Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 on FY25 earnings conference call of Pidilite Industries Limited, hosted by ICICI Securities. 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. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Arun Baid from ICICI Securities. Thank you and over to you, sir. We do not have the line for Arun, so we will just connect him back. Mr. Arun, you are connected. You may proceed.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I welcome you all to the Q4 FY25 and FY25 conference call of Pidilite Industries. From the management side, we have Mr. Sudhanshu Vats, Managing Director; Mr. Kavinder Singh, Joint Managing Director; Mr. Sandeep Batra, ED and CFO; and Mr. Kavinder Lodha, Senior Vice President. Now I hand over the call to Mr. Batra for the opening remarks, then we'll have the forum open for questions and answers. Over to you, Mr. Batra.
Thank you. Thank you and good evening and welcome everybody to our fourth quarter full-year earnings call. I'll quickly give you the highlights of the performance and the financial results which were approved by our board yesterday. I'll quickly cover the fourth quarter performance and start with the standalone performance. The quarter's standalone revenue growth was 10.2%. We've reached double-digit revenue growth despite having had very strong UVG in the earlier quarters. This 10.2% top line was underpinned by underlying volume growth of 9.8% across categories and geographies. The consumer and bazaar underlying volume growth was 8%, which improved sequentially. The B2B segment continued to report strong UVG, and in the quarter, clocked 16.4%. Our gross margins improved both sequentially as well as year over year, primarily driven by soft input prices.
VAM consumption in the quarter was at around $880 a ton, preserving $925 a ton in Q4 last year. For reference, in Q3, it was $884 a ton. As we had mentioned earlier, we stepped up our advertising and sales promotion spend to drive demand generation. In Q4, they were at 5.4% to sales versus 4.7% in Q4 last year. Our EBITDA margins remained in line with the fourth quarter at 20.6%. Profit before tax and exceptional items grew by 30.8% over the same period last year. Some of that is also led by dividends from our subsidiaries. Therefore, when I comment on the consolidated results, you will probably get a more representative picture. If you would recall last year, in the fourth quarter, in the standalone results, there was an exceptional gain of INR seven crores due to a share buy-back of our Pidilite USA subsidiary.
There was, of course, a divestment of our subsidiary in Brazil. This year, however, there is an exceptional loss of INR 20 crores, largely on account of impairment of loan to an associate entity. The board also had its meeting yesterday, recommended our dividend of INR 20 per share, subject, of course, to approval by the shareholders at the forthcoming AGM. Our domestic subsidiaries reported double-digit sales growth in the quarter. EBITDA growth was also double-digit. Sales, however, of our international subsidiaries were kind of flat relative to Q4 last year, largely on account of festive holidays in March, largely on account of Eid festival. Many of our subsidiaries had a lot of holidays in the month of March, which would have, to some extent, impacted revenue growth. Quickly commenting on the consolidated performance, revenue for the quarter was INR 3,130 crores.
On a comparable basis, that is excluding the revenues of the Brazilian subsidiary, which was in the base last year, the growth is 9.5% over Q4 last year. EBITDA before non-operating income grew by 9.7%, and profit before tax and before exceptional items grew by 20.7% at consolidated level. Profit after tax shows a growth of 40.5%, largely because last year there was an exceptional loss of INR 72 crores on account of divestment of the business in Brazil. In the current year, the exceptional loss is INR 25 crores, as mentioned earlier, mainly on account of impairment of loan and investment in an associate company. Quickly looking at the performance for the full year, at a standalone level, revenues at INR 12,023 crores are higher by 8.1%, underpinned by a UVG of 9.3%, with consumer and bazaar growing for the full year at 7.2% and B2B at 19.2%.
Gross margins expanded by 254 basis points, and EBITDA margins expanded by 70 basis points. Our domestic subsidiaries and international subsidiaries all reported growth and improvement in profitability. As a result, the consolidated revenue for the year was INR 13,094 crores, higher by 7.6%, again after adjusting the business in Brazil, which had been divested in March last year. EBITDA for the full year was INR 3,013 crores, higher by 11.3%. PBT higher by 16.2%, and PAT for the year at INR 2,096 crores was up by 20% over last year. With this, I'll hand over the call for any questions that the participants may 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 your touchtone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Abneesh Kumar Roy from Nuvama. You may proceed. Hello, sir.
