Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Vedant Fashions Q2 FY24 earnings conference call, hosted by IIFL Securities 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 conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sameer Gupta from IIFL Securities Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi. Thank you, Yusuf. Welcome, everyone. Good afternoon, and without further ado, let me pass the line to the management. We have, from Manyavar, Mr. Vedant Modi, Chief Revenue Officer, and Mr. Rahul Murarka, Chief Financial Officer. Over to you, Vedant.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, and a warm welcome to all the participants. I'm Vedant Modi, the Chief Revenue Officer of the company. Thank you for joining us today to discuss the Vedant Fashions Limited quarter 2 and first half financial year 2024 results. I'm joined by Mr. Rahul Murarka, the Chief Financial Officer of our company. I hope everyone got an opportunity to go through our financial results and investor presentation, which have been uploaded on the stock exchange as well as the company's website. Let me take you through our quarter ended and first half yearly performance for financial year 2024.
In this quarter, we continued with our network expansion strategy and have successfully rolled out approximately 35,000 sq ft of net retail area in the second quarter of financial year 2024, aggregating to 1.2 lakh sq ft net rollout in the first half of financial year 2024. As of September 2023, Vedant Fashions’ EBO area stands at 1.59 million sq ft, spanning across 669 stores in 260 cities and towns globally. The national EBO footprint tally is at 653 stores, spread across 248 cities and towns. In line with our strategic market expansion plan, we have successfully opened 4 exclusive Mohey Stores in the first half of financial year 2024. We have a strong and healthy pipeline for new rollouts planned for the remaining part of the financial year.
Vedant Fashions is predominantly a wedding-centric business with a special focus on Indian wedding and celebration wear apparels. It is pertinent to note that our business is highly concentrated on the Indian wedding calendar. As discussed earlier also, in any given period, wedding dates can shift over months or quarters based on astronomy. This quarter also, particularly July month, was an extension to quarter one, and as expected, we witnessed significantly lower weddings in H1 largely as compared to last year, which also impacted our performance. However, with the onset of Navratri, we have noticed good traction and positive trends on comparable days basis last year. Moreover, since last year, first half of financial year 2023 was a clean period after COVID without any restrictions, it had a spike effect coupled with good wedding calendar in the first six months.
Hence, financial year 2024, both Q2 and first half numbers are not identically comparable with last year. We expect this to normalize in the second half period, driven by higher wedding dates and festive seasons ahead. Further on, further on comparing our performance with normalized pre-COVID of financial year 2020, our overall customer sales grew by 58.9% in quarter two financial year 2024, versus quarter two financial year 2020. We have strategically planned to use this sluggish period of quarter two financial year 2024 to upgrade and renovate our existing retail stores to the tune of 100,000 sq ft being fully renovated this quarter. This upgradation helps us to match with the new retail brand identity, providing our guests a unique brand experience.
We witnessed SSSG growth of 21.3% in quarter two financial year 2024 over quarter two financial year 2020, excluding the stores under renovation. In this quarter, we focused on further enhancing our brand dynamics and business dynamics with store upkeep and renovations, and by adopting a 360-degree marketing approach through initiatives ranging from category-based marketing for Manyavar Kids, brand campaigns for new brands such as Mohey, collaboration with multiple influencers, digital marketing to increase our campaign effectiveness for our women's wear brand, Mohey. We also effectively ran Rakhi and Independence Day campaign to foster further growth to the celebration wear category and received a very positive response, thereby further reinforcing Manyavar as a celebration wear brand. We have recently partnered with global star, Mr. Ram Charan, as our brand ambassador, having a massive appeal in South India.
Overall, we have left no stone unturned in the form of best network expansion via store rollout in first half, and have done 360-degree marketing campaigns, and have even gone regional with onboarding of South-based celebrities for the first time. Also, in terms of merchandising, we are fully geared up with the best inventory on the floor, backed by strong moats of our world-class auto-replenishment system and robust backend dynamics to further foster our growth in second half, filled with wedding season and festivities ahead. With this, I will now hand it over to Mr. Rahul Murarka to take you through the financial performance of our company. Thank you.
