Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to Lenskart Q4 FY 2026 earnings conference call. To present the results, we have with us Mr. Peyush Bansal, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Abhishek Gupta, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Nikunj Mall, Head of Investor Relations. Please note that this call is being hosted on Zoom with the presentation on display. For participants who would like to view the presentation alongside the discussion, please join via the Zoom link shared in advance. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may use the chat option to interact with the moderator. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Nikunj Mall, Head of Investor Relations from Lenskart. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you, Yash. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining Lenskart's earnings call for the fourth quarter and full year of fiscal year 2026. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of the statements we make today may be forward-looking in nature and are subject to risks and uncertainties. The conference call may contain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on the beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on the date of this call. These statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. We have uploaded our Q4 shareholders' letter on our website and the stock exchanges.
Please note, during the call, consistent with our IPO prospectus, the financial numbers we are going to be presenting refer to the pro forma financial statements for like-to-like comparison, unless stated otherwise. Reported financial statements reflect acquisition of Dealskart, Meller, and GeoIQ from their respective transaction closing dates, while pro forma statements present these financials as if the acquired business had always been a part of the company and hence represent a clear trend analysis. For Q4 FY 2026, there is no difference between pro forma and reported financials. Difference exists only in the comparative period for the prior year and will diminish further over time.
Additionally, when comparing against Q4 FY 2025 and full year FY 2025, please note that the FY 2025 PAT is adjusted to exclude the one-time non-cash FVTPL gain of INR 1,672 million recorded in other income related to deferred consideration on OWNDAYS acquisition. We'll begin today's session with opening remarks from Peyush, Deep, and Abhishek. During this time, everyone will be on mute. Following the presentation, we'll open up for Q&A. With that, I would like to hand over to Peyush.
Hi. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us as we close our first year as a public company. We are grateful for your trust you have continued to place in us, both with your capital and your eyes. We are still learning, and our customers and shareholders have been incredibly supportive of us. Also, a note of thank you to our 20,000+ colleagues across 30 nationalities, without whom none of this would be possible. In Q2, we told you we were entering a compounding phase where every incremental rupee and dollar of revenue would add more to EBITDA. Q3 reinforced this thesis, and Q4 confirms it. Let me walk you through our Q4 FY 2026 numbers. Revenue grew 41% year-on-year to INR 2,516 crores, our strongest quarter as a public company.
EBITDA grew 61% year-over-year in quarter four, with EBITDA margins expanding 3 percentage points to 21.3%. EBITDA pre-Ind AS almost doubled year-over-year to INR 322 crores, with margins expanding from 9.1% to 12.8% in quarter four. We delivered INR 204 crores of PAT this quarter, rising consistently over the last four quarters. Looking at the full-year performance, we crossed three key milestones for the first time: INR 1,700 crores of EBITDA, INR 1,000 crores of pre-Ind AS EBITDA, and INR 500 crores of PAT. We conducted 6.8 million eye tests globally this quarter, 45% growth year-over-year, approximately. Half of those eye tests in India this quarter, too, were first-time eye exams. Units grew 25% year-over-year in both quarter four and the full year.
We added 183 net new stores globally in Q4, taking the total count to 3,327 stores. In Q4, India delivered same-store sales growth of 24% with same PIN code growth of 31%. Similarly, international growth of 35% was also largely same-store led. Finally, most important number, NPS in India, reached an all-time high of 81.4. Let me share three key takeaways from this quarter. First, the deeper we go, the wider the problem we are solving. For a long time, the assumption was that Lenskart's largest opportunity was tier 1. What we have realized this quarter and this year is that the opportunity is, in fact, even larger in tier 2 and beyond. Our value proposition is strong in metros, but in smaller towns, it is exponentially stronger.
Consumers there simply do not have a choice, do not have access to quality, speed, and do not have the customer experience that an organized, centralized platform is able to provide. The proof is in the catchments themselves. This year, we opened a Lenskart store inside an army cantonment in Srinagar, the first branded retail store of any category inside the premises, bringing full Lenskart access to a community that did not have it before. We saw the same pattern in towns like Saharsa in Bihar, Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh, Golaghat in Assam, and Jhargram in West Bengal, each delivering about INR 16 lakhs- INR 17 lakhs per month in monthly revenue in their first year. The deeper we go, the larger the underserved market we are finding, and our centralized eye test manufacturing and supply chain platform is uniquely placed to serve it. Second, international is not an experiment.