Yeah, yeah. Sorry, sorry. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question from the demand side. In the Q4 call, almost all the FMCG companies and even Asian Paints yesterday, FY26 outlook in terms of the volume growth, overall demand side, they have said that FY26 will be better than FY25. In your case, in the Q3 call, you had said that in Gujarat and some pockets of Andhra Pradesh, Hyderabad, etc., real estate, there was some tightness in the demand side. If I take that and given you have already done quite well in FY25, it's a reasonably high base. In your case, you think these robust numbers of high single-digit kind of volume growth or, say, double-digit kind of sales growth, is that looking possible in FY26 when I combine all this?
Hi, Abneesh. First of all, I think good to hear from you and always consistent in keeping your record on being number one on the block. Thank you. It's indeed our pleasure sort of to hear from you. I think, like the others have commented, see the demand scenario. Let me look at it like this. Consumer demand, in a pristine sense, in a normal environment, is continuing to look good. We completely echo what you have been hearing from others. In our case, we are also seeing that the trust of the government on government spending, we believe, will be stronger in FY26 because the elections are behind us. Last year, there was that national election and some others. Therefore, that effect will flow through, in our opinion.
I think, second consecutive good monsoon, which is what has been predicted, will further add to this. From a consumer demand point of view, we remain quite consistent. We have always said, Abneesh, that we will deliver double-digit profitable underlying volume growth. That is something we will continue on. We are on this thread list. The base has got no major effect on it. I think we have delivered a good FY25, but that does not mean that FY26 should not be or will not be equally good. In all of this, as I am speaking to you, we are in some kind of slightly, we are in a very unprecedented macro environment, both from a geopolitical sense and also from a global economic sense. Now, the big question for FY26 is, what is the longevity of this uncertainty and unpredictability?
If this is short-lived, about 30 days-40 days, maybe even a month or two max, then I think the year would perhaps play out to the fundamental consumer demand. If this is extended, then the impact of this is something which we've not factored in and will be very different, in our opinion.
Sure. The geopolitical risk applies to everyone. That's the point well taken. One follow-up on this, on the weakness in Gujarat and Hyderabad markets in real estate, which you had pointed last time, is there any reversal? Are there more pockets in the country where this issue seems to be coming up?
These specific places, it's eased out a little bit. That's fair. It's also reflected in our overall numbers for the quarter. Quarter four, if you look at it, which we've reported, our urban growth has been much better than what they were in the past. Although, like we have maintained, our rural growths are still ahead of urban growth. That piece remains consistent. Our urban growth, especially for quarter four, are much better. This is, again, from a data point of view, also quite consistent to the observation you had made earlier.
Thanks. My second question is on the slightly different thing I'm seeing in terms of your cost item. For example, in Q4, again, most consumer companies, staff cost is almost stagnant on YoY basis. If I see BSE 500 also, Q4 and earlier quarter also, there's just 5% inflation in terms of the staff cost. In your case, is there any one-off? 21% of YoY, 5% of quarter on quarter, is there any one-off in staff cost?
Yeah, yeah. There is some about INR 17 crores with kind of year-end adjustment that has happened that has kind of flowed into the fourth quarter. That's not going to get repeated.
Is it ESOP adjustment or what adjustment is it?
A lot of it is ESOP. Some of it is actuarial valuation of our retirement benefit. Some of it is true-up of whatever is the performance-linked compensation that we pay off. We have to all true it up in March, right? The previous quarter is all estimated. All of it gets trued up in March. This year, we've got a one-time kind of a charge of about INR 17 crores. If you adjust that, the manpower cost will be same as third quarter.
Sir, last quick question. So essentially, coming back to the tariffs, Pidilite has always been ahead of the curve in terms of new demand generation. Now, U.S. itself is saying that most of the Apple phones will be manufactured in India eventually. So with your optimism on opportunity from adhesives in phone manufacturing, would that get bolstered versus, say, six months back because of the developments? We do not know the tariff eventually where it will pan out. But based on the current understanding and comments for U.S. itself, would you say that the opportunity longer term becomes stronger here? I am not talking about this quarter or this year. I know these are things which take time. But is it looking better?