Thank you, Vedant. Namaskar, and good afternoon, everyone. I would like to highlight the key financial performance metrics for the quarter and half year ended thirtieth September 2023, based upon the consolidated financial statements. Starting from H1 FY24 update, the reported revenue from operation is around INR 530 crore, and the sale of our customer is around INR 691 crores.
The revenue during the period, including Q2, got impacted mainly due to significant lower wedding dates compared to last year. H1 FY 2023 was a full, first full clean period after COVID, coupled with full saaya wedding season. Hence, the base period of H1 FY 2023 was not a normal period to compare performance. On comparing our H1 FY 2024 performance with H1 of FY 2020, which was a normal period, company's revenue from operations grew by approx 58%. The company continues to report industry-leading gross margins of around 66.6%, where EBITDA margins are around 46% and EBITDA stood at around INR 244 crore. The company reported healthy PAT margin of 26.5% during H1 of FY 2024, and the profit after tax stood at around INR 141 crore.
Moreover, the PAT generated during the trailing twelve-month period of September 2023 is about 108% of net working capital employed. Further, the company also witnessed significant growth in PAT by approx 99% in H1 FY 2024 over H1 of FY 2020, based upon internal management MIS. During TTM September 2023, the company continued to report healthy cash conversion ratio of approx 75%, which has been computed based upon operating cash flow over PAT during trailing twelve months. Now, coming to Q2 FY 2024 performance update. The company reported revenue from operation of around INR 218 crores, and sale of our customer is around INR 270 crores. On comparing our Q2 FY 2024 performance with Q2 of FY 2020, which was a normal quarter, our revenue from operation grew by approx 67%.
The company continues to report industry-leading gross margin of around 66.4%. The company reported PAT margin of 22.3% during Q2 of FY 2024, which was impacted on account of negative operating leverage due to lower revenue, and the profit after tax stood at around INR 49 crore. Further, the company also witnessed significant growth in PAT by approx 224% in Q2 of FY 2024 over Q2 of FY 2020, based upon internal management MIS. Since we are a wedding-centric business, our performance in a particular period may vary based upon a spread of wedding dates across the year. We are hopeful and positive for H2 and full year as a whole, owing to wedding and festive seasons in H2 during this financial year. Thank you, and namaskar, everyone. We can now move to the Q&A session.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jham from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you so much, and good evening, Vedant and Rahul. The first question, Vedant, you alluded that the days of comparable days of Navratri have seen a decent growth. If you could just give a sense of how that is? And as you look into Q3, at least when we see the wedding calendar, we see that the dates are reasonably higher versus last year. So that is a tailwind for the quarter. But just wanted your thoughts on, on how you are looking at the festive and the upcoming wedding season also.
Thank you for that question. So like I mentioned, when we compare our performance for the last 15 days of October with the onset of Navratri starting at, about 15th of October this year, we've seen a very good traction, at the store level. Every parameter that we track, from a retail perspective, be it footfalls, average bill value, average basket size, everything has seen a good uptick. Overall, a very exciting last 15 days we've had. While I can't share any numbers because this is something we would share in our next earnings call, qualitatively, things have been very good, and this gives us a very good hope for the second half of the year and the way things should pan out.
Exactly as you mentioned, there is definitely some level of tailwinds from a wedding date perspective and also from the number of wedding perspective. So the string of people we talked to in the wedding industry, everyone looks very optimistic about the number of weddings that are bound to happen in the current quarter we are operating in, which is quarter three and also quarter four after that. So overall, exciting times to come.
Just to understand better from you, I think last year what had happened is that there was some shift of weddings to Q4 based on how the wedding calendar played out. In this year, are you expecting that Q3 will see a maximum share of the weddings and, the business we do, or there could still be some adjustments that could end up playing out?
So Nihal, you know, to be very frank on this question, this is something we always, at the beginning of the year, try to estimate. But this is one very tricky question for us to even kind of try to figure out. From a date perspective, there are 12 dates in Q3 and about 29 dates in Q4. However, people typically prefer to get married in Q3. But sometimes what happens is the infrastructure of the country can't support the number of weddings that are prone to happen. However, on the other side, there are also mega festivals like Diwali, which bump up our revenues in Q3. So all in all, it's a very difficult question to answer, but H2 as a whole, we are very confident on having a very large number of weddings happening.
