Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Pidilite Industries Q2 FY 2020 earnings conference call hosted by Ambit Capital. 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 and zero on your touch-tone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Prateek Maheshwari from Ambit Capital. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Maheshwari.
Thank you, Karuna. Good afternoon, everyone. On the behalf of Ambit Capital, I would like to welcome you to the Pidilite Industries 2Q FY 2020 earnings call. From the management, we have with us Mr. Apurva Parekh. We'll start with the initial comments on the results, and later we'll open the lines for Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Prateek. Good afternoon, everyone. This quarter has seen moderation of top-line growth as a result of the challenging market conditions, liquidity crunch, as well as prolonged monsoon and attendant disruption. While gross margins have improved substantially due to softer input costs, higher advertising and sales promotion costs due to phasing in this quarter saw EBITDA at the same level as last year. For the first half, consolidated net sales grew at 7%, while EBITDA has grown at 8%, and profit after tax excluding exceptional items by 36%. While we expect demand conditions to improve in the new year, we remain focused on driving volume growth enabled by investments in brand building, capability, and growth in small towns in rural India. I will begin with a summary of the financial performance for the quarter and half year ended September 2019 for standalone business.
Net sales grew by 4% over the same quarter last year, with underlying sales volume and mix growth of 1%. This was driven by 13% growth in sales volume and mix of industrial products and decline of 1% in sales volume and mix of Consumer & Bazaar products. Net sales for the half year grew by 7% over the same period. Gross margins improved by 4% over the same quarter last year and by 2% over the preceding quarter. The current spot price of our major raw material, that is vinyl acetate monomer, is around $890 as compared to quarter two consumption cost of around $901. EBITDA before non-operating income grew by 1% over the same quarter last year on account of higher A&SP spend due to phasing in this quarter. EBITDA growth excluding A&SP spend in both quarters would be around 11%. EBITDA for half year grew by 9%.
Profit after tax grew by 33% over the same quarter last year. Profit after tax grew by 49%, excluding exceptional items and dividend income from subsidiaries and effect of tax thereon in previous corresponding quarter. Effective tax rate for the quarter has reduced from 33% to 7.5% due to reduction in corporate tax rate and remeasurement of deferred tax liability. During the quarter, the company has decided to sell plant and machinery included in capital work in process pertaining to synthetic elastomer project and accordingly disclose the same as asset held for sale at its fair value of INR 38 crores after providing for impairment loss of INR 22 crores as disclosed in exceptional item. I will move to a summary of the financial performance on consolidated business. Consolidated net sales grew by 3%. EBITDA before non-operating income marginally declined by 0.6%.
Profit after tax grew by 41% and excluding the exceptional item grew by 49%, mainly on account of reduction in tax rates by the government. I will talk briefly about the subsidiaries. The domestic subsidiaries performance, particularly in Nina Percept and CP, continue to face a challenging market conditions in wake of economic slowdown in real estate, auto, and engineering industry, resulting in adverse demand and liquidity conditions. This was further accentuated by prolonged monsoon in many regions. EBITDA growth in AICA is on account of improved margin due to scaled-up local manufacturing and ForEx gains. In case of international subsidiaries in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Thailand have reported good sales growth. EBITDA growth in Bangladesh subsidiary is lower than sales growth due to investment in new manufacturing facility.
Sargot, a division of Pidilite, and Pulvitec, Brazil, reported sales and EBITDA growth for consecutive quarters, mainly due to growth in key products and customers. The subsidiaries in Egypt reported decline in sales growth for the quarter due to competitive pressures and market conditions. We can now open up for the questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, 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 mute answers while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Thank you. The first question is from the line of Ratnesh Roy from Edelweiss. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks. My first question is on the Consumer Bazaar volume growth domestic. Last three quarters, we have seen a significant slowdown. Q4 was 4%, then Q1 6%, then -1%. My question is, from Q1 to Q2, why is there a marked deterioration? We have not seen the same level of deterioration in a lot of the other consumer staple companies. From plus six, you are down to minus one within a quarter. Do you see this kind of a slowdown continuing in Q3 also?