Yeah, Abneesh, I think we talked about this in the past also. We recognize the electronics, EV, and maybe moving forward, semiconductor opportunity in India. We've recognized that in the past. We are very confident of being able to sort of make good of that opportunity, and we are working towards that. I think on the very specific question on how tariffs will play out and how much of that will shift, I think I would still wait and watch a little bit because I think we've got to see this. Therefore, the way I would respond is that we were bullish on this opportunity. We had recognized this opportunity already. If this opportunity becomes even better opportunity, we will be better placed to exploit that. I think that's what I would say.
Sure. Thank you. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nitin Shakdher from Green Capital Single Family Office. You may proceed.
Hi, good afternoon. Management, for another steady set of good results. My question is more forward-looking, so please answer it in the present to the best possible that you can. Now, we've seen many large industrial players and consumers, paints and wires, wires and cables, and paints specifically, and that's hit the margins of the larger dominant companies. Now, whether it's Asian Paints or Havells, who already have a lot of market share. Now, is there any future risk mitigation plan that the company is working on which sort of tells them that what should they do in case a larger industrial house were to enter the races? Just wanted to get a management sense on how we're working in the future because it might happen in the future. We don't know when, but it might. Just wanted to get a sense of that.
Just more as an investor rather than an analyst.
Yeah, Nitin, I think thanks for raising this question. I think this question has been asked of us earlier as well, especially in some one-on-one conversations. I think the way to look at Pidilite, and I'll answer it in two stages. One, explain a little bit of how we think you should be or others should look at Pidilite, which is a little different. Two, is to your specific question on what more are we doing to sort of strengthen our position and make this eventuality less likely, if at all it should happen. Now the question is, first of all, Pidilite, unlike many of the players sometimes we get compared to, is far more diversified even today. When we talk of Pidilite, we obviously and very rightly talk of us as an adhesives company and as Fevicol, which is our flagship brand.
We are indeed very proud of both our presence in the segment and, of course, Fevicol as a brand. I think our portfolio is now far more diversified. This piece is less than a third of our portfolio. Our portfolio has a very strong construction chemical coming in and growing very rapidly as we speak to you. Our portfolio has expansion in the area of projects and services where we've demonstrated very good growth in the past seven odd quarters. Our portfolio also has progressively renewed industrial product thrust. Abneesh's previous question on electronic adhesive was also pointed in that direction. Our portfolio is far more diversified compared to any of the others you've spoken about.
Also, the sheer size of the business, even if you were to take a part of our portfolio, which is adhesives, is not as big or arguably, especially from a size point of view, as attractive as it can be for some other sectors. Thirdly, I think we strongly believe that our brands are far far stronger than some of the branded names that are talked about, maybe with the exception of one or two. Fevicol, as we have said repeatedly, is a consumer brand, and it's only for India is perhaps the only country where Fevicol gets mentioned in the top 10 consumer brands across categories. It's a part of the cultural lingo. The strength of the brand per se is, in our judgment, disproportionate to the comparisons that get made.
Having said all of this, I think what we as a company are going to steadfastly do, which is up to us, and we are going to continue to work on that, is to continue to further diversify our portfolio, strengthen our portfolio, both from the point of view of product category diversification, but also as we go forward in the form of geographical diversification and growth of international business. As the company grows, the richness of our portfolio and the diversity of our portfolio, in some ways, is going to always be a strong indemnity or a strong insurance, if I can use the word, to any likely such move.
Okay. Thanks. My follow-up question on that is, it's extremely clear that you have already anticipated the risk, and probably the management is working on a strategy or a vision that if a risk like that were to happen, you will be able to counter it. My follow-up question is, is there any feedback on the ground from, let's say, the larger distributors, the business-to-business business, or the business-to-consumer business, that what can the company do in terms of innovations that has probably not done before? I mean, it's very tough to change products overnight, but strategy at the management can look into working with innovative ways of trying to control the larger market share. If that risk were to happen, you probably lose out a lot lesser.