Understood. That's helpful. Vedant, the second question was on receivables. I do understand we've seen a higher store addition in terms of 1.2 lakh sq ft versus 0.7 that we did in H1 of last year. But just, considering that the festivities are a little later than what they were last year, is this receivable build-up a normal phenomenon, or there is something you may just want to highlight, just for clarity?
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, receivable days, according to our working, it is 64 days, based upon trailing 12 months September 2023 numbers. So basically, if you see that compared to last September 2022, we have opened around 252,000 sq ft. Now, as we open store, it results into increase in trade receivables as a one-time, you know, impact. So that is one of the reasons why we compare our receivable days, around 30th September 2023 with 2022, you know, we see a higher receivable day. Also, due to lower revenue, we see that, it has impacted into higher receivable days.
But otherwise, from our inventory build-up prospect, generally there is an inventory build-up in September, but this time because, the weddings and festivities are later in the month of November, and hence it has been lower compared to last September, I would say.
Sure. If I may just take one last question, that if you could give any comments on how Twamev and Mohey are performing, and if the rollout of, say, Mohey EBOs that we discussed a few quarters back, is something you plan to scale up anytime soon? Yeah.
Okay, thank you for that question as well. So from a Twamev perspective, the whole management actually spent a lot of time interacting with consumers in the Twamev EBOs, and the entire momentum looks very positive. Consumers have great things to say about the product, about the retail experience, and we see very good numbers coming in, better than we expected initially. So overall, Twamev seems like a very good brand and, you know, profound to grow over the coming quarters. So right now we have about 4 EBOs. We are about to sign about 4-5 more EBOs in the coming months, and the idea is to have about 8-10 EBOs, properly study our model, and then take a call on scaling to the next set of EBOs. And overall, Twamev has been performing really well.
From a Mohey perspective, very similar to Twamev, all the things that we track for Mohey have been improving. So if I break it down into three things: overall sales, SSS G, and the rollout of Mohey in the current Manyavar-Mohey concept. All the three numbers are very strong, much higher than the company average. Conversion rates at the store level have been increasing, so has all the other metrics, including inventory turnover ratio and the kind of feedback we receive from consumers. So very happy with how Mohey is performing. From a Mohey EBO perspective, we have rolled out the first smaller set of EBOs, so Mall of Asia in Bangalore has opened up. We've also had a smaller mall EBO opened up in Patna. However, the major flagship that we are about to open in Jayanagar at Bangalore is still in the works.
Due to some construction-related inefficiencies, it's taken a little longer than we anticipated, and the idea is to have it go live as soon as possible. That is the main store that we are kind of banking on to understand the Mohey EBO model and then take the call from, from that point on.
Sure, Vedant. Thank you so much, and wish you all happy Diwali.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next question is from the line of Gaurav Jogani from Axis Capital. Please go ahead. Mr. Gaurav, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, you are audible.
Yes.
Please go ahead.
Yeah, yeah. So my first question, you know, is with regards to the sales breakup generally between H1 and H2. We have, you know, in normalized scenarios, we have seen that H1 typically contributes to around 36%-38%, whereas H2 will be the balance. You know, given there has been a shift of the festive season in H2 now, so do we anticipate a shift in the contribution from H1 to H2, towards more the H2 side? And if any percentages that you can help us guide, what have you seen the percentages in, in the earlier years when there has been a wedding the season shift?
Thank you for that question, Gaurav. So, you know, if I kind of talk about the typical average, which we've seen over the years, has been 36-37. In some years, where the H1 has been weaker due to seasonal demand shift, we've also seen years where it's been 35-36%. So, it's very difficult for me to tell you, and as a company, we don't give any guidance per se, to tell you what it exactly will be in the coming year. But typically, in bad sort of H1, it's about 35% of the year's contribution, while in good ones, it's typically 38%. Last year was a very different phenomenon for us, where it was 42%, which was more of a one-off scenario.
The idea would be to work on a lot of our non-wedding focus areas, such as building up Rakhi, Independence Day, over a mid to long-term horizon, and build up the H1 business as well as we move forward. Talking about the past, those are the comparable kind of numbers we've witnessed.
But, you know, given that we are very positive and confident on H2, I mean, you know, we'll have to see how much deviation is there from the historical period, what we have observed in relation to 35%-31%. I mean, there is a possibility that there would be I mean, we'll have to see how we progress, and execute accordingly.