I think we should not read too much into quarter to quarter. Last year, we had impact of some price increases. Last year, we had couple of price increases, so to that some extent it distorts the growth rate from quarter to quarter. Going forward of the next two quarter, it is very difficult to predict how next one or two quarter looks like. We believe that from next year, the growth condition should clearly improve. It is difficult to predict for next one or two quarters.
Sir, industry also would have seen similar dip, so is there any market share issue here?
Industrial growth has very different dynamics because in our industrial product, for some of the products, almost half the sale is outside of India. Lot of this growth is driven by our pigment business, where we are gaining both in Indian market and export market, partially due to some business moving from China, and also due to our focus on high-performance pigments. A lot of growth is of our one particular business out of our overall industrial business.
Yeah, actually, my question was on Consumer Bazaar only.
Okay.
If your growth is minus one, would your peers or would your competitors also have seen similar kind of a slowdown?
Well, we believe that the market would have seen a similar slowdown in our core sectors. Yes, we do believe that. That is why.
We are still seeing a lot of the results in these spaces being fairly good. Which sector is impacting the maximum in terms of slowdown? Is it furniture, is it footwear, or is it something-
We are seeing slowdown in construction-related activities, interior decor. Liquidity crunch impacts both the dealers and the consumer, as well as construction-related activities which have been impacted. Also for some of our services business, which also service auto and engineering industry, they have also been impacted. Largely, the two biggest sectors which are impacted for us are construction-related activity and interior decor-related activities.
Dr. Fixit would have seen a much bigger delta, right, in terms of growth?
Yes, Dr. Fixit has seen a significant delta because it is very largely dependent on construction and repair activities.
Right, sir. My second question is on the phasing, which you mentioned in terms of ad spend. Could you elaborate that?
During this quarter, our advertising and sales promotion spend is about 4.8% of sales. This is because we had two very significant new advertising campaign. One is a Fevicol Sofa campaign and one is a new Fevikwik campaign. Both for making the film and releasing them. Our spend went up to as high as 4.8%, as compared to our normalized annual spend of about 3.8%-4%. Last year, the opposite had happened. Last year in this particular quarter, our spend was around 2.5%, in fact, 2.4%, which was less than normal, when the full year spend was about 3.6%. As you see, last year compared to full year spend of 3.6%, we were at 2.4%.
This year at our expected spend of 3.8% or so, in this quarter, we were at 4.8%. This is a significant delta of almost more than 200 basis points in A&SP expenditure.
That's for the full year?
Mainly, largely due to timing impact and these are the ads which we release based on the timing and it is not something which we exactly phase quarter-to-quarter.
Sir, full year we should build the 3.8%-4% only for the full year?
Something like that, yes.
Sir last question on elastomer. This has been an issue for multiple years. Now finally it seems closure is happening. My question is by when completion will happen and is it a scrap sale? Obviously, the number INR 38 crore seems to be one-tenth of the value which you had acquired.
No, it is not one-tenth of the value. That was the total investment that we had done, which included dismantling of the asset, moving the asset over, and erection and buying the land and other things. Total expenditure included also our investment in land, building, the full plant and machinery, intellectual property, et cetera. What has happened, as you know, over last three, four years, most of the value of this has already been written off. Only value which was remaining, one is land and building, which is already put to use for export of some of our other products, adhesives and some of the other products. The remaining value is the plant and machinery, the remaining value was the fair market value was only about INR 60 crores.
We have decided we want to sell this plant and machinery in the best possible manner, and that our people are working on finding the best value for it. At this point of time, we did a fresh valuation of this, and we were advised to take an impairment of INR 22 crores. Just to summarize, bulk of the value has been written off over last two to three years, and the remaining value, we will sell it based on the current fair market value, which is expected to be INR 60 crores, and hence, we took an impairment of INR 22 crores. The exact value of what we realized out of remaining INR 38 crores, we will know over next couple of quarters.
Next couple of quarters the sale will happen, and after that, obviously based on deal closures, the money will come.
Right. Essentially, no further activity or investment has happened on this project for last many years. The land that we acquired for it is already put to use by initiating export of our adhesives from that place, and land and building has been put to use for that purpose.