Yeah. This is one thing in which we, as a company, Pidilite, one of our strengths is actually listening to feedback continuously from the market, from stakeholders. When I say market, I mean our dealers, our users, which is applicators and all, consumers where it is relevant, and so on and so forth, and all partners. It is a very consistent and continuous stream. We continuously keep listening to this. We continuously keep working on that. I think, therefore, that is something which we've been doing all along. If you look at, to just give you one or two examples, I think the way we look at, keep looking at innovations and premiumization. If you look at our Fevicol flagship brand, I think our premium most portfolio, the most premium offering now, which is called Fevicol Hyperstar, is doing very well indeed.
These things come out of that. Also, from substrate point of view, we have something called a multi-substrate Fevicol called Fevicol Nature Ultra, which is actually a different chemistry, by the way, but it's applicable to multiple substrates. That's doing exceedingly well. It's growing very well as I speak to you. We've also introduced something called Fevicol Relamp, which is basically you can, in India, lamination is a very, very prevalent habit on and that. Your ability to now sort of laminate over a laminate kind of stuff, so product helping you with that. Just a few examples I give you to give a tangible feel. We keep looking at a lot of these things, again, within the context of adhesives and woodworking, the entire movement from onsite to offsite. We've been cognizant of that. We've built a very strong offsite team called Joinery Team.
Our shares are strong there. Our profitability is good there. We are very cognizant of a lot of these things which are happening. We remain vigilant, attentive, and proactive in many of these areas.
Great. Actually, my one follow-up is that the company is proactive and innovative. Now, I understand that cybersecurity is not a core business of the company, but you have multiple plants running logistics. Is the company working to tackle concerns about cybersecurity if tomorrow we are living in an information world, and if tomorrow we think that some other risk might come in? Any thoughts from the management? Any discussions on that? I know it is not connected to the main business, but I always worry about companies that are not looking at cybersecurity for their operations.
Nitin, you are absolutely right. This is not our main business, but I have always maintained all companies are technology companies. That is, it is Pidilite. I think cybersecurity has been top of our agenda from a risk management point of view now, not for this year, but for arguably two or three years. We have a dedicated small team as well. We have a very competent person looking after this. We have partnerships with the best in the country in order to make sure that we are ahead of the game on cybersecurity as well.
Okay. Great. Thanks a lot, Sudhanshu, and all the rest of the management. And Jayakant.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Jayakumar Doshi from Kotak Securities. You may proceed.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Crude prices have come up quite a bit in the last one month. Crude price and raw material basket, and what percentage of raw material basket do you think will have a deflationary tailwind?
Hi. Good evening, Jay. A large proportion of our products are indeed derivatives from crude, but all of them do not have a linear price in the short term with crude. I think it is something that one has to wait and watch as to how the overall demand supply, inflation, currency, how all these variables play out. Certainly, the fact that crude prices have cooled off is a very positive sign for us. We have not seen immediate transmission of it. VAM remains at the levels that we consumed in the fourth quarter. I think it is wait and watch, but certainly, the signs are, I would say, positive.
Wonderful. Do you think this year could be a year where, on pricing perspective, it could be a deflationary year? Or at this point of time, it's too early to sort of tell?
There are too many moving parts ready to trigger to hazard any risk at this stage. We'll take it as it comes.
Wonderful. Second question is B2B segment has been consistently well for a few quarters now. From the high base, do you still think that this is a business where low- to mid-teens kind of growth is sustainable for maybe two, three years?
Yes, yes. The short answer is yes. I also have Kavinder now who directly looks after this, and we've sort of formed a division called Pidilite Professional Solutions, which is going to specifically be targeting at this opportunity. We remain very confident, but I would request Kavinder to also elaborate on this to give you a little bit more context and flavor on how we are progressing.
Thanks, Sudhanshu. Just to build on your question, I think we are seeing a fairly large opportunity in the construction sector. As you know, we are already present through multiple brands, whether it is Dr. Fixit, then we have a floor coating brand, Dr. City, then we have tile adhesive solutions through Roff. What we are realizing is that there is an opportunity to tap into this larger sector by going in an integrated way to the architects and structural consultants. That is what, when Subhanshu talked about Pidilite Professional Solutions, this is what it is all about.