Sure. And in terms of, you know, the contribution from the online, if you can guide us how the contribution from online has been shaping up over the past couple of years. And in the past, you know, Vedant, you have talked about certain initiatives that you are been taking to drive the higher cadence of the online sales. So anything on that front, if you can highlight or, you know, any initiatives that you can highlight there?
Sure. Thank you for that question. So we actually went live with the new Manyavar.com website in April, and since then we've seen a great growth when it comes to our D2C channel, and we've been witnessing phenomenal growth rate as of now as well. And overall, our conversion rates have improved, our SEO has improved, our overall market share in the keywords we operate in has improved. It's been our best performing channel in terms of growth over the last six months. From a share perspective, the channel share is still very small, which is about 3 odd percent. The way we internally track this data is that, e-commerce, the share we actually track is products under INR 4,000. So over there, the share is almost 8%-10%, is led by e-commerce.
That share has also been performing well and been growing. With Manthan's strategy also coming in, which gives us that support in the INR 800-INR 2,000 price range, helping us in marketplace growth. All in all, overall e-commerce business has been growing really well in a very high positive trend. Given the fact that the next 12 days is Diwali, all our teams are very excited to see what the new website can, in terms of bringing massive number of Diwali consumers to our platforms.
Sure. Thank you, and that's all from me.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, before we move to the next question, a reminder to the participant, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. Next question is from the line of Manish Poddar from Invesco Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. I just have two questions. First one was, have you taken any price increases, sir?
So, thank you for that question. And Manish, as you know that we don't take any direct price increases per se. The endeavor is to continue on our task of adding more value that we provide to our guests, and in that endeavor, we've continued to invest in our products, come up with better merchandises, and drive our overall ASPs for products by introducing better merchandising. So there is no price hike per se, but ASPs within each category have been growing as we move into the festive season.
Okay. Any sense, let's say, this like-for-like which you've grown, how much would be, let's say, mix-led growth?
Apologies, I couldn't get you right now.
Let's say in the like-for-like number, which you have, you know, the declined number. I'm just trying to understand in that, how much would be, let's say, mixed led growth, if you had to... You know, any sense one can get of that?
Yeah, so-
You know, launching new products, which is getting you higher sales. Yeah.
Overall, from a like-to-like perspective, the degrowth was majorly led on the accounts of volume. From a ASP perspective, things were quite good. And, on account of when you talk about mix, it was a similar story where we track at a POS level, grooms versus non-grooms, and overall the non-groom business was better off than the groom business, owing to the fact that, the business was slow due to less number of wedding dates, at least for the first half of the year.
Okay. Just, last one, so, Virati, any sense you can get, let's say, how would, you know, given, you know, a lot of peer set or, you know, both listed and listed trader, scaling up in this category, any sense would we have that, are we losing share or just actually, demand not there primarily because of weddings and, you know, this date shift?
So there are multiple perspectives here. So one is, at a city level, wherever, let's say, organized competition has opened beside us, those particular stores, compared to the city average, have not changed too much. And at the same time, there are multiple cities and states where no organized competition has even entered. But the sort of slowness we saw was similar across those cities and states as well. So I think it's more from a demand angle, and the market is very large to host more than one player. And it's, it's not really a factor of newer peer set entering the market, but more a factor of the entire wedding industry shifting and to some extent, also on overall slowness in the consumer discretionary space.
Okay. Got it. Great. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. Next question is from the line of Karan Gupta from Varanium Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi... Good afternoon, everybody. Am I audible?
Yes, yes.
Yeah. So, my question is related to the inventory management system, what-
Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Karan, may we please request you to use handset? Your-
Yes, even same. Even same only. Yeah, so, my question is related to the inventory management system. You know, as far as we are able to, you know, making better management system, inventory management systems what our. Which makes a difference from the previous. So do you have anything like-
Apologies, Karan, we can't completely understand what you're saying. Is the question around our automated replenishment system and how that works?
Uh, yeah.
... All right, so,
Any steps you have to take, which is better than yours in terms of inventory management system, not what is the system, that's the best thing. What do activities you are performing, right? Which kind of activities, like, you know, the global are performing to fast replenishment of our inventories in terms of designs or in terms of fashion trends, that kind of thing.
