Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. V.S. Ganesh, Managing Director, Page Industries, for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, a very good afternoon to all of you. On behalf of my team at Page Industries, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our Q3 and nine-month FY 2024 earnings call. I hope you have had a chance to review the numbers and presentation uploaded on the exchanges. Let me begin by contextualizing our discussion against the broader backdrop of the textile and apparel industry, and then focus on our specific company's performance. The industry has navigated through a period marked by mixed demand trends, with the overall demand for the retail industry being subdued, as consumer expenditure has shifted towards travel and leisure. The initial performance in October 2023 was tepid, with a concentration of wedding and festive demand in November 2023 and a noticeable bottoming out in December 2023.
The innerwear and athleisure industry faced subdued demand in Q3, leading to a decline in sales volume. Notably, our sector experienced an accumulation of excess inventory, contributing to challenges within the overall ecosystem and fostering certain unsustainable business practices in the market. Despite all these challenges, our commitment to sustainable sales practices remains unwavering. We are actively implementing measures to uphold operating margins and optimize inventory in ensuring a strategic and responsible approach in navigating the current market conditions. Against the backdrop of a resilient economic trend in Q3, we are pleased to announce that, we have recorded a robust profit after tax growth with a modest revenue expansion for the quarter. These positive outcomes were supported by the hard work put in by our teams, festive activities, and improved inventory health within our distribution network.
Our commitment to technology, brand promotion, and expanding market reach remains unwavering, with a simultaneous focus on maintaining comfortable operating margins. However, the prevailing macroeconomic challenges and subdued market conditions led to a marginal year-over-year revenue growth, evident in a 2.4% increase in revenue and a 4.6% increase in volume during Q3. Despite encountering these challenges, our performance in Q3 was stronger. Nevertheless, the year-to-date December figures were colored by the first two quarters of the year, and therefore indicates a decrease in revenue and volume by 4.3% and 5.8% respectively. In line with our objectives, we continue to invest in enhancing consumer reach and experience, diversifying and enriching product offerings, focus on operational excellence and digital transformation. A diligent control over expenses has ensured strong operating margins without touching product prices.
Our primary focus has been on enhancing productivity within our supply chain. We embarked on a journey to modernize our distribution management system, aligning with our commitment to continuous improvement. With a distinct emphasis on optimizing operating expenses, it is noteworthy that despite a marginal increase in revenue, we have achieved an impressive 23.1% growth in profit after tax during Q3. This underscores our strategic effort in maintaining a balanced approach to financial performance and focusing on operational efficiency. Our distribution network expansion remains in line with our plans. As of the end of December, we have a network of over 110,000 MBOs, 1,394 EBOs, and 2,300+ LFS outlets. We are also directing our attention towards metros and Tier Two and Three cities.
Our e-commerce channel witnessed a substantial growth of 28% in year-to-date December, reflecting evolving consumer purchasing habits and our commitment to bolstering our online presence. We have several initiatives being executed to further strengthen our D2C channels. We continue to invest for attaining our long-term objectives. Our strategic focus encompasses multiple factors, and that includes intensifying the general trade distribution, expanding large format stores and exclusive brand outlets, growing D2C business, improving customer experience, strengthening product portfolio, continuous improvement in partner and consumer engagement, and brand building and ensuring a robust supply chain. Joining me on the call today are Mr. Deepanjan, our CFO, who needs no introduction, and Mr. Karthik Yathindra, our Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. Mr. Karthik has been associated with us for close to eight years, and he was looking after critical functions like marketing, product development, product management, supply chain.
He was also instrumental in the launch of Jockey Juniors. Currently, Karthik also heads the sales functions in Page Industries. We express our sincere gratitude for your unwavering support for trust in Page Industries. We eagerly anticipate the opportunity to address any questions that you may have and provide further insights into our performance during this call. Additionally, I extend warm seasonal greeting to all, wishing you a prosperous and fulfilling year ahead. I once again thank you all for joining this call today, and I would now request our CFO, Mr. Deepanjan, to take you through the numbers for the quarter before we open the floor for the question and answers. Thank you so much, and over to Deepanjan.