We want to make a big move in this area so that we are able to get ourselves specified in various segments, whether it is residential, whether it is commercial, within commercial hotels, hospitals, education institutions, as well as the EPC contractors, the big EPC contractors through which we will be participating or rather already participating in the government and infra projects. We believe that the professional solutions, which are more in the nature of construction system solutions, which are needed by various players, have to be addressed in an integrated manner rather than selling products through multiple verticals, which we continue to do. This is going to be a bit of a, let's say, as we speak, we are moving in this direction. Eventually, our idea is to also tap these segments in a manner in which even the go-to-market strategy is sort of around the segment.
We believe that the opportunity is tremendous, and we are confident that as long as this cycle of construction upswing, which is on right now, almost in all the segments, and you can track that through the growth in even cement consumption, the number of hotels that are getting constructed, the number of new hospitals that are coming up. There seems to be an opportunity to be leveraged by Pidilite's strengths that we have with regards to our R&D and our solutioning approach that we are taking. If you have any follow-up question, I can take it up. Otherwise, I am handing it back to.
Yes. I do have a follow-up. Look, you gave a very good overview of your business at the investor day earlier this year. What I'm not too sure about is, from a classification perspective, INR 3,000 crores top line for B2B business in FY 2025, what are the big areas? How do you break up that INR 3,000 crores into sort of because earlier, there used to be pigment business. There is industrial adhesives. There must be something else. If you could give us some color.
Yeah. So our B2B has basically, you could divide that into three subgroups. One is your business of waterproofing that we sell to projects.
That's Nina Percept.
It has Nina Percept, which is an application company. However, we also have product supplies that go to these projects. Nina does apply and supply. We have a business which is into pigment and pigment preparations. We have an industrial adhesives business, which also makes industrial intermediates. We do not specifically share the revenues of each of the segments. There are these three categories. The projects business, which Kavinder spoke about, is largely India-led and is riding on the back of an upswing in construction activity. The pigment business has large exports out of India, and that has done well. The big customers of that business will be paint and ink companies. We have industrial adhesives, which supply to a wide variety of end-use industry.
Understood. That's helpful. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, if you would like to remind participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Avi from Macquire. You may proceed.
Yeah. Hi, team. Hello. Am I audible?
Yeah, yeah. You are audible, yeah.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Sir, I just wanted to get in if you could share any update on the paints and lending business. You had indicated you might kind of think about sharing that towards March, and would love to hear any update over there, sir.
Yeah, yeah. Two, I would like to call them intermediate updates if I can, but I will give you context and flavor on both. Let me first start with the lending piece, the part. I think this question keeps coming up. I think two, three things, and I said this earlier as well, but just want to make it very clear, Avi. The question to ask is, what business are we in? The business we are in here, and while it is classified as lending business, that's correct. The business we are in is to actually strengthen our applicators or our dealers with ability of finance in order to ensure that they are optimally able to grow. Therefore, our focus will continue to remain our ecosystem defined as our large contractors, contractors, or dealers. Therefore, that's the first key part.
I just want to reiterate that because that's very important. We are not doing the classic lending, lending business. We said this earlier. I'm just repeating it. In Bangalore, where we've done this project, we are making good progress. On all parameters, we are making good progress. Like many pilots, and in a classic Pidilite way, while the progress is good, we still feel that we need to stay there. We feel that we need to fine-tune it. We feel that we need to therefore continue to cross the T's and dot the I's on the playbook, develop modules, and then look forward. Making progress, focused on our own stakeholders, our own ecosystem, more specifically our dealers and contractors and so on and so forth. We have very good understanding of these guys. We have deep relationships. We broadly understand their financial capability as well.
I think that's the piece on Bangalore. Progressing well, and therefore, this piece is progressing reasonably well. I think on the paints part, again, as you are aware, we are in the five states of largely in the south. We normally call that Tao- TK, and taking the liberty of sharing some acronyms with you, which is basically this is your Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, and now TK being Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. We have been there in Tao- TK. We are making good steady progress. We are growing quarter on quarter. We are indeed growing month on month. We are very keen to continue to evaluate at a micro level like-for-like growth. We want to develop a very fundamental understanding on how we're doing with dealers, big dealers, dealers where we have printing machines, contractors, so on and so forth. That work is happening.
