever we find the right location, we'll open the store.
Sure. And the second thing that I wanted to check for the aggregator salience, you know, in delivery mix now, because you talked about more promotions on this channel, on these platforms as you wanted to grab more share. But at the same time, your own app metrics are also fairly healthy. So, could you give us some color on how this mix is trending? And what kind of differentiation is there in terms of profitability metrics between owned versus aggregator platforms? Thank you.
Yeah. Nothing. I will not answer that question because I'm here to serve customers.
The person you are speaking with has put you.
Yeah. Yeah, Latika, can you hear us?
Yes, I can hear you.
Sorry. So, no, we refrain from giving mixes. Having said that, our apps are growing very healthy. In fact, when I came in, I had put the entire engineering team just to focus on Domino's app. And as a result, we have the most immersive experience for pizza customers who are looking for pizza. So, you'll see videos of pizzas. You'll see easy user experience to upgrade, to add more products, add side items. It is built for pizza. And over the years, we've made it very topical. We celebrate from Valentine's Day to landing of Chandrayaan on Moon, right? So, we have become very topical and relevant to customers. And then the CRM, built-in CRM helps customer come back. So, that piece is working out better than our expectations.
Like I said, aggregators, we want to. We see them as ecosystem partners. We see them great, terrific channel partners. It's a very competitive landscape over there. We work hard to maintain our share or improve our shares on aggregator. So it doesn't matter as long as we are getting customers, right? That's how I see. Delivery is a worldwide tailwind. With our own rider fleet of 46,000 riders, a network that is ever-expanding, able to give and give hot pizza in 20 minutes, actually, that's not the most important thing that I worry about.
Understood. Thank you so much and all the best, Sameer.
Thank you, Latika.
Thank you. Next question is from Jay Doshi from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on, you know, great acceleration and growth. I've got two questions. The first one is, you know, in this quarter, we saw about 18% top-line growth and 14% Pre-Ind AS EBITDA. Now, how should we think about, you know, the gap between revenue growth and EBITDA growth on a Pre-Ind AS basis going forward over the next two, three quarters, you know, if you continue to, you know, stay at a similar, 15% plus system sales growth levels?
Yeah. I think we internally look at, like, this in the following manner. We tease out the Domino's portfolio and see is that growing and like we mentioned in our comments, is it in mid-teens and improving? So, that's how we see that particular business. On the other business, we see the overall drag to the P&L and is the unit economics improving? So, these are the trade-off factors. Allow us maybe one more quarter because let this stabilize, because we launched the delivery in March. Maybe by next quarter, we'll have a much more scientific answer on that there to be. Otherwise, I'll be more hazarding a guess at the base. And we also do a better calculation to answer your question.
Sure. Second question is, if I do some back of the envelope calculations, your dine-in order growth is about 30%, but dine-in revenues have declined by about 2%, which means that there is 25% decline in average order value for dine-in, where there is no delivery fee waiver impact or anything of that sort. And if I actually were to look at absolute number, it means your dine-in average order value may have dropped by INR 125 or somewhere in INR 100-INR 125 range. So, you know, this incremental dine-in order that you are sort of getting, is it, you know, even if I assume all of that is Thali or INR 49?
No, it's not like that. It's not like that. Thali is only, like, only 11:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M., and it's a part. It was a business with a very low base. So, so that number, while it is growing healthy, right, the, I think we see on the, inside the store, you have to look at dine-in and takeaway. Customers who come in, take the pizza, eat there, and leave, and customers who just come in to take the pizza to their home. So, that is a takeaway business. So, dine-in business is growing very healthily, and you will see improvements coming in, in the coming quarters on both dine-in plus takeaway as a business. And it is only the takeaway business that is kind of declining. So, there is a sub-channel mix that is there between in what we call as a dine-in takeaway business.
There is no massive decline. In fact, like you were saying, the decline in average ticket size inside the store is very marginal.
Okay. Maybe then I'll take it offline. Thank you so much, and good luck for the next quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. We'll take that as the last question. On behalf of Jubilant FoodWorks Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.