Thank you, V.S.. Good evening, friends. I hope you're all keeping well. Thank you for your participation this evening. I'm pleased to report that Page Industries has delivered an improved performance in Q3 of FY 2024. To take you through the key financial highlights for Q3, we recorded sales volumes of 55.2 million pieces, which has a growth of 4.6% year-on-year and resulted in a revenue of INR 12,288 million. With revenue growth by 2.4%, our EBITDA achieved was INR 2,352 million, which has grown by 19.1% YOY. Our Q3 EBITDA margin was 18.7%. Investments in digital transformation and marketing initiatives did impact our EBITDA margin for this quarter. This is largely balanced with favorable fabric costs and operational expenses optimization.
PAT for the quarter was INR 1,524 million, which has a growth of 23.1% YOY, and the PAT margin was 12.4%. Coming to the YTD December numbers, YTD December revenue and volume was INR 35,863 million and 162.8 million pieces. With growth in Q3, YTD December degrowth in revenue and volume was 4.4% and 5.8% respectively. EBITDA was INR 7,051 million, which was lower by 3.2%. PAT was INR 4,610 million, which was lower by 6.65% YOY. Inventory at the quarter end was INR 12,436 million, as against INR 15,953 million at the beginning of the year.
Inventory days was 95, as against 122 days in the beginning of the financial year. Improvement in inventory days is in line with our efforts to reach optimum inventory levels by the year end. Net working capital was INR 9,278 million, as compared with INR 7,680 million at the end of Q4 FY 2023. Working capital days was 71, which was 59 in Q4 2023. The increase in net working capital is largely because of healthy cash balance. That's in the year beginning, we had a borrowings, and now we have a healthy cash balance. To summarize our financial performance, we remain focused in driving operational excellence and capitalize on growth opportunities. We continue to make investments in marketing, digital transformation, and process improvements to deliver value to consumers efficiently.
We can now discuss all queries that you have.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Abhi Mehta from Macquarie. Please proceed.
Hi, sir. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yes, sir. Sir, I had a few questions, especially on inventory, on demand and on margins, if I may. So first, on inventory, I would love to know how the inventory levels at distributor and retailers are, and are they... How far off are they from normalized levels? Also, on your point about bottoming out of seen in December, is that because the discounting pressures have peaked out, or are you seeing Jan being better, if you could kind of clarify that part, sir. And lastly, on margin profile, we'd love to hear your thoughts on how should we look at this, given this quarter is closer to the bottom end of our 19%-21% range, and how should we look at it going forward? These are the three questions, sir. If you could please help. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Abhi, Mr. Abhi Mehta, and as regards the inventory is concerned, you know, there has been an improvement in the distributor inventory levels, thanks to the successful implementation of the ARS. However, I must say these are early days, and it has not come to the levels which we desire, as these changes takes time, you know, and it's an ongoing process, but there is a healthy trend which we are seeing, and it is on track as far as ARS implementation is concerned. So that is one good news. And I should thank the team for working hard and engaging with our partners in making this project a success and making this the most important project for us to transform the sales function in our organization.
As to that, the margins are concerned, we have taken a lot of measures to protect the margins, and, as I keep telling, we are very comfortable at a 19-21 zone, and we are just shy of that. There are two major factors. One is, you know, is subdued demand and leading to less than expected top line, and that has put some pressure on the margins. We hope, you know, this current retail environment will improve in the coming days, and we are all geared up to seize the opportunities as things improve. But we were able to control and protect margins with a lot of measures which we have taken as regards the control and operating expenses are concerned, and also managing our inventories very, very prudently.
That is regarding the demand part of it. I'm sorry, what was the third one, Mr. Mehta?
Sorry, you said towards bottoming out seen in December on the demand side. So is it in terms of discounting pressures having peaked out, or is that January has seen an improvement? What was that comment supposed to mean? I was not sure, sir.
Early days, Mr. Mehta, because the market continues to be lukewarm, even though we could see some modest growth. If you see across sectors, you know, it continues to be lukewarm. In fact, apparel seem to be most hit. In fact, what I can see is apparel, the growth has been very low single digit overall across categories, and while jewelry has recorded 12%, so it continues to be in that state. So we expect Q4 maybe on those lines, but though it is early days for us to talk about Q4. But I see from our point of view, we would like to brace ourselves for the worst and control the expenses, work very diligently to protect our margin, and once the market recovers, we want to be out there and seize the opportunity.
But the current outlook is not so buoyant, and we are being very cautious in our outlook.