Here again, like I said to you for the earlier piece, we think that we need to do more work to develop our fundamental hypothesis of doing things in a very Pidilite way and demand generation piece. That work is again happening. We believe while we make good progress, and most of the companies would say that this is good sales progress, we are ahead. Pidilite is going to sort of, we are going to again continue to fine-tune our playbook. We want to be sure that we have got our demand generation, particularly our demand generation playbook right, and very, very, very critically important for Pidilite, as you know, for most of the other things. We are working on that piece as well. Once we have that, we will look at further extension, and we will come back to you.
We are making very good progress even on Haisha, and we are going, sort of, we are basically going in these places, we are delivering strong progress sequentially as well.
Okay, sir. And sir, any size targets, anything you would want to kind of share for the forum or not too early?
No. I think that is something which has been shared earlier as well. I think, frankly, I think it may be a little bit premature to share the size, but I'll tell you the philosophy. The philosophy is simple. Philosophy is that we will be focused, at least to begin with, and for a considerable period of time, on what is called rural and small-town India, which is basically your rural and small-town India. We want to be an important player in rural and small-town India. That is the measure we are keeping ourselves. Are we getting there? Are we in the consideration set of the dealers? Are we getting the recall from the consumers? Are we getting demand in these places? This is the work which we are working. Once we get a little bit more this thing, we will work on numbers.
Again, Pidilite numbers follow. I think once we get this thing right, hopefully, numbers will follow, and we'll be in a position, Avi, to even share some more with you.
Thank you. That's very clear. Sir, my second, just a clarification, and please correct if my understanding is right. The key risk in assuming that Q4 is a reasonable guide on what we can see panning out in FY 2026, which is the cautious for you, is the longer period of geopolitical linked uncertainty. Is that the right understanding? Otherwise, we have seen two quarters of good growth. I am just trying to better appreciate why should we not at least build in Q4 as a reasonable expectation on growth going forward on sales. Thank you, sir.
That's a good point, Avi. Let me again, I think this came up in some of my early morning discussions also. I think when we say cautiously optimistic, let me sort of break it up into two. We remain optimistic on fundamental consumer demand, which I think has been strengthening in the earlier piece when the demand was a little sluggish. We managed to deliver a double-digit underlying volume growth. We remain confident that we will and can deliver double-digit underlying volume growth in the pristine consumer demand sense. As we enter FY 2026, as I was saying in, I think, the first question, which was asked, these are unprecedented times. The geopolitical situation and also the global economic situation is very uncertain and very unpredictable in that sense. Therefore, the cautiousness is coming around largely from there this time.
I wish my answer answers your question.
No, no. That answers the question. Sorry. Sorry. Is there anything?
No. Absolutely. That's what I'm saying. I hope that answers your question.
No. Perfect, sir. Thank you very much. That's all from my side. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Saurabh Kundan from Goldman Sachs. You may proceed.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I hope I'm audible.
Yes, you are.
Yeah. Yeah. My question is, how much cover do we generally carry on our raw materials? Just trying to see what is the lag with which we start seeing benefits of crude production. Related to that is, when R&C does go down for you, let's say at some point, can you take a gross margin expansion from here? Or gross margin, you think, is at a good level now?
I think overall, let me answer your question. Overall, we would have about 60-75 days cover in terms of raw materials. That will become slightly higher when you also add the finished goods inventory that we keep. In terms of the reaction, if input costs do soften, it's something that we don't react on a day-to-day basis to movements in cost. We will look at what is the longer term or a medium-term outlook on input costs and accordingly take a call. I mean, if you would recall from October 2023, from the time when input costs actually started to go down, we would have taken price adjustments, which is why you would have seen that our revenue growth would have lagged underlying volume growth, and there has been EBITDA margin expansion.
I think when input costs correct, it all depends on the magnitude and the duration. We will take a very judicious call at that time because we are very careful that we do not want to pocket all the gains and suddenly make our category very attractive for competition to enter via the back door.