The factory will go away, right? It will be a scrap sale kind of.
No, it's not all going to be scrap sale because some of the plant and machinery may be even useful in some other plants for Pidilite or for some other industry. Some of that will be used by others in their manufacturing, because this is plant and equipment, some of that can also be used to manufacture other products.
Okay, sir. Thanks a lot.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arnab Mitra from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Apurva, my first question was on the growth that you highlighted that we should not look at it from a quarter-to-quarter basis. I wanted to understand one thing from you that, in this slowdown that we've seen this quarter, is there a substantial component of trade pipeline also, or would you say that the growth is kind of mirroring the offtakes in the market? Between one Q and two Q, though we should not look at the exact numbers, is there a sequential slowdown that you sense which has further happened in the two Q compared to the one Q?
I would say there is a little bit of channel inventory correction because the liquidity crunch impacts everybody in the trade. Some level of inventory would have reduced of the dealers and distributors in some cases. However, there is a reduction in offtake as well, and there is a reduction in usage. One of the key reason also has been prolonged monsoon, which has impacted some of the activities, and also due to the liquid market conditions, the slowdown in construction and real estate activity. There is both an impact on offtake and consumption as well as some channel correction. Difficult to calculate the two, there is a definite impact on both the offtake and consumption during the quarter.
Sequentially, when you ask from first quarter to second quarter, the numbers you have seen that the volume growth has reduced compared to the first quarter, and that we see across most of our major product groups.
Okay, thanks. The second question was that on the Nina Percept and CP businesses, there, given that the real estate market is quite tight and there is liquidity issues, would you continue to remain a little cautious here and therefore there the growth recovery could take more time than the consumer and Bazaar business of your standalone?
Yes. We are being cautious here, so we are being extremely cautious. While order book is better than what our revenue is reflecting, we are careful in terms of execution, and we don't want to take undue credit risk. We are doing that. Also in case of Nina and Percept particularly, we are focusing on a change in customer mix. Earlier we had a significant customer mix of real estate, which is now being diversified more towards other segments like industry, commercial, and those kind of other segments. We want to improve our customer mix and be a little cautious during this period. Eventually, once the things improve, then all these activities would help us drive better growth.
Right. My last question was that the VAM prices, as you said, it seems to be now stabilizing. Are the full benefits of the lower VAM now reflecting in the gross profit of the quarter and therefore would it be fair to say that you will probably sustain these levels unless the commodity substantially moves from here?
Change is minor. It's about $900 is the consumption value in the quarter and the current price is like $890, more or less the same. It depends on how the VAM prices move. As you know, they can change a lot from month to month and quarter to quarter. Depending on the VAM situation and also if any pricing action that we need to take. Historically, when the VAM prices have been at this level, our gross margins are good.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you. Reminder to all the participants to ask a question, you may please press star and one on your touchtone telephone. The next question is from the line of Avi Mehta from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi, Apurva and team. Just wanted to understand, while there has been a near-term impact that we've seen, why are we guiding towards a recovery next year? Is this because we are continuing to see this weakness?
No, Avi, it is more that it's very difficult to predict things in near future. We don't want to say that when we have come off a quarter like this, it is very difficult to say that the next quarter will suddenly look around. We like to be cautiously optimistic. We believe that when there is a slowdown in economy, it does take a couple of quarters to really recover. From that aspect, we are saying more in the new year, but there is no definitive way for us to know that.
New fiscal or new CY you mean?
By new year, we mean the new fiscal year. Again, Avi, please take it with an understanding it is not something that we can accurately predict. The recovery can happen a quarter earlier or a quarter later. This is just the gut feeling based on the first two quarter results that we have got. We would rather be cautiously optimistic than hoping that the recovery will happen earlier.
Okay, fair enough. The second bit, just a clarification, Apurva, is if I recollect, and you can correct me, is we took the first increase in 2Q, the price increase. We started in 2Q in the last year, 2Q FY 2019. The price increases will annualize in the next quarter, right? Is that a fair understanding or no? Have we taken more price increases over the quarters, which is why we still have some realization-based benefits?