The distributor, would you be able to give any number over there, you know, versus 100 that you wanted, it's 110, 120. Where is it in terms of the inventory levels?
Karthik, you want to elaborate on that?
Yes. Thank you. Mr. Mehta, this inventory levels of the distributors varies across categories. What I can share is that, from where we started in the beginning of the financial year, there has been an improvement of about three days in inventory holding. This is in spite of a marginal decrease in year-to-date revenue, which means the impact on decrease in inventory has been much higher, which of course varies between categories, between innerwear and outerwear, between men and women. Overall, what the auto-replenishment system has helped us do is A, bring down the overall inventory level, but more importantly, improve the inventory health of the distributors. So the mix of the inventory that distributors are today holding is much better when compared to where we were in the beginning of the financial year.
This in a way helps in better terms in two ways, both in terms of increasing opportunities for secondary sales as well as because of the inventory normal coming down, the inventory turns improves and helps in better ROI for the distributor.
Got it, sir. Thank you very much, sir. I'll come back in the queue for the other question. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nihal Mahesh J ham from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you so much, and good evening to the management. So my first question was, certain feedback has been telling us that we are contemplating implementing a new software and also bringing some changes to our ARS. Just wanted to confirm that, are there any thoughts on these lines, both for the EBO as well as for the general trade distribution channel specific to ARS?
See, we are continuing to implement ARS, and that is a process wherein we actually manage the hygiene in the market, and it's very operational. It is true that from a tech support point of view, we are implementing a much improved distributor management system, which will help the entire front-end supply chain and our company in having a more robust system, better insights, real-time information, which will help us and the partners to bring in more efficiency to the business.
Does it create any difference versus earlier, when, say, the ARS have been implemented with some of the distributors? Is there no flexibility provided to them in terms of using the assortment?
No. You know, see, that is totally different. Here, you know, we actually look at the assortment plan, and we look at, you know, for ARS, we look at the intelligence which we have based on the past sales, what the market demand is, and then we recommend based on the rate of sale and the potential demand, we recommend an ideal mix to our distributors, which will enable them to order as per the recommended mix. So ARS, as Karthik rightly said sometime back, will help in having a much better quality of inventory, and therefore a much improved inventory term for the distributor, thereby resulting in a much improved ROI.
Understood.
So that project is ongoing, and we, you know, and we have reached a good level of maturity as far as the ARS implementation is concerned.
Sure, sir. The second question was that you have been highlighting about the e-commerce as a channel and specifically your own website. Are you looking at significantly upping the spends and maybe taking a larger share on your own website versus, say, marketplaces? And if I may just slip in my third question and close, is that the reason for the lower realization on a YOY level?
Karthik, you want to take that?
Sure, sir. Our investments as far as marketing is concerned, between, let's say, online channels and offline channels, has remained consistent over the last three years. Today, anywhere between 13%-15% of our overall marketing investments is a portion to the e-commerce business. As you may know, this is broken into performance marketing as well as brand-building initiatives. Performance marketing is what directly results in revenues in the online channel, and this contributes to about 75% of our overall spend in the online channel. So the strategy towards investments in online remains consistent. We haven't changed it in the bygone year. We don't foresee a change in this either.
Sure. And so just on the realization.
The realization will obviously be a function of the mix within the e-commerce business. As far as the overall realization to the organization, we don't see there being a major shift because of our spends towards e-commerce.
I was actually referring to looking at the ASP, which is down 4% YOY. That is what I was referring to.
No, ASP is a function of the category mix. While there has been impact on the overall category, overall brand revenues across categories, we've seen it being a bit more pronounced in the Athleisure segment. We've also been quite aggressive in our expansion when it comes to the access of these business. So the mix in the category is what has led to erosion in ASP to the tune of 4%.
Got that. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that management is able to address questions from all the participants in the conference, please limit your questions to two per participant. If you have any follow-up questions, you may rejoin the queue. Next question is from the line of Tejas Shah from Avendus Spark. Please proceed.
Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Sir, we have observed in many retail companies now that, which expanded their network very aggressively, during COVID or immediately post-COVID. Those stores are the one experiencing underperformance and excess inventory. Can you highlight any specific cohort in our network experiencing this excess inventory and slowdown that you have called out?