Right. Thank you very much. That's all.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Nitin Jain from Fairview Invest. You may proceed.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. Given that the government is giving a lot of priority to electronics manufacturing in the country, can you share the opportunity size that we can see in adhesives used in electronics assembly? My next question is, if you can elaborate more on the Caltech partnership and how Pidilite stands to benefit. Thank you. Those are my two questions.
Yeah. Nitin, I think the two are related questions. I think let me just tell you. Therefore, I think in terms of market size estimation for electronic adhesives, I think if I was to give you a broad number, and I'm trying to give you a broad number of the market size for electronic adhesives moving forward, because I tell you this electronics manufacturing also needs to be contextualized. A lot of the time when we say electronics manufacturing, many times it is just assembly. If it is assembly, then the use of adhesives is much less. As we keep getting into more and more manufacturing, including the motherboard, the other pieces, and so on and so forth, electronic adhesives really kicks in. I think it will progressively build.
Our understanding is that this business could be a billion-dollar market by 2030, to give you a ballpark number. I'm talking about electronic adhesive opportunity. Having said that, this is also a very complex business because there are multiple parts in each component, and then there are multiple products, and then there's, of course, EV, and in future, some silicons and all that stuff. In mobile itself, different models, and iPads, laptops, all of that. There are multiple moving parts in this. What happens is that there are fewer companies that are specialized in individual areas. Each company specialized in individual areas. There aren't many companies or any companies, if I could use the word. Definitely not many companies which will perhaps have the full spectrum, point number one.
Point number two is that even when you have this, classically, for any vendor-client partnership or relationship, there will be multiple people who will be there. Therefore, in that context, that naturally flows to my second question, which is that we've now partnered with Caltech. As we speak to you, we are their official exclusive distributor for this part of the world, for India as a territory. I think that is progressing well. In this business, you have to start with specifications, then that period goes for some time, then you have a bunch of specified, some more sampling and trials, and then you get into commercial. As I speak to you, we've managed to get a few commercial orders, so that has started.
As I speak to you, we are in constant touch with all the important contract manufacturers and EMSs, Electronic Manufacturing Services companies, as they are called. They are the ones who put all of this together in some form or the other for various brands. We are making good progress. It is a pioneering business. It is going to take time. We have full intent to play in it, and we are building it block by block.
Thank you. That's very helpful. Just if I can add a follow-up to that. Most of the applications would be within mobile phones, or is it spread across mobile phones, televisions, etc.?
No, no. It's spread all across. Mobile phones is larger. It tends to be, but it depends on, again, our product portfolio, and I'm not going to talk about that at the moment. It's not only product profile. It's spread. Not only mobile phones. It's wearables. So you have been thinking only electronics in one direction, but you have all your wearables which come in, which are actually, by the way, India may be a larger market because of the presence of boots and all that in that. Of course, wearables again. India is again a pretty large market for a certain set of wearable products. It's a pretty large gap. It's very interesting, but it's reasonably complicated is what I want to tell you.
Thank you. Thanks for the clarification.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Latika Chopra from JP Morgan. You may proceed.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question was regarding some color on the underlying volume growth for some of your new forays, or relatively new forays. One is the metal, and the other is water wood finishes. Also, if you can give some flavor on how waterproofing volume growth trends have behaved versus a 7%-8% volume growth that we have clocked for consumers and bazaar for FY 2025. If you could also share some color on how you expect these growth rates to trend going forward?
Yeah. Latika, thanks for the question, and we'll give you some indication. I've not followed. The first thing was I understood waterproofing, which you said later. What is the other one you wanted? What is waterproofing?
Tile adhesives, Roff, basically.
Tile adhesives.
That's being offered.
Latika, as you very well know, the way we define our growth categories, and there is a broad distinct. We say 2x-4x of the real GDP number. I am happy to share with you that tile adhesives a little bit more than Dr. Fixit, construction chemicals. Both of these growth brands and categories are delivering to that range. Therefore, you know, we are happy with that. When we say here, as Kavinder was explaining to you earlier, especially in the case of Dr. Fixit, but arguably for both brands, we take the full spectrum. We are talking about what you would call retail or bazaar for our business projects and so on and so forth. It is a full spectrum of these product categories in for Pidilite. They are both delivering in that zone, Roff a little ahead of Dr.