No, the last year we had done one more increase in December, if that is what you are asking.
Yeah.
The second increase. Yes, there was one more increase in December.
The bigger one was in the September quarter, or it was in December only? Sorry, I was just trying to understand that part only.
No, both increases were around the same. Bigger and smaller because we have a wide product mix, but I would say both increases were off around the same magnitude.
Okay. Lastly, sir, in this ad spends, what you highlighted, this was largely, sir, marketing-based is what I understand. Would that be a correct understanding or was there also promotional element in this as well?
No, it's largely advertising.
Okay, sir.
You may have seen we had two big advertising commercial. One was the 60-year ad of Fevicol called Fevicol Sofa, which has been greatly liked and would help us significantly strengthen the brand over medium to long term, continue to maintain the strength of Fevicol. The second was on Fevikwik, where we launched a new campaign, which has also found a very good resonance among consumers, urging them not to throw things and to bond it in a very interesting manner. We had launched these two new advertising, there was a significant ad spend when two large campaigns happened in one quarter, as compared to much lower than average spend in the same quarter last year.
Sir, if I may, if you could give me a sense on, given how the VAM industry is doing because we earlier were highlighting that there are some capacity-related additions and how's that kind of now panning out, sir?
The VAM is a very global commodity, there could be some time temporary demand and supply, the supply always keeps on coming to keep pace with demand. Whenever we have demand-supply gaps, they are temporary. Right now, there is no demand-supply gap because overall, globally, the growth has been low across the countries. Currently, there is abundant availability of VAM and also the raw materials which go into making VAM, which are acetic acid and ethylene. Currently, because of good availability, the raw material prices are soft. Going forward, what will happen, it's difficult to say. Sometime there is a temporary outage of one or two plants because of some situation. That can also have an impact.
Okay. Sir, as of now, if things remain normal, I know that's a big assumption, but it looks like VAM is likely to remain benign. This margin that we see is reflecting because it's close to the current level.
As of right now, the VAM situation is favorable. It's difficult to predict what will happen in coming months. As of right now, it looks favorable.
Okay. Lastly, sir, this tax rate, could you share, out of this the 7.5%, what would be the number that would be related to prior year current tax and the deferred tax asset change or provisioning change that has happened?
Currently, the deferred tax liability reversal was INR 28 crore in this quarter.
INR 28 crores. Sir, what would be the current tax reversal for the first quarter?
See, going forward.
65
INR 65 crore was the reversal.
Okay.
I think more relevant is going forward, the tax rate will be 25%.
Will be 25%.
If that's what you're trying to determine, then going forward, the tax rate will be 25%.
Okay, sir. 25.1. Okay, that's all from my side, sir. I'll come back in the queue for other questions. Thank you very much, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Keyur Babaria from ICICI. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Sir, my question is that what the slowdown that we have seen in Consumer and Bazaar, some would be because of the macro factors, some would be seasonal. Should we see some improvement just because of the season improving as in just rain subsiding? That is first. Second, would you attribute any of this slowdown to competitive intensity in the Consumer and Bazaar segment?
Sir, I think as you said, seasonality, monsoon. Yes, this time monsoon has had a greater impact than normal because rains in many parts of the country have been extended, and that does impact the activities of a lot of activities where our products are used. That should clearly benefit us in this quarter. Other seasonal impacts are related to earlier and later Diwali, but that has a much lesser impact on our business than, say, for example, paint companies. This is the reply to the seasonal activity.
Any of this slowdown you would attribute to competitive intensity or how that landscape is right now? You can throw some light on it.
As far as our core business of adhesive and sealant goes, we do not believe that there has been a significant change in competitive intensity. We don't believe it is there in case of adhesives and sealants. In case of waterproofing products, yes, there has been increased competition, as we have discussed over the last couple of years from paint companies, some cement companies, but our position continues to be strong. We would attribute that impact on our growth has been more due to market conditions than on competition as far as waterproofing products go.