It is a business. The conventional assumption that international markets are mature and therefore slow-growing simply does not hold up to data. The problem in these markets is growing very rapidly. Consumers have a real need, and they do not yet have an organized solution at scale. What we have learned is that bringing the full Lenskart proposition into an international market is a gradual process. As we integrate each market deeper into our centralized supply chain, roll out our omni-channel model, extend our Gold subscription program, and build the full depth of our product and lens portfolio, the value proposition becomes genuinely compelling. Once that happens, consumers naturally shift through word of mouth, and the full power of the Lenskart ecosystem starts to get realized in that market. Japan is a great example.
It delivered record revenue growth and same-store growth this year in a market many would have assumed is mature and saturated. The same playbook is now traveling well across Southeast Asia and Middle East. Third, premiumization on customers' terms. At Lenskart, our mission is to make eyewear accessible to all. We are constantly launching products at the lower end of the price spectrum to enable mass adoption, and we are seeing the bottom of the pyramid open up meaningfully. An example of this is the new lens replacement program we launched last year. Alongside this, premiumization continues to play out, and the two are not in conflict. What we are seeing is that consumers are choosing to upgrade into the premium offerings we are bringing. OWNDAYS lenses, progressives, Meller sunglasses, OWNDAYS frames, and more.
The reason is that while these products sit at the relatively premium end of our portfolio, they still deliver roughly 10x value compared to the competitive brands at the same or higher price points. When we speak to these customers, they love the product. It also reinforces that the brand resonates across the full customer spectrum, from value seekers to the most affluent, which is precisely the positioning we have been building towards. It gives us the conviction to keep innovating along these lines, including B by Lenskart, our premium-priced smart eyewear product, which we are very excited to be rolling out. With that, let me hand it over to Abhishek to walk you through the operational and financial details for Q4.
Thank you, Peyush. Good evening, everyone. Let me start with the India business first. In Q4, India delivered a revenue of INR 1,475 crores, which was a 44% growth year-on-year. As we have stated earlier, in our business, growth and profitability are positively correlated. You'll see that the India EBITDA pre-Ind AS 116 margin reached 15.3% in Q4, which is a 6 percentage points margin expansion over the 9% that we had clocked in Q4 last year. If you see across the P&L, the expansion was broad-based. Employee costs moved by 2.7 percentage points. Marketing improved by 80 basis points, even though we invested more in the absolute terms. Other expenses improved 1.3 percentage points, rent, driven by the same-store growth, reduced by 70 basis points.
Product margin was held steady at 64% because the rupee depreciation absorbed all the benefits of vertical integration and premiumization. In terms of operational metrics, India's revenue growth was primarily volume driven, with eyewear units growing 24.3% year-on-year in Q4 to 7.9 million units. The volume growth was powered by a 50% increase in eye tests to 6 million in the quarter. Remote optometry stores expanded 3.7x in a single year to 623 stores. Lenskart Gold active members reaching 8.8 million, up 29.5% year-on-year. Same-store sales growth of 24% in Q4 was broad-based across metro, tier 1, and tier 2 markets, and same- pin- code sales growth of 31% confirms that store densification continues to unlock incremental demand.
We added 170 net new stores in Q4 versus 131 in Q4 last year, taking net additions for the year to 542, which is twice of what we did last year. As of 31st March, our total store count in India stands at 2,609. Moving to the international business. International revenue grew 35.4% year-on-year in Q4 to INR 1,054 crores. On a constant currency basis, this is 25% growth. Our international EBITDA pre-Ind AS 116 margin reached 9.2% in Q4, up from 8.1% in Q4 last year.
The key thing to note here is that full- year EBITDA margin reached 7%, which is a 3.4 percentage improvement from 3.6% that we delivered in FY 2025, led by both product margin improvement and operating leverage. In terms of operational metrics, business was again volume driven, with eyewear units growing in international in Q4, 29% year-on-year. Growth was broad-based across Japan, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, and Japan delivering the strongest performance. We added 13 net new stores in Q4. The total international stores at year-end exited at 718, with 61 additions in the full year. In Middle East, which is about 6% of our international store count, had a temporary dip in the store traffic, but the business has otherwise proved resilient and recovered back to near normal.