Got it. Thank you for that. I mean, the way I would break up this question is into multiple parts. So in our case, we have about 20 years of consumer preference data across India. And as Indian wear category is slightly different, consumer trends and behaviors change basis city and state. So we've identified what sells where, in which part of the country. Our designers have access to that data, and we ensure that we follow a scientific method of designing, where we utilize all that data to come up with relevant designs, and then those designs are planned well in advance basis, what sells well in which part of the country, and then they are replenished to those respective stores only. So just because the whole process is slightly confidential in nature, I can't talk about it in a much deeper way.
But at an overarching way, the, some of the data points I can share with you, is that our overall tech stock is typically always less than 4%, less than 3%, which is an industry-leading number globally. So this is one of the lowest numbers for any brand across the globe, and that is what leads to our profit margin numbers, which are on a normalized year, about 29%-30%. So in, in a nutshell, that is the system we use. From the basis of how is it differentiated, in an organized retail space, we are the only ones or one of the only ones that uses an in-house built replenishment system, completely developed by our internal teams and with our internal strategies. Most people use, productized versions of these replenishment system available for anyone to buy.
Whereas we've customized the solution to how the Indian wear market works and function, and it's based on that from ground up.
Okay, very much. Next is,
Yes.
Like, see, in, on globally, if you see, some of the brands are trendsetters. So we need professional setters, you can say, that sort of one. We, are you like one of the only into wedding segment, or we are trying to perform, like you said, in the holy Raksha Bandhan. So we are also entering into the event kind of segments, where the different parts of India have different, you know, different festivals throughout the year. So we are entering into this segment next month. But how are, you know, into this, the trendsetter, I would say?
So, from a trendsetting perspective, we have a large creative design team as well. So any possible trends that we understand from a global perspective, which might be based on colors or different cuts that is happening, or that might be happening in India, we test out all of those particular design themes, and we try to see what is working in our case. That, that is first. And secondly, what I understood from your question is, is our merchandising fit for festive wear? So absolutely, we work a lot on the festive merchandising of things, having a great product range for people to wear across Raksha Bandhan, Diwali, Independence Day, and so on.
There has been a large push in our entire kurta set range, where we have invested a lot from a design perspective and really upped the game in the overall kurta set game. And at the same time, I think I also heard a little bit about kids in your question. So from a kids perspective as well, we've been building up our merchandising, and the presence of kids has been growing from a retail perspective as well. With us having larger flagship stores, that gives us the ability to give kids a good enough presence in all our stores. And that whole design piece is already taken care of from the back end, and we continue to invest in better merchandising and adding more value to our guests.
Okay, so, it's good enough. I see the, you know, market of the consumer behavior, I think first thing, the last 20 years as the incumbent being right during. So I think this kind of consumer behavior, where the consumers are, are standing in the queue, they are thinking about the demand section, that this, kind of, section or the kind of, working we have, we are competing, which is, let's say you have, a limited stock of any kind of, kurta set or the saree set, which will be there, let's say 10, in the commerce. So any kind of behavior you can observe in the consumer, that this is what will go to the next, next 15 days. So we have to buy, as soon as possible. That's going to be helping in few minutes.
Apologies, I really couldn't properly understand your question, but I'll still attempt to answer some pieces of that. So the-
My voice is breaking.
Sorry?
My voice is breaking.
Yes, it's not very clear. I mean, your voice is coming through, but it's not very clear.
Yeah, so the basic question is the behavior, if you notice, if you have my state of consumer behavior, like if you have a limited stock of any, of your, a brand, let's say, Kurta set or sari. If you have a limited brand, if you have limited stock, then the consumer behavior is like, this is limited stock. Vedant Fashions, I have to buy this as soon as possible, otherwise it will get replenished in 15 days or next 7 months, so I have to buy this. How is behavior? I'm just asking.
Yes, I mean, in our case, the way it works is that we try to ensure whatever products are selling in whichever part of the country get replenished as soon as possible. If not, then the closest product to that gets replenished to that particular store as soon as possible. So that's the kind of mindset we try to work on. From a consumer perspective, I think the route we take is we want to comfort our consumer. Whenever they walk into a Manyavar store, they will find something for themselves. And having the promise of having relevant products for every guest walking into our store, which ensures a great conversion rate.