Okay, perfect. Thank you, sir, and all the best.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants to ask a question, you may please press star and one on your touchtone telephones. The next question is from the line of Anand Shah from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just a few questions. Firstly, can you throw any color on the month-on-month how the quarter progress goes like July, August, September or so, especially looking at the monsoons? In October also we have seen very high monsoons in terms of way above normal for a lot of regions. Would the extended monsoon impact also continue partly in Q3?
Anan, I would not like to comment on the quarter which is under progress, which is October, November. In October, while the rain was there in the beginning, there is more than enough quarter left. October to December, I would not like to comment. That would not be fair to comment.
Sure.
Also during the last quarter, month by month, I'm not sure in terms of what your question is. Did we see greater slowdown or less slowdown?
Yeah. Did you see some improvement or some deterioration, let's say July, August?
I would not differentiate much between any of the three months. More or less the situation was similar. Our internal growth rates could be different month on month. We saw a similar sort of situation during the quarter.
Okay. Secondly, we've seen this improvement happening in the international business. Your growth rates have picked up across most regions. Are you seeing this trend sort of sustaining?
We definitely believe that good sales growth should continue in countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka where we have made investments. Bangladesh, as you know, we have set up a second manufacturing plant. In Sri Lanka also we finished with the plant last year. These two countries, our initiative and efforts appear to be giving us a steady and consistent sales growth. As far as Brazil goes also, as we have been saying over the last few quarters that our focus has been to improve efficiency and operations of the business, and several initiatives have been taken. Also Brazil overall seems to be a bit more stable than what it was several years ago. Hence, Brazil also we have seen better numbers. Overall, our export business appears to be moving in the right direction.
With significant focus, the SAARC countries are delivering very good growth, and we expect good growth to continue in that region.
Okay, perfect. Just lastly, you are obviously seeing a lot of gross margin improvement coming forward and perhaps would likely sustain in the next few quarters. Is there any delta you can add in terms of focusing more on trade promotions or price cuts and passing some of these benefits or pushing volume growth? Is the macro so weak here that these initiatives won't help?
To some extent, we have taken this macro. I think if you remember in the first quarter also we had said that we have taken some early pricing actions.
Right.
When the raw material prices had fallen, we had taken some pricing actions, and wherever required, we are giving a little bit higher schemes or discount. We are doing it in a manner reflecting that doing too much of it will not benefit us. If there is an impact on off take and consumption, it is going to affect our sales. Just to give some scheme to load up the channel, we generally avoid doing that.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Sure.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants to ask a question, you may please press star and one on your touchtone telephones. The next question is from the line of Shirish Pardeshi from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity. I have a few questions. The first question you highlighted there was some inventory correction which has happened. Would you be able to help us what kind of inventory reduction we have seen maybe in urban and rural towns?
No, Shirish, I think when the question was asked, my point, what I answered was there is definitely an impact in terms of off take and consumption, and there could be some correction in channel inventory. It's difficult for us to estimate how much it is because dealer inventory, we do not have any accurate number to say what is the dealer inventory and how much of that is corrected. That's purely a feeling that we have is that there is some channel correction. The greater impact clearly has been due to reduction in off take or consumption.
Yeah, I agree that point. From the primary distribution point, your distributors could have reflected in terms of buying patterns.
Our distributor inventory does not reduce because our distributors work on a replenishment system.
Okay.
We have a standard software and they just replenish and maintain their norms.
All right. That is good enough. Would you be able to tell me what is the peak VAM prices we have procured in last one year?
Last one year, maybe INR 1,200, INR 1,300. Just one second. Let me check. I would say it's about INR 1,200, INR 1,300. INR 1,410. That was in quarter third. This is approximately.
From that, you're saying its current price is $890.
$890, yes.
Generally, what kind of VAM inventory we hold at this point of time?
Maybe around 45 days.
45 days.
Roughly 45 days, yes. Shirish, you must keep in mind that this is a dollar-linked item, so rupee going up and down also has an impact. It's not just the VAM price.
Okay. The other thing which I was watching, Consumer and Bazaar product, which we have seen a slowdown in recent quarter, and which forms a larger part of the business. I mean, sometime before, you were guiding us that rural is growing and we have a distribution expansion. Could you please tell what kind of distribution we will have for Consumer and Bazaar products, and what growth can be expected for next two to three years?