We generated operating cash flows of INR 87 crores in FY 2026, which is about 91% of our reported EBITDA. This fully funded our store CapEx of 603 net new stores while also investing in manufacturing, including the new Hyderabad facility. Closing net cash balance, excluding the IPO-related payables, which were settled in April, stands at INR 3,881 crores. In terms of return on capital employed, we clocked 23% excluding the undeployed IPO proceeds. This is an expansion of 9 percentage points versus what we did in the prior year. With that, let me hand back to Peyush to talk about the longer-term performance and the outlook for FY 2027.
Thank you, Abhishek. Let me pause there and step back to reflect on the last three years on where we started and where we have come. Over the last three years, our revenue has grown at a CAGR of 28%, taking FY 2026 revenue to INR 9,000+ crores. The beauty of the upfront investments we made early is this: a 25% revenue growth is translating into nearly doubling EBITDA every year, reaching INR 1,000+ crores of pre-Ind AS EBITDA in FY 2026, and PAT has scaled from negligible to INR 530 crores. The compounding is visible in both segments, India and international. In India, revenue grew from INR 3,109 crores in FY 2024 to INR 5,265 crores in FY 2026, a 3-year CAGR of 30%.
EBITDA pre-Ind AS has grown from INR 203 crores in FY 2024 to INR 753 crores in FY 2026, a 92% three-year CAGR, with margins expanding from 6.5% to 14.3%. We are at 14% today, with roughly another 10 percentage points of runway to our steady-state margin expectation of approximately 25%. India eyewear units reached INR 29 million in FY 2026, up from INR 18 million two years ago, with the next key milestone we are working towards is INR 100 million. This is the part we want to accelerate the most. Internationally, revenue grew from INR 2,465 crores in FY 2024 to INR 3,790 crores in FY 2026, a three-year CAGR of 24%.
EBITDA pre-Ind AS has grown nearly 8x in three years, from INR 34 crores in FY 2024 to INR 264 crores in FY 2026, with margins expanding from 1.4% to now 7%. International is now a real business, just earlier in its journey than India, but far ahead. To put that in context, at 718 stores, we are at 7% margin internationally, while India was at 0.3% with nearly twice the store count at the same stage in FY 2023. As I look at these numbers, what stands out is how much of that, what we are seeing today, is the result of investments we made many quarters ago, sometimes many years ago. For example, take our NPS of 81 this year.
The foundation was laid when we set up our Bhiwadi factory, and that automation in manufacturing, logistics, and sortation is what enables next-day delivery across 78 cities today. Similarly, take our product margin holding at 64% in India through a year of significant rupee depreciation. A resilience built on starting frame manufacturing seven years ago and then localizing it to India two years ago. Take our store expansion of 542 stores this year, which was only made possible because of investment in GeoIQ, which we started building seven years ago.
Lastly, take remote optometry, which is enabling tier 2 expansion, the outcome of a 36-month journey that began when we identified optometry shortage as a core constraint of our to our mission. The pattern of long-term thinking is consistent at Lenskart. FY 2026 has been a defining year. This is not the peak.
We are only serving 50 million people in a world where billions need better vision. The myopia problem is big and getting bigger, and as we go deeper, the opportunity widens. Smart glasses have opened an entirely new dimension over and above, and AI has given us wings we didn't know were possible. The best is yet to come. Looking ahead at FY 2027, let me share with you our key priorities. First, an AI-first operating model. Our single biggest priority of FY 2027 is growth, and the engine for that growth is the transformation of Lenskart from a consumer tech company into a consumer AI company.
Building a consumer tech company was never about installing software or hiring engineers. It was about embedding technology- forward thinking into every problem. Now, we now need to do the same with AI at every level and function.
This is not an easy task, but it is going to be one of our biggest moves. Years ago, the hardest problem we solved was convincing the best of engineers to come and join an eyewear company. We now have to do the same for AI talent, and we are on it. Second, scaling to 100 million customers. Our ambition is not 30 million eye tests. It is 100 million at the least, and eventually a billion. Given the global shortage of optometrists, technology is the only way to get there. We will step up our investments in R&D in this year for automating eye testing and also accelerating new customer acquisition through innovation in products, formats, access points, pricing, and offers. Third, an integrated system. Our learning has been the bigger the surface, the bigger the impact of AI.