Well, the excess inventory, actually, the impact more has been on the athleisure, because right after the pandemic, there has been a huge demand for athleisure, and both our distribution and retail partners were also taking calls based on the sudden surge in demand they were seeing. And as it post-driven shopping and, once back to office happened, when things returned to normalcy, the demand also normalized, and that actually had a big impact as far as the inventories are concerned. Overall, the inventories across categories have been high, but it, as we can see, it is highly pronounced in the case of athleisure category.
Sure. Sir, so historically, I know we have not done any such clearance sale as in a big way. But do you think that this kind of inventory built up that happened because of this once-in-a-lifetime event, the pandemic, do you think that we can, instead of dragging this slowdown and excess inventory super long, we can take some kind of clearance measure, and then then let's get back the inventory to healthier level, and then we can start from there? Or, or do you think we'll, we'll let it go the way it is happening in demand side?
Well, see, these are healthy inventory, so it's not, you know, we luckily we, we don't work on seasonal products, and so none of this is redundant inventory or, you know, the, the, these are all... It will sell. Now, as-- and the ARS is one initiative which we took so that, we wanted to ensure that what is pumped into the pipeline is based on true demand, rather than the gut feel which is there with our partners and what a person can feel from his gut. We wanted it to be more scientific, and that is a better and hygienic way of bringing the inventory to healthy levels, rather than, discounting and other practices, because this will have a long-term impact as far as the brand is concerned.
As Jockey, as Page, we always believed in sustainable growth, and we believe in the right practices, and we truly believe it is better that we take measures wherein the system helps to correct, rather than taking short-term measures which may bring us immediate results, because it will always boomerang back in the long term. If you can see, our inventory levels compared to peer companies is well under control. The good news is, even though it is high, it is not at alarmingly bad levels. So our distributors are not seeing any credit blocks which is affecting our sales. Even, you know, it is as before. So in that sense, it is not affecting our sales, you know.
It is only that we have to help some corrections to happen in an organic manner, for which we are working on.
According to your assessment, looking at current demand environment, how long will it take?
That is anybody's guess, because it depends from partner to partner, how they have positioned the inventory. And second, it also has a factor of the category in which. In fact, I see that TRESemmé may take a bit more time, but I don't think that is going to affect our top line immediately. You know, once the demand comes back, our top line should be improved. So we are not losing to competition, or we are not losing our shelf space. It is just question of the waiting for the demand revival. I don't think inventory is playing spoilsport as far as we are concerned. Of course, the inventory, but overall in the ecosystem, because of the competition and generally, the inventory is very high. That is having an impact on our sales more than our inventory.
This is where there is a lot of discounting, lot of liquidation, lot of clearance is happening, and this is having an impact on us. But that also, I can see, it was much more intense in Q1 and Q2, that the intensity has come down drastically in Q3. Karthik, do you want to add more color to it?
No, I think your initial statement about the quality of the inventory is very pertinent. Even if we liquidate the inventory that the partner or the retailer is holding, we will be replenishing it with the same inventory, because the inventory is not outdated. It's just that the level of holding of inventory seems to be high. And even there, I think the bigger issue is probably demand at a tertiary level, because even year-to-date, we don't see a significant difference between our primary sales performance versus secondary sales performance, exclusive of those three days of inventory, which I had earlier mentioned. Barring that, it's not been very significant. So like, rightly pointed out by the Managing Director, it is about revival of demand that we're hoping for.
That will in a way be the answer also to how much time would it take for us to reach, you know, acceptable inventory norms.
Thank you. Last question: if I compare our presentation data of MBO, we were at somewhere around 120,000 network retail store in fourth quarter, which has come down to 114 in this quarter's presentation. So is it a planned correction that we are making here? And will there be additional rationalization as we go ahead?
Thanks for asking that, Rajesh. Yes, it is a planned initiative. We have seen a minor drop in non-traditional outlets that has bought into the category during the pandemic. So barring that, we are not seeing any significant drop in numbers of outlets. But as the market has not been very buoyant in the last few quarters, there has been few outlets with low throughput, and these were small outlets, which has had an impact. So that's where some level of rationalization which is required has happened.
... But I don't see this as we move forward. We will continue to expand, but it will be. It will not be because of the pressure we had during the pandemic, where we had to expand and be where the consumer is. Now we can look at an expansion where the potential is and make it reachable and viable for the distribution partners. So we will continue to expand, but the drops which you are seeing is mainly because of the opening which we had with the pandemic, you know, and that rationalization has already happened.