I think some of the references which you might be referring to is of Veblen goods, where there is a sort of need of demand created by limiting supply of certain products, which is not the kind of area where we operate in with Manyavar. As of now, and in the future, if this is of interest, we will explore how something like this would work.
Okay, sure. One more question on, so, related to the previous question, in the brand, I notice that you can replicate here in India.
I'm sorry, but the voice is really not clear.
Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Karan.
Okay.
We please request you to reconnect to the conference, as your voice is breaking. I think there's a network issue at your end.
Sure, sure.
Thank you. Meanwhile, we'll move to our next question from the line of Devanshu Bansal from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi, Vedant. Thanks for taking my question. So Vedant, wanted to check, H1 has been slow for us. So any signs of stress that you're seeing at the franchisee relationship level? Also, as a company, what steps do we generally take to provide some comfort to our partners, when there is a weak demand scenario?
Thank you for that question. So, to be very honest, I think all our partners understand the fact that, H1 last year was slightly better off than it usually is. And I think everyone understands the fact and is really geared up for H2, and that's been the common theme across our partners. Majority of our revenue comes from partners that have been operating with us for more than 5 years, 6 years now. The top 50 partners actually contribute to 80% of our business, and we have a very close relationship with them in order to, you know, have a dual line of communication between how business will perform. So I think everyone's really excited about H2, and that has not been an area of concern at all.
Typically, when you ask me from a closure perspective, right, we would have 1%-2% of stores closing in a given financial year. And of those stores, majority... In many cases, these stores are actually run by larger franchisees who have multiple stores. So at a franchisee group level, even those stores don't hurt a franchisee at all. So from that perspective, if there is a one-off case, we definitely add on a marketing level of support for that particular store and try to push up the sales of that store. And the endeavor is to work on our stakeholder growth, where franchisees actually act as a very, very important stakeholder to our company.
Got it. Any additional incentives, et cetera, also that you provide or maybe some historical precedents, is there which you can highlight wherein the growth slowed down and, you know, you sort of ended up giving higher incentives to your partners?
So from our perspective, this has never happened. We've always stuck to our model. We are a very transparent company. Every single franchisee in our system has the same franchisee model, which is either the 18% or the 29.5% plus GST model. There is no comma, full stop difference also between anyone's agreements, and we stick to the same incentive model, no matter the conditions. And in our entire history of the company, we've seen very good sales, we've seen very happy partners. And from the perspective of incentivization, we have a franchisee scorecard system. So any franchisee that scores above 80% on our scorecard are the partners we prefer to grow our fleet with, and they are the first ones who get access to any new store that we're about to open.
Given the high ROI that a Manyavar franchisee makes out of any of the stores that are opened, then that in itself is a very large incentive for people to work hard with us and grow within our company.
Great, Vedant. Secondly, wanted to check from a product innovation point of view, if I picked it right from your commentary, you indicated that you have sort of certain time has gone into merchandising for this upcoming festive wedding specifically. Can you highlight few innovations or product innovations that you have specifically come out for this festive, which will sort of give better product value proposition to customers versus peers?
Absolutely. So product innovation is something which is a continuous process in our case. So we've worked on the quality of the fabric we offer. We've tried to make it softer, we've tried to make it more resistant from all possible angles. And at the same time, we've also, you know, really worked on things which are trending. So let's say, this particular year, chikankari has been in high fashion, mirror work has been in high fashion, so we've worked on our range for those products. So product innovation in our case is a weekly affair, where our decisions are made on a weekly basis, and we try to upgrade our product quality every single week as we move further, and that will always be the endeavor for our company.
Great! Thanks, Vedant. Thanks. All the best for the upcoming festive.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Mr. Sameer Gupta from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, and thanks for taking my question. First question is that, see, I understand that first half this year has not suffered a high base effect, but just to hypothesize, even if you have to clock a double-digit growth in FY 2024 as a whole, this would imply a sharp 27% kind of same-store sales growth in the second half. Now, based on your, you know, history, in, you know, in years where wedding dates have such skews, do you think this is a number which is not an issue? Or will this... And it will be solely driven by the wedding dates mismatch this year?