Being vertically integrated lets us wire intelligence into the connections between every layer of our value chain. Eye test data informs product design, social trends reach manufacturing in days, and factory floors now move towards near full automation from the current 75%. Our ambition is to own even a greater share of the value chain now, from equipment to raw material to manufacturing, distribution, and the final mile to the customer. Then use AI to close the feedback loop across every layer of it. Fourth, evolving stores into multi-role community hubs. We believe our 3,300+ store network should be more than just a showroom. Each store is a neighboring hub, part warehouse, part clinic, part service center, part last- mile node.
Within a few kilometers of the customer, much like a local chemist serves its community, the role of our stores will only deepen from here, helping us penetrate further into every micro market. As quick commerce reshapes customer expectations, this density also becomes a natural logistic advantage for Lenskart. Fifth, building a global consumer brand. We have started work on building eyewear brands of the future, ambitiously borderless, serving distinct cohorts and occasions.
This year we will be stepping up our cultural collaborations like Stranger Things, The Devil Wears Prada 2, and POP MART, combined with disciplined M&A, as demonstrated by Meller, which is a stepping stone for the next generation of brands we want to build. Sixth, reinventing customer experience end-to-end. Customer experience is our North Star. Every time we have felt it was lacking, we have stopped, fixed, and moved forward.
In an AI-led world, we need to reinvent every step, from app-led discovery to AI-powered planogramming to myopia management of kids. We are working on initiating thousands of experiments, challenging ourselves to deliver new and surprising moments of customer delight. Another key area here is consistency and reliability. We want to invest in getting the last 2%-3% of every experience to be predictable. The relentless focus on customer experience has been the single biggest driver of the numbers we see today. Lastly, make eyewear do more for you. Eyewear sits a few millimeters away from your eyes, 12+ hours a day. No other consumer device has that kind of proximity. In Q4, we launched B by Lenskart, with over 30,000 customers joining the waitlist already and increasing every day.
Smart glasses are a multi-year journey, and with our stores, optometry network, and prescription capability, we have a structural advantage. Hence, we want to increase our investment in R&D to develop various forms of eyewear with multiple product launches coming this year. This wraps up our top seven priorities for FY 2027. On the operating outlook, net new store additions for FY 2027 are expected to be around FY 2026 levels. Our long-term steady-state EBITDA, pre-Ind AS, margin expectation remains unchanged to approximately 25%. Quarterly margin will vary based on store opening phasing, market seasonality, and the long-term bets we choose to make ahead of the curve. The external environment will continue to throw up uncertainty. Geopolitics, currency, and demand cycles could create short-term bumps. We will stay the course, and where these moments create opportunities, we will lean in further.
We urge investors to track trailing 12-month volume growth as the cleanest measure of underlying market expansion. It strips out ASP mix, currency translation, and campaign timing effects, and most directly reflects the customers we are bringing into the category. The compounding effect of revenue and margin will continue, but we'll always prioritize actions for long-term value creation over short-term linearity. With that, we will open for questions, and while the queue builds, we will give you a sneak peek to the B smart glasses.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question- and- answer session. To ask a question, participants connected through audio may please press star one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants connected on Zoom may use the raise hand option. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question and to restrict to one question at a time, please. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We'll take our first question from the line of Vivek Maheshwari from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, Peyush and team. With your permission, I'll ask two questions. First is, you know, a rather basic question, given that, you know, we don't have much history, or we are still understanding your company. From a geopolitical standpoint, what should we, you know, monitor? Are there any things that worry you both, whether it's the raw material side or the fact that, you know, you get some of the products manufactured from China, or even from a revenue perspective across different markets? Are there any areas that you worry about or anything that we should monitor?
Thanks. Thanks, Vivek. Great question. So far, I'll cover the supply chain side first . So far, we have not seen a meaningful impact due to freight and raw materials, largely because I think it is a fraction of our total cost. Currency, of course, is the biggest variable. Rupee depreciation on imports is a headwind. Since 42% of our business is international, and we continue to move at vertical integration, this has been offset so far. I think Hyderabad and Thailand JV are structural answers which will reduce import dependence over time. I think there is also a large growth in volume, which is bringing a decent amount of economies of scale, which is helping us right now to manage the currency so far. This is the situation so far.
As far as demand is concerned, so far, no material impact on Indian demand, I would say, or international. Domestic consumption-driven eye health is non-discretionary, I would say, and we saw that. I mean, it's difficult to predict these things, but I'll give you an example of Middle East, where we saw disturbance, but we saw the eyewear category was quite resilient. We didn't see such a significant dip in the business. It was a smaller dip and only for a limited time, and it bounced back pretty quickly. I think so, there is. While the category is becoming very fashion- first, I think there is a discretionary element we have seen. I think the key driver here is growing eye tests. I think that is our top of the funnel.