Thanks. That's all from my side, and all the best for coming quarters.
Thank you. Thank you, Prajit.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Akshin from Fidelity. Please go ahead. Akshin, your line is unmuted. Please proceed.
Hello.
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. So, sir, on your portfolio, you know, you've discussed how Athleisure post-COVID has been slow. I just wanted to check between, you know, your, men's innerwear and women's innerwear portfolio, if you could throw some color as to which one is doing better right now, and particularly on women's innerwear, if you could just sort of lay out your strategic agenda over the next 2-3 years, what are the key focus areas for the management over there? That's question 1. I'll wait for the answer and then ask my second question.
Yeah. So as you know, because of the impact we had in the first two quarters, we have... We are seeing degrowth across categories. There is no exemption here. Of course, it has been more pronounced in the case of Athleisure, you know? And, Karthik, you want to talk about the women's innerwear, the strategic initiatives which we are taking?
Yeah. So, I mean, it's a stated strategy in our past communication that there are a few categories which are being given specific focus in order to capture the market potential that is out there. We believe our penetration levels in the women's innerwear business is far lower than what we've managed to achieve in the men's innerwear business, and hence, there lies a potential for us to capture the market. With regards to this, anything that we do with a view to improve business, be it new product introduction, be it innovation in the product portfolio, be it marketing investments and work on the marketing side, there is disproportionate investment and focus towards the women's innerwear segment.
This also is to do with the infrastructure that we are building in. In the last couple of years, setting up of a dedicated sales team, and since then, building an independent distribution network to serve only the women's Innerwear category has paid us good dividends. The focus for this category and the strategy in treating it independent, as a company of its own within the company, is the strategy that we will be following to try and enhance our penetration levels within the women's Innerwear market.
Okay. So my second question was around sort of gross margins level. Till, I think, a year and a half back, you had a separate disclosure on how you see gross margins, which is a little different to what the reported gross margins were. But I'm sort of just going by what the reported numbers are right now. This year you've seen softness in commodity prices. Your selling price hasn't fallen as much, but gross profits, as the way you've disclosed in exchanges, are actually down on a nine-month basis over the last year. How should we be thinking about gross margins, you know, this year, next year? And if you could just help us understand, how is the gross margin movement been?
I'm not looking at this quarter, just generally nine, nine months versus last nine months. Optically should have, should have improved, but doesn't seem to have improved.
So our product cost, which is a summation of material cost and labor over its, their efficiency. So over the year-to-year basis, we have been gradually seeing our production cost of goods improving or coming down. One, definitely because of fresh fabric that we have involved over the last few months at a lower cost, and also we are able to achieve a significant improvement in efficiency, in our production efficiency. So the new production that has happened over the last few months is at a lower cost, which is reducing our inventory cost per piece. But at the same time, I mean, since we have elevated inventory levels, we are still selling largely from our accumulated inventory.
So the fresh production, which is happening last few months, is gradually getting into our P&L. But a large proportion still remains out of our inventory, which we are already having at a higher cost. So the gross margin levels of 53% that we're looking at is more or less similar to what was there last year on a nine-month basis. But in a quarter-to-quarter basis, you would have seen there's a 1%-1% or so improvement in the gross margin in current quarter. On a sequential basis, quarter to quarter, yes, there is a slight reduction in the reported gross margins more because of we do periodical sales initiatives and sales investments. So that's what affects our reported gross margins quarter to quarter.
But as far as product cost is concerned, the favorable raw material cost and the improved efficiency is gradually benefiting the inventory cost, and it will reflect in better margins going forward.
Okay, thank you. One last question from my side, sir. Given that raw material prices sort of fell towards the last year and are steady, and given where your gross margins are, how do you see the need to take pricing actions over the next sort of two to three quarters? Will be, let prices be where they are, you know, get higher volumes and then tinker with pricing? Or, you know, like past, we are okay taking a pricing, even if sort of commodity prices are not really moving. Just your thoughts around pricing, that'll be great. Thanks.