Fixit, as you would expect in terms of growth. Our understanding is that this trajectory will continue. We are quite confident of that. Kavinder spoke to that on how we are looking at this piece, and therefore, more enablers, more go-to-market, more specific go-to-market structural interventions, which we are doing, which should help us deliver that. Therefore, momentum on both of these should continue moving forward as well, in our opinion.
Sure. The second question was on your rural retail expansion strategy. If you could give us some color on what kind of number you landed FY 2025 on PKD, and what kind of growth plans you have there. Thank you.
Yeah. PKDs, we have continuously been expanding, and I think even in this quarter, we've further expanded. We've actually closed the year, if I could use that, and we shared that number, so I'm happy to share that again. It's about 16,500 PKDs now, basically, which are close to just under 1,000 added even in this quarter. We continuously keep making that. I think the way to look at expansion or distribution, Latika, is three areas. One is that PKD momentum will continue, but the other area where, because of our trust on construction chemicals, you will also see us looking at what we call the DSCs or Dr. Fixit centers. We'll do a lot more work in that space as well. That will continue.
I think thirdly, both for these DSCs and PKDs, the terms which we have used which all of you are familiar with, we will also look at qualitatively how do we take them to the next level. It's not just numbers, but it is what are we doing with these, and therefore, as the village where it is there tends to mature or become bigger or as the demand continues to grow, how do we make these better? We may use terms like super PKD, blah, blah, and all that. That is the stuff which will continue. Our expansion journey continues both quantitatively from numbers point of view, but equally and more importantly, qualitatively from what we do there, how do we use that real estate more and more effectively for us.
Understood. Range throughput for outside also is going to be a key factor here.
Yes. Range throughput, and also the demand generation activities, multiple things.
Is there a way you want to measure what's the salience of the revenue generated from these stores? Is it a very meaningful number?
We do not share that. I think, of course, we do measure all the productivity measures which are needed for this and how it should be effective.
Fair enough. All right. Thank you so much and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tejas Shah from Avendus Spark. You may proceed.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions pertaining to Haisha. Just wanted to understand our go-to-market strategy, especially when the incumbents are complaining that the cost of shelf has actually gone up because of the competitive intensity. How are we kind of going about it? Second, what scale or repeat purchase trigger or channel readiness would you be confident to take Haisha Pan India? What are the key triggers that we are monitoring for that rollout?
It's a very good question, Tejas, but I must also tell you, if I disclose all of this, I think in the current environment, we are not going to be able to talk about any of this. I think the question broadly, and maybe at the risk of not repeating myself, and I talked about it in some detail, see, we are looking at how to progress this in a different way. First of all, when you come at it from the competitive intensity in urban India, we don't approach this from that point of view as of now. I think we look at it from growing demand in rural and small-town India. Is there a little bit of interplay because of the competitive intensity in this sector at this moment? The answer is yes. There is a little bit of interplay. You don't live in isolation.
I think that's the reason that we want to continue to fine-tune this as we go forward. I think we are approaching it, Tejas, very differently from the conventional piece. We are approaching it more from how would we be? We have to keep asking the question on what is our license to play and right to win. Our license to play is broadly there because from the point of view of our portfolio, our availability deep down, and we've spoken about that, the way we reach out to some of these places. Our right to win needs to be sharpened, and we need to be very clear on that, and we're continuously working on that piece. As I said, and maybe just a quick repetition, from the point of view of numbers, I think we are making good, satisfactory progress.
Our numbers are growing quarter on quarter, month on month. We are making progress. That is the good news. From the point of view of whether when are we ready to scale it up to the full level, I do not think we are ready at this moment. We need more work to be done. That is what I spoke about earlier as well.
Perfect. Very clear, sir. Thanks and all the best for coming forward.
Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
No, thank you very much. I would like to thank each of them who joined the call for their continued interest in Pidilite. Thank you very much. Have a good evening.
On behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.