Or will it still require some amount of pick-up at the overall consumption level, which we understand has been kind of weak for most players that are operating in the overall apparel retail space? That would be the first question.
Thank you very much for that question. So, you know, from a perspective of numbers, as a company, we don't give any guidance. However, you're very right with those figures. In order to achieve double-digit growth at a financial year level, those are the numbers which we would have to achieve. Definitely, our endeavor would be to get to those numbers, and we will do everything possible, and that is why, as a company, we've left no stone unturned in terms of opening the most amount of square feet we can in the first half of the year, having a great merchandising plan, having great marketing initiatives, and so on. So that, that is the entire intent of our company, in order to have great growth during the second half of the year, but I won't be able to comment on those exact numbers.
From a historical perspective, we've definitely seen, Q3 numbers being very good, and there definitely is that level of hope of continuity. And that said, over the last two quarters, we have felt a little bit of slowdown from a consumer, consumer discretionary aspect. And with festive on setting into India, I think the hope will also be that those things turn around and consumers get back to going to retail stores to the full extent as it was in the last couple of quarters before the slowdown actually started.
Got it, Vedant. That's very helpful. Secondly, on Mohey, so, just trying to understand the broad strategy here. Now, is it going to be very similar to how we are doing with Twamev, opening some marquee 10, 12 stores, and then looking at it as a pilot? Or here we have actually a very large, kind of experience because the brand is in place since 2015, and we already are present in around 120 Manyavar stores, if I understand correct. So, can we just, you know, from the first day, itself, roll out our EBOs, like, you know, without a pilot, or it'll still be a cautious wait-and-watch approach and, looking at the results of the, the EBOs, then decide the further strategy here?
So, definitely we will always take a more cautious approach. And the reason for that is, while our confidence on the brand is, is very high, the way the, both the models work would be very different. So in Manyavar Mohey, there are certain advantages which come in. So you have the ability of cross-selling to the Manyavar consumers that are anyways walking into the store. On the flip side, in Mohey, you have the advantage of giving a very special experience to the brides walking in, who will then spread the word of mouth of that magical experience. So from a retail perspective, both the models will actually work slightly differently, and that is why we will take a cautious approach of piloting with a couple of marquee stores, understanding the model before we push the button of going, high on opening those number of stores.
Got it. One last question, if I may squeeze in. Have there been any price cuts this quarter? Have you taken any price cuts?
No, absolutely no price cuts were taken. In fact, our ASP is as healthy as ever, and we've been performing well on that perspective from every individual category perspective also. So we are quite happy with the work that is being done on the value addition side of things, and the overall premiumization story for our company.
Got it, sir. That's all from me. Thanks. I'll come back in the case I have any follow-ups.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Varun Singh from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. So my question is on the retail area expansion. So given that, now we are adding more of flagship stores, so, I mean, our total area expansion has been quite healthy over the last two quarters. So given that context, would you like to revise our annual store retail area expansion aspirations for medium term?
Actually, Varun, on the flip side, this year, we were very cautious, and we changed our business development strategy almost two years ahead of time, because we were already anticipating some sense of slowness in H1 overall, and that is why we had geared up to open a larger share of stores in H1 and in October as well as a month, so that these set of stores are able to bring all the business during the festive season of H2. So this is, business development planning is a two-year, three-year sort of a horizon that we work on. And these decisions were actually taken ahead of its time, rather than it being something which was more of a short-term decision making.
We would ideally like to stick with our guidance of about 16% retail footprint growth, at a staggered level, which is what we work on. While we would like to grow faster, there are some certain limitations from a supply side as well. As a company, we want to stay efficient from the perspective of cost and from the efficient from all supply side angles, and that is how we want to take growth forward without compromising on any other metrics that we track.
Understood. Secondly, on Twamev, if you would like to share any insight, given that we have scaled up this format to now around 6-7 stores.
So I mean, from an insight perspective, I think what I can tell you is that consumers are really liking the product. We are seeing very high conversion rates, better than we were anticipating for a new brand, so that has been a very positive side of things. The second thing, like I had mentioned in my last earnings call as well, that, the women's split to men's, we were expecting it to be slightly more towards men, but rather it's more towards, 45% women and 55% men, to 50% each. So that's the kind of horizon we are playing at, which is very positive overall, and that has also given us the confidence of continuing to open larger stores, because we have to give ample amount of space both to men and women offering.