As of now, as we see, and given the trend in the raw material cost, well, of course, there are inflationary pressures in input costs as well other input costs. But as of now, we don't see any requirement of any price adjustments or price testing for the next month or even next year. But if there is a tremendous increase in the input costs, then we have to rethink our pricing decision. But right now, we don't think we'll be taking any price increase in the near future.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vidisha Sheth from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. Number one is the momentum of EBO addition has also slowed down. So is it only due to number of exclusive women outlets reducing from 78 odd stores to 62, or are we even capping out on the EBO additions scope?
Karthik to you.
I'm sorry, I didn't get the second part of your question. If you don't mind repeating, please.
Sure, sure, sure. So the momentum of EBO addition, which earlier used to be in the range of 40-45 odd stores, it has slowed down to 18 stores for this quarter. So just wanted to clarify that is it due to reduction in the exclusive women outlets, or that's reducing 70 to 62, or are we even capping out on the scope of EBO addition that can happen for us?
Okay. I think we continue to keep pace as far as EBO additions is concerned. There might be a normalization across quarters within a year. We typically target to open anywhere between 150-200 EBOs every year. I don't believe this year will be any different. We are well on par to have 150-200 stores opened in this fiscal as well. As far as the comment on the women's store is concerned, there have been few stores which we've had to consolidate, which were erstwhile operating as two stores adjacent to each other, which we've taken calls to consolidate and bring it under one roof.
So from a mere count point of view, that would reduce from two to one, but as far as physical presence is concerned, that retail area continues to be under the Jockey brand. So you might find some portion of that having an impact on the overall number. But in terms of physical presence, we continue to expand at the rate that I just mentioned.
Yes. Got it. Got it. And the second question was that the in-house manufacturing mix has increased to 80% from the authorized 70%. So which portfolio is it pertaining to?
It is-
What was the current, sorry, capacity utilization as well?
So it is across categories, because our manufacturing capabilities lies across categories. So what we were when the demand was down, the first thing we wanted to do to optimize our operating costs is to spread our assets. And this is the very reason we had outsourcing, so that we can gear up or bring down the capacities based on the demand, and optimize our capacity utilization and manage operating cost. So that's why you saw a percentage increase. So you might have seen a percentage increase in in-house manufacturing instead of outsourcing. So we continue to operate at optimal levels. We are utilizing it as before as before COVID, same levels of around 80% capacity utilization, which is what we are having, and which is pretty healthy as far as apparel industry is concerned.
Got it. Thank you. That's all from my end.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Amar Kalkundrikar from Nippon India Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon, and thanks for the opportunity. So, sir, you shared that overall volume was up about 5% during this quarter. Is this at overall company level, so does Athleisure still continue to be in a sort of heavy decline mode?
Yes, Athleisure comparatively has a higher volume degrowth because it had a much higher base last year, because the demand was very, very-
... on the upside, you know, last year, and compared to that base, you know, it has had the highest impact among all the other categories.
Okay. Secondly, on, sorry to harp on this inventory part again. You shared that there has been a reduction in inventory days of 3 days at overall level when you measure, channel inventory. Is it possible to share how much is the reduction in athleisure day, sort of inventory days? Because that's where the problem has been.
Well, there, the reduction has been more than three days, but, you know, but it, it was highly bloated, so it is still way above the desired levels, and that's where we are working very hard on.
Is it possible to share how, you know, how far to go in the sense, you said that trends are healthy, but we are not at desired level yet. So it is done already. How much more to go, ballpark?
See, at what speed we can actually normalize depends on how demand picks up in the market. If it picks up faster, we can actually correct this much more faster. So how far or how long will it take is dependent on how the market demand improves, and also, at a distributor level, how the mismatches has been. But more or less, I can see, it is coming down the way we, you know, and if this trajectory continues, it will be healthy. But, the main thing, what I can say is, the distributor was blocking his funds at a higher inventory day. So as the inventory days are coming down, it is releasing more money for him to buy meaningful inventory and thereby improve the health of the inventory, which is the most important thing.
That is already started happening, and that will actually help the category to grow in the coming days.
Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Gaurav from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question. So my first question is with regards to, again, the gross margin levels. Sorry, the EBITDA margin levels. Now, if you see the employee cost on an absolute basis, that has actually declined by 9% on a YOY basis. And, you know, this has been quite a trend in the past few quarters as well. So is it the reason because, you know, we have a higher number level of inventory and the production is less, and because of which the employee cost is lower, and probably once the production starts to pick up, we'll see the employee cost coming back?