We have been growing our eye tests about 50%. We can definitely, that is where we want to continue. I think we have a good opportunity because, as you know, our eye tests are growing at about 50%. Volume growth is at about 25%. There's a big opportunity here for us to improve that conversion post-eye test, and that is where our focus will be. I also feel that, you know, if there is consumption pressure as people move towards cheaper alternatives, Lenskart being more value- conscious, having more value- conscious offerings, it should be a strong alternative when times are weak. Yeah, I think we'll wait and watch and see what happens. So far, I would say it's all okay.
Okay, good to know that, Peyush. The second question is, you know, when I look at your India business, and two parts to this question. The first is that your ASP in the base quarter was quite low, and you have given the reasons why. You know, the gross margins in each of the quarters in the last 12, sorry, eight quarters that I have numbers for, it has been broadly at about 64%. My question is not about this quarter, why, you know, this number is 64%, but how is it that you maintain that in the base quarter, despite, you know, the promotions and, you know, the lens bit that you have explained?
The other part is, you know, the SS growth, let's say, broadly about 25% and 15% prices, price or ASP increase, does that mean that, you know, SS on a volume basis is about 10%? Can you just elaborate on both these points?
Firstly, I think, see our margin, if you look at a three-year picture, there is an increase in the Indian margin. It used to be around 61% or 61%, and it grew to 64%. Usually, what we have seen with margin is these, if it is a structural margin increase because we don't take any price increase, any meaningful price increase. These come with either stronger vertical integration or a change in process that we are bringing about, or something like that. I think, in the last two years, we have done some of those changes; this year, particularly a lot, and which is why you see margin being flat. Otherwise, you know, with the RMB going from 11% to 14% and, you know, the dollar rupee depreciation.
I would say a lot of that structural improvement in margin has been offset because of the currency. As we move production more to India, with Hyderabad plant coming up, and we are accelerating some of that, we will see that margin visibility will come quickly into the ecosystem. Coming to your point on why the margin was decent when we were running a lower cost campaign. Even in the lower- cost campaign, the way the campaigns are designed in a way that a lot of people end up upgrading, while the OPP offering is at a lower cost, and that kind of offsets and ensures that margin. This is a rule book that we follow in most of our mass customer acquisition campaigns.
I think there was a question on SSG. Yeah. Sorry, there was a question on SSG, right?
Yeah, on SSG. Yeah, sure. What I'm saying, Peyush, is SSG , if you look at it, about 25% year on year, and the price hikes are just over 15%. That means the volumes on an SSS basis is about 10%. Is that a fair way of looking at things?
No, I think firstly, two things here, right. I think that would not end up at the right number. We are not disclosing SSG by value and volume, particularly because these fluctuations will happen. The way that number you have calculated is not correct. The number is higher than that. Meaningfully higher than that. I'll give you what is happening here, right? I think it is important for you to model how to think about our business. See, we are operating at two ends of the spectrum. One is opening up mass consumer demand. I think we have stated it clearly, even in our FY 2027 priorities, we'll continue to open that. Every time we open mass consumer demand, we usually open up OPPs, we bring out product offerings.
Last year, when we brought about a new lens replacement campaign, we saw that. This year we are bringing about Hustlr as a campaign for that. At the same time, what we are seeing is whenever that happens, you see a temporary ASP dip. What we are also seeing is that we are A lot of people are upgrading with Lenskart, with offerings like OWNDAYS, Meller, and progressives, we are seeing a different when we operate at these, both these spectrum, you see quarterly fluctuations in ASP volume. Which is why I would say the best way to look at the business is probably looking at a full 12-month number, because this will continue going forward also.
There are quarters when, you know, we open both the bottom end of the spectrum and the top end of the spectrum together, then the number looks even more attractive. It's, it's difficult to look at it, but yeah, I would say the number or volume is higher.
Got it, Peyush. Thank you. Wish you and your team all the very best.
Thank you.
We'll take our next question from the line of Tejas Shah from Avendus Spark Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Peyush and team. Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on good numbers. Peyush, this quarter, a meaningful part of operating leverage surfaced in improved employee productivity. You called out that there are some structural interventions that were made there. Directionally, how should we think about the trajectory of this efficiency, and especially for international business, where the arbitrage is huge versus the Indian operation on this cost line item?