However, that said, men business is expected to pick up in this month, as men, even in the case of Twamev, seem to shop closer to the festive season, while women might actually be shopping slightly ahead of time. There are a lot of things which we need to understand over a period of one full financial year for each store, before we actually turn those insights into strategies for the company.
Understood. That's it from my side, Vedant. Thank you very much, and wish you all the best.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Prerna Jhunjhunwala from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. I would like to understand, how much would be the groom versus non-groom sales in any financial year for you?
So actually, we don't share that particular number on a quarter-to-quarter basis. But on a typical average, if I have to say that, let's take a last financial year number, that the groom's average bill value is much higher. So almost 45%-50% of our business was derived from grooms at a revenue level, while the number of bills were relatively lower.
Okay, okay. Given that you are expanding the Twamev stores initially faster on Mohey, could you just help us understand what the challenge is in Mohey, which is why you are going slow on Mohey? And also, some insight on the dead stock data, given that you are operating this brand since last 7 years now, 7, 8 years. So, whether dead stock in women business is higher than men's, and how are you dealing with the change in fashion in women versus men?
Sure. Thank you for that question. So taking the first part of it, I mean, both the brands have very different teams internally. So a different set of team works on Twamev and a different set of team works on Mohey, and we are working on them parallelly. So it's nothing as if one brand is being prioritized over the other. In the case of Mohey, we face certain constraints from a construction and overall real estate perspective, which was out of our control, that led to this delay. And from a focus perspective, the focus on Mohey is extremely high, and that is why we've actually rolled out some certain smaller EBO stores. The flagship will also come to light extremely soon. From a D2C perspective, Manyavar has set an industry-leading number across the globe.
So while all our the entire women side of things is definitely higher than Manyavar in terms of dead stock, but if you compare it to the industry average, it is still a very, very good number that we operate on. And from a trend-setting perspective, we have a very, very talented design team working on lehengas and sarees, and we've been updating our overall mood board for Mohey every single quarter. And you know, you could check out Mohey social media to see how the brand is progressing in terms of its design and the kind of language it speaks.
Okay. And if I want to just understand the ASP of brand Mohey as compared to competition, where we are placing it, and where do we actually want to target Mohey? Is it, will it be premium, super premium, luxury? How do we see Twamev versus Mohey in women?
From a lehenga perspective, Mohey's ASP for a lehenga is about INR 20,000-INR 23,000. Twamev, it is much higher than that. It could be in the lines of 3-4x of that, and that is because the brand's positioning and the target audience we are going after is very different. Again, from Mohey, this number is very difficult to compare because Mohey actually operates in a very sweet spot, where if you look at the market, there is unorganized players operating out of, let's say, markets like Chandni Chowk in Delhi. And then there are the super high-end designers. Mohey is one of the only established national brands that operates in the mid-premium price points, offering the lehengas in those particular price points. So it doesn't really have a proper comparable to it.
However, we feel based on our market study that INR 22,000-INR 25,000 rupee lehenga ASP price point is a very sweet spot for any working bride looking to get married. And this is something that does not hurt their pocket at all, while fulfills all the aspiration they might have of walking into a great and beautiful store in a great location, backed by celebrity ambassadors and so on.
Okay. And, Twamev, how are you positioning it? Just want to understand that.
Twamev is absolutely a bridge-to-luxury brand, and the idea is to operate in a price point where lehengas start at about INR 50,000, go up to INR 200,000, and thereby, the ASP would range between INR 70,000-INR 80,000. But it's really too soon to comment on how this would shape up over the next six to seven months, because we are very new to Twamev women's merchandising play. And we are also learning that part of the business and working on the same. But the overall positioning is different from our entire, the way the store is designed to the kind of marketing we are doing on it. So it is aimed more towards a luxury designer wear segment, with the prices being much lower compared to what designers operate at.
Understood. Thank you. This was helpful. Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take this as the last question for the day. I now hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
Thank you very much to all the analysts for joining the call. It's always a great learning to hear all the questions from you. Really looking forward to meeting again post the festive season of Q3, and thank you very much for attending.
Namaskar. Thank you. On behalf of IIFL Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.