Not exactly, because now there is also a lot of operational efficiency which has kicked in. We have got smarter in our sourcing. We have our operating overall efficiencies have gone up substantially, and therefore we are able to produce more with less people, and that definitely helps in improving the employee cost. And there have been a lot of other initiatives taken, the operational trend to control overheads, so that is also helping. We have also taken a lot of initiatives to reduce the throughput times, and in fact, we have taken away more than three weeks of the throughput from order to delivery, and this is also helping us. So it is not just because we are producing less. In fact, we continue to produce as before.
As I told some time back, we continue to sweat our assets and utilize our capacity. Whatever reduction has happened has happened, the outsourcing very well. The margin improvement is mainly because of two factors. One is the input costs have softened from where it was before. The raw, that is, the raw material costs. And second is the operational overhead control along with productivity improvements.
Sure, sir. Thank you. And so the next question is with regards to, you know, the athleisure part again. I mean, post-COVID, you know, we have also seen a lot of players also coming into the athleisure segment. And the pricing for those athleisure players, you know, has been very competitive versus what being offered by us. So do you also see an impediment, that being an impediment on clearing the athleisure inventory from the market, apart from the slow demand that we are seeing?
Karthik, you want to take that?
Sure, sir. Well, overall, from a pricing of a product to the value that the product delivers, I believe our products do justice to the MRP that it is commanding, even at a competitive scenario. There has been efforts from the product development team as well as the product management team within Page to make sure that we add more value to the product, keeping the price where it is. So as a value proposition to the consumer, I believe even in a competitive context, Jockey products are there command the price that we charge the consumer.
What has in fact affected or impacted the brand to an extent in the category is the final selling price to the consumer, which over the last few months has been much lower than the stated MRP. This is because of the high level of inventory that all players seem to be carrying, and this is a tactic being employed to flush out inventory. However, like the Managing Director just mentioned, this seem to have been a lot more intensive in the first half of this financial year. We've seen not much evidence of this in quarter three. Yeah, sure, sir. But clarity here that the comment that you said for discounting, that's below MRP, is it for the industry or for us as well? It's largely for the competitive scenario.
We do not encourage discounting of Jockey products either through our exclusive brand store or through the retail partners through which we reach our consumers. Our pricing mechanism already ensures that the affordability is built in in our MRP pricing, so that the consumer sees value in the product. There is no reason for any retailer to pass on discounts out of their earnings to better sales of Jockey products. Sure. And so there's one last bookkeeping question. If you can help us out, what would be the cash balance as of December 2023? As on December 2023, we have around INR 300 crores of cash. Okay, sir. Thank you, and all the best for the future. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ashish Kanodia from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. My first question was on the demand side. So, you know, on the earlier comments, one, you said that, you know, on the accessories side, you know, Page has been kind of aggressive, and then you also talked about athletes are, you know, kind of seeing higher decline during the current quarter. So when you look at the current quarter volume growth of, you know, 4.6%, if you, you know, kind of exclude the accessories, right, so has the innerwear, both women's and men's, have seen any growth, or there has been a decline in that as well?
And second part on the demand trend itself is, you know, within the overall, you know, innerwear and athleisure wear, can you, you know, provide some color in terms of have you seen that the, either the lower price point products or the higher price products are doing good? And also in terms of, especially in case of innerwear, is there are any change or shift in demand where, you know, the, single-piece pack or two-piece packs are doing better versus, say, a three-piece pack? That would be my first question.
Yeah. So demand. We have seen growth across categories. It has been generally good, Q3 from a modest growth point of view, and men's innerwear has also shown growth. And, Karthik, as far as the later part of the question as, single-piece pack, two-piece pack, do you see any trend, which you can add color to? Yeah. So, what we've noticed is, a lot more value-conscious selling is something that we see as, as part of consumer behavior. So I think you had two questions. One is about, whether has there been consistent growth or decline across price points. We do see our premium products, performing better than our economy entry-level products, which kind of, hints towards, consumers being a lot more, value seeking.
This is also corroborated by the multi-pack sales. We do see better performance of multi-packs when compared to single pieces from the past.