Yeah, let me take this one. Thank you for the question. I think the main driver of the operating leverage that is coming in the employee cost is actually the same-store growth and the volume expansion. Whenever the stores grow, right, we are adding stores, even though we are adding new stores which are less productive in the beginning, but the increase in the SSG helps to spread the fixed cost base over a larger thing. At the same time, our HQ cost and our tech cost has been largely flattish, because we are not increasing headcount as more and more, you know, tasks are getting automated. As we go further, the increase in the scale of the business, and the compounding of the SSG is expected to bring on further operating leverage.
As we use more and more AI into this, you know, we'll see more output from the same number of people. Similar to how, you know, we look at remote optometry, for example. You know, you can do more output with the same optician in a remote setup because you can channelize demand across multiple stores. Technology is helping us do more with the same resources.
Very clear. Tier 2 has been a very bright spot in this quarter's letter, also. Looking at how the demand has surprised us versus our initial expectation, does the superior throughput in smaller markets suggest that our long-term runway of 4,500 stores that we have set for ourselves, does that number expand materially? Does it also mean it gives us confidence to kind of expedite our store expansion versus what the initial target has been?
See, I think in tier 2, like I have said that, we are seeing that the opportunity is larger because the value creation for the customer is multifold. As we go deeper, I think what is happening, the way our model works, is that the more stores we open, the more we learn in any segment. The GeoIQ model learns with every new store that opens because then more variables flow into it. The fact that we have added, you know, 200+ tier 2 stores, this data will now is flowing into GeoIQ by the day. That will evolve more markets, more micro markets where we'll open. It's like an ongoing cycle. I think, yes, more markets are evolving.
We are definitely seeing more stores than the initial 4,500. I think we always saw more than that, but I think that was at least a clear articulation of the numbers that we saw. I also want to say that, you know, we are not seeing a slowdown in metros, you know, because metros, all the growth that you're seeing in the same- store is largely coming from stores in metros or tier 1 markets. I think metros. The eye test number, which is growing at, oh, 45%+ , and the SSG is largely driven by metros. I think metros are also expanding. We, in fact, are right now working on solutions to reduce eye test wait time in metros more aggressively. Yeah, I think the market is much bigger.
In quarter two letter, we had shared that the actual number of pin codes which are without any organized player rights now is even large, more significant. This is evolving with every new store we open.
Yeah.
You know, one way to look at it is that we have 60,000-70,000 eyewear stores in India. We have about 20x more jewelry stores. Even if I look at the optical density for eyewear stores globally, this number should at least bare minimum we would have another 70,000-80,000 eyewear stores. In that incremental 70,000-80,000 eyewear stores, I think we have a long way to open enough Lenskart stores, I would say.
Interesting perspective. Last one, if I may. Abhi, the whole smart glasses space is becoming very, very competitive. Last night, last evening, Google also announced its ambition to come back in this space. They are using Gemini Live, which we are also using. Not only specific to this, but how should we think about preserving Lenskart's long-term positioning and ambition when this space is now getting very, very heated up, as we see?
Firstly, I would say we are very early in this journey. I don't think anybody has a form factor which is a clear home run right now. I think what everybody's excited about that this is a form factor which sits on the face for a pretty long time, that is the part that I would say. I think eventually, smart glasses are going to be prescription glasses in our view. Then from that perspective, we play a pretty big important role in the prescription and the distribution of smart glasses. Then, you know, with Lenskart, because of the entire vertical integration, we do have a lot of people downloading our app, interacting with us. There's a data layer that is already operating in the ecosystem.
Google launching a smart glass is like, you know, like an Android Pixel, you know, in some sense, because I think they also want to experiment with the schematics and see what they're able to build in the Android XR. I think I would say it is a very, very long journey. I do think this is going to take a lot of learning. Nobody has a form factor. Our view on this is that this is not about this year or next year. We need to stay very agile, build capability, which, like we have been building, makes sure that whatever we are launching, we are getting input from that, rather than just, you know, focusing on the sales right now, because we want to capture the conversational styles.
We want to understand how people are using what use cases. That is what is going to give us leverage in opening up the market. The price points at which people will be comfortable, that is also a learning for us. I see a large role for Lenskart to play. Eventually, these glasses are going to be sold through an optical network, is my belief. We have a large role to play, irrespective.