Our small town business is still growing much faster than urban towns. The growth rates in smaller towns, even in a quarter like this in value terms, are in double digits. Small town rural area or small town India is growing at a faster pace for us. In terms of distribution, in terms of numbers, a steady growth in distribution we are doing every year. More focus is on ensuring proper regularity of coverage and to do market development activities to increase consumption. Stepwise, earlier we moved to cover all towns up to 20,000. We are expanding to ensure that we have proper coverage in all tehsil towns. That is the way we are penetrating every year. We add probably about 1,500 to 2,000 villages or towns every year.
Okay. You would say your village coverage is roughly between 20,000 and 30,000.
I would say yes. It would be with both Not wholesale, but direct and indirect coverage through our super distributor and other means, yes.
Obviously, these towns will have further penetration through the wholesale, say sub 10,000 and less population.
Yes.
What could be the wholesale sales for us? I'm sure wholesale is also reeling under the pressure of liquidity and other issues.
I don't have an actual number on what is the contribution of wholesale to our total sale. In some products it is higher, but overall as a company, I would not think it's more than 20%, 25%.
This will be largely for the large products like Fevikwik and Fevicol?
It would be for our consumer products, yes.
Okay. The last question on international bit. I mean, we have seen very volatile performance, and I think some or the other we are trying to address. What is the most severely affected region? I guess Nina and Egypt and this place. Do you think the recovery will happen? What I'm expecting the answer is that basically which is the most severely affected business and which you don't think will come up in next two to three quarters.
No, see, your question is not on international, your question is on subsidiaries, because Nina and Percept are domestic companies.
I'm saying international subsidiaries.
Nina and Percept is not international. They are domestic subsidiary. In international, most of our subsidiaries have reported good growth during the first quarter. Most of our subsidiaries they have grown by double digit. Only subsidiary which possibly have not done well is subsidiary in Egypt.
Yes.
Most subsidiaries have grown at double digits. Most of them have grown well in the second quarter and in the first half.
You are very confident that in second half the similar growth rates would continue?
No, we don't say, I think I would not like to say we are confident or anything like that.
Sure.
You are seeing the trend. We make steady progress. We are growing well, and we hope to continue to do well. We would not like to commit anything by saying we are very confident or anything of that nature.
Yeah. What I'm trying to extend, like construction growth and macro issues which are pertaining to India have similar issues which we have seen from the commentary from other companies also in the Middle East and other part. I know you would have grown and done better in first half saying that double digit growth which has come in. Is the macro factors which are supporting this kind of growth? That's my question.
See, macro factors are better in some countries than in other countries. Also that our penetration and our market share in some of these countries is lower than in India. We have a lot of opportunity for geographical expansion, depth, and width. Especially countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where we have a strong position, but still there is a much greater opportunity to gain market share and to expand our presence in those countries, to introduce new products in those countries. To that extent, these local conditions have a smaller impact than in India.
Got it. Thanks a lot, and all the best to you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Reminder to all the participants to ask a question, you may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Kiran Naik from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Kiran Naik, your line is unmuted.
Thank you for giving the opportunity. Hello? Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. Can you tell me, sir, by March 2020, how much will be the revenue growth in percentage-wise compared to March 2019?
We cannot give you growth projection. No, see, we as a company do not give a growth projection or outlook.
Okay. What will be the EBITDA margin for March 2020?
The answer is the same. We would not like to give out the projection. As a company policy, we do not give an outlook or a projection.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Arun Baid from BOB Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Sir, can you just tell us what was the A&P spend in the first half of this year compared to last year?
Yeah, just one second. Our first half spend was 4.5% of sales. Just one second. First half of this year, our A&SP spend was 4.5% of sales, and last year in the same period, our spend was about 3% of sales.
Okay.
The more impact was in second quarter, where last year the spend was 2.4% of sale, and this year it was 4.8% of sale.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Reminder to all the participants, to ask a question, you may please press star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for their closing remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you all for joining the call and your questions. Have a good evening.
Thank you very much, members of the management. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Ambit Capital, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.