Sure, sir. And the second question is, you know, on the competitive intensity side, intensity side. So one is, you know, the sales incentive during the current quarter seems to be on, you know, almost the highest level we have seen in the last 24 quarters. So what led to this higher sales incentive? And secondly, you know, when you talk, you know, you said that during the first of the competitive intensity in terms of discounting, et cetera, was higher versus, you know, the last quarter. Do you believe it could partly also be to do with the fact that even after discounting, given that the overall, you know, sentiment or the market environment is muted, that might be a reason for lower discounting?
Or is there anything else?
It's a function of both. I think, firstly, on the sales incentive bit, I don't believe we've gone disproportionately high. In fact, for quarter three, if you look at it, quarter on quarter would be better in terms of the incentives. Obviously, there are a few seasonal products which sell in quarter three, which for which historically, year after year, there have been sales incentives and schemes attached to it, because of which you will see some level of delta. Other than that, it's not been abnormal to what we've done in the past, either in the same year or in the previous years. Your question on... Sorry, your second question was on?
On why, you know, when you look at the 3Q, you know, discounting.
Yeah, yeah. I think it's a function of two things. One is obviously the demand has been muted, but the other is, like we mentioned earlier, there seems to be a buildup of inventory across the industry. From our understanding, it seems to be a lot more pronounced in competition when compared to our inventory holdings. So it's been seen as a means to, A, try and fuel demand in a way, and also to liquidate high inventories.
... Sure, sir. I'm, I had some clarification on the sales incentive, but maybe I will just take it offline. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Devanshu Bansal from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Sir, there is some level of optimization that we are doing on the general trade side in terms of lower retail outlets, which should, in a way, benefit our EBO channel. So wanted to check what are the like-for-like growth trends for EBOs? If you could sort of provide an outlook here.
Yeah. So the first part of the question, I don't think the channels work in cross purposes or cannibalizes the business. We are very, very careful in our expansion, so we don't believe if the MBOs come down, it will actually boost. Sorry, if the MBOs come down, the EBO business will improve, because we are very, very careful on these aspects of the business. And that has further helped the brand to grow and scale up, and that's also helped each of the channel to coexist and be profitable, not only for us, but for our partners as well. As far as the EBO like-for-like growth is concerned, it has been more or less in line with the overall modest growth we are seeing.
This is where I say the market is not all that fine, because the EBO like-for-like growth is the key indicator as to how demand pick up is, and what the sentiment on the ground is, you know? It has been more or less similar to the kind of modest growth we have recorded for the brand, per se. So it has not been that engaging as far as the EBO like-for-like growth is concerned. This is mainly because of two reasons. The footfalls have reduced generally, and this is something we are now seeing some small improvements. Second is, the basket size has also come down, so people are buying only what they need, and they are not buying all that what they see.
So in that sense, the consumers have tightened their belt. As I told you, you know, there has been much more spent on the luxury segments, and there has been quite a lot of easy loans which has come in, and the EMIs have gone up. So, these spends have become tighter, and, we are looking forward to how the interest rates are going to be in the coming months, and how, especially IT sector, how the increments are going to be, and how the employment pickup is going to happen in the coming months. Because the long-term story on all these aspects are positive. The economy is growing at a very healthy pace. So these are transient period or temporary phases, but we are keeping a close watch on these aspects.
All right, sir. Secondly, economy players are quite optimistic on front loading of growth in Q4 due to an early Eid this time around. But such commentary, your commentary, is not indicative of such trends. What is the reason for this?
Well, you know, we are going by what our demand planning team, they are very close to the ground, and they sense the market, and we are going by that. Of course, Eid does help. So those are factored in all Q4 budgets are concerned. We do consider all that, you know, and I don't think it will... Those growths will be in line with what it was in the past, because generally it's subdued. So I don't think it will be as high as it was before.
Okay. Just one bookkeeping question on what was the e-commerce growth specifically for Q3?
We have recorded a 28% growth. So that has been a very, very healthy growth for us.
This is for specifically for Q3 or for nine months?
For the year.
Yes, for the year it was 28%. For Q3, it's around 39%.
Thirty-nine?
Yeah.
Okay, got it, sir. Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, we will take this as the last question for the day. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Deepanjan for the closing comments.
Thanks again. Thanks everybody for joining. This was quite insightful, insightful discussion, so we look forward to further interactions with all of you. Thank you.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Page Industries Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.