Thanks and best wishes for coming on.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Siddhesh Deshmukh from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. This is Percy Panthaki here. Just wanted to understand the international business margin journey. In your shareholders' letter, you sometimes compare it to the journey of India. India today is sitting at about a 15% pre-Ind AS margin. For international to get there, how would you compare it when you compare it to India? Would it get there at the same INR million sale? Would it get there at the same number of stores? Is there some other metric that we should be using to sort of understand the journey of margins here?
Hi, Percy. Thank you. I guess we could make it that predictable. I think the way to look at it is that we are operating in multiple markets in the international. There is Southeast Asia, there's the Middle East, there's Japan, as three key markets. What we have said is that there is a big delta between the ACP of India, which is the average cost price of India, and what we are delivering in international markets. If you see, we are beginning to see ACP reduction in international markets every year, significantly, and that is happening as we keep integrating every market.
That is why that is also a big driver for growth for us, by the way, because as we reduce that ACP, that allows us to invest more in the market. That changes the payback profile of our stores that, you know, allows us to it . It's a vicious vicious loop. I would it's difficult for me to comment on how you should model it and what quarter it will land to 15%. Based on what I can see, is that the number to look out for is the margin expansion. Despite all the macroeconomic trends, margin in international has still grown by another percent this year, and I think this will continue to grow in the future. It's difficult to time it on a quarter. We are making the integrations happen as fast as possible.
Also, there is international, there are markets which are very early, the operating leverage only kicks in beyond a certain scale, which we have started, which we saw in Singapore, then we saw in Dubai, which we started now begin to see in Japan. I think I would take a longer- term view on this, and look at the current trends and wait and watch.
Just a sub-question within this. KSA, I believe, was a relatively new venture and therefore, not breakeven. Any news to share there in terms of EBITDA breakeven? Has it happened, or are you expecting it to happen in FY 2027?
We continue to be bullish. The only thing I would be able to share, keeping competitive reasons, it is ahead of where Dubai was for us, or the UAE was for us. We are about two year in the journey of KSA. We still say bullish. We are continuing to open stores. When I look at where the UAE was two years into the journey, KSA is far ahead.
Got it. The second question is on the India sort of store clustering and how you are going to approach that. There are certain pin codes in which you already have a store. There are certain pin codes in which you don't have a store. First of all, two sub-questions to this. One is in the near term, that is, over the next one to two years, is your plan more? Of course, it'll be a bit of both, but I'm asking which side you are leaning on. Is it more to saturate the pin codes that you are in rather than opening up new pin codes, or is it the other way around?
When you open up a store in the same pin code, what is the effect on the SSG of the incumbent store within that pin code? Let's say you have one store in a pin code, you open up a second one. Of course, the overall pin code sales goes up. There's no doubt about that. How do you see the incumbent store, which has been there, what kind of effect do you see on the SSG of that? The reason I ask this is that we've seen sometimes in retail formats that beyond a point, suddenly we see some amount of cannibalization effect coming in, which is not visible till a particular point of time.
Then there is a tipping point at which it comes through. The question is, from that lens, so to say.
Yeah, I think great question. I think we, firstly, when we are opening stores, we are not necessarily looking at the pin code map. I think that's a good way to look at it top-down. The way we work is we look at bottom-up, and for us, this is a data science problem versus going after a particular market. The way we look at it, and the models in the last one year have become even more sophisticated than they were before. We had shared data in the last letter where we had shown that while adding stores in the same pin code, you know, we have seen stores grow. In fact, a lot of our stores are in the same pin code in the tier 1 city. We had shared that data.
The way this works is that what we do is we look at mobility patterns. I mean, a good example is a place like Whitefield in Bangalore, where we already have three stores, and we are now looking to add a few more stores there. We are pretty, with a huge amount of confidence, able to see where people come from and where do they go to. On the basis of that, we see clusters forming around a micro market, around a shopping market where people travel to. What our learning has been that this is a lot of it is related to the travel time. What we optimize for, because that was your question, what do we optimize for?
We are optimizing for a market share within a 10- minute traveling distance radius. That is what we are optimizing for. If you see this year's results, so far, I mean, all of this, a large part of this SSG has come from stores which have multiple pin codes, across multiple stores in a pin code. It is a matter of are we are opening. I think it's a fair question to say, we have seen this in other brands, but the approach that Lenskart uses is very, very different. We are, in fact, looking at if a store at a particular location, which towers and buildings are people coming to from in that location. If we see a gap now in that. Pin code is pretty large for us.
Like a pin code is three layers above. We look at every city in multiples of hexagons, which are very, very small, and then we divide the market. I would say that the problem should not come. We, you know, we tripled the store count in a lot of the cities while the revenue doubled for us. We had shared this data in quarter two specifically to give confidence. I think science will further evolve. I have honestly been very amazed with what data analytics is able to do today. The cannibalization modeling is very, very sophisticated. That is what we are optimizing for. I don't see I think that challenge comes when you're looking at math at a pin code level.
If you look at bottom-up and look at where people are coming from, where they are shopping to, this problem won't arise.
Got it, sir. Thank you so much. All the best. That's all from me.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Devanshu Bansal from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, Peyush. Congratulations on good numbers. Thanks for the opportunity. Peyush, the letter mentions that we are shifting from a tech-led company to now an AI-led company. One of the outcomes of this exercise should definitely be faster delivery. Checking if you could share some targets around the same-day delivery, maybe in the near term, will be helpful.
Thanks. Thanks, Devanshu, for asking a good. Firstly, we have expanded our next-day delivery network further to 78 cities now. This journey was started with seven cities, moved to about 30 cities, now we are in 78 cities, still delivering out of a centralized facility in Bhiwadi. I think that we are seeing in our net promoter scores and consumers are loving it. As you know, we give a promise of returning a portion of the money in case we don't meet the promise. For same-day delivery, I think we are still running a lot of experiments. We ran it in Singapore. We are piloting it in some markets in India, it is too early for me to comment. We haven't taken a specific target.
I think what we want to see is what the tipping point is at which one could unlock more demand, and what is the problem that we are solving through this, and what is the choice level that needs to be given. Yes, we are looking at, and that is the point that I spoke about, that our stores are looking more as a multimodal network now. It I'll keep you guys posted as we get some meaningful, you know, data on these experiments.
Just a small follow-up here. In one of the statements, it also mentions these stores as warehouses. Maybe I may be reading too much, but are you sort of hinting at an inventory model which might help you in same-day deliveries, or am I reading it too much here?
Yeah, I think maybe a little bit. It is to say that, you know, there are, of course, OTC products that we sell, like sunglasses, et cetera. You know, we are doing some experiments which allow people to try frames at home. In the past, we have those services. We are now using stores as a model network in certain experiments to use and serve that micro market. I think the way we are looking at it is a chemist, and I've tried to explain this in the letter, but not necessarily a warehouse the way you are thinking about it.
Got it. Got it. Last one. Can you talk about traction for Meller so far? Maybe the current distribution reaches for the brand, both in India as well as internationally. We have also indicated the addition of more brands across price points in the sunglasses segment. What is the scale that we are targeting for this particular category?
Agreed. I think Meller, to be honest, is delivering beyond what we had planned for. The brand is scaling very well in its own markets where it existed because it's an online- first model. We have now launched the brand in India across 1,000+ stores. We launched the brand in the Middle East. We have launched the brand in Southeast Asia across all Lenskart stores. We are now about to launch the brand in Japan, also. So far, we are running super out of stock in all markets, including Southeast Asia, which was something we were not anticipating to do well. I think one of the Korean pop stars wore it organically, and that became viral.
You know, we see a lot of promise in the brand. We see a lot of promise in the brand. We are seeing a lot of growth come from Europe as well, where people are latching onto the brand. We are getting calls from the top malls in our markets that they want to open a Meller store. Our plan here is can we create the next Gentle Monster out of it for a very different cohort of customers. It appeals to Gen Zs. It is appealing to a very different cohort. Two examples there. We launched two products, very unconventional, in the last quarter. There's a product called Meller Lab you should check out.
There is another series that we have launched, which at the outset I would have personally felt that I may not wear it, but actually people are wearing it. I think this whole concept of leading demand through product design and innovation, Meller is doing extremely well. Right now, the challenge that we have and which we are solving for is how do we deliver, how do we solve for a sudden increase in volume demand for the product?
Got it, Peyush. Thanks for taking the questions.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Nikunj M all for closing comments. Over to you.
Thank you. Thank you, everyone, and thanks for joining today. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to me or drop us a note at investor.relations@lenskart.in, and we look forward to seeing you next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
On behalf of Lenskart, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.