Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Gandharv Tongia, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer, Polycab India Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I hope all of you are staying healthy and safe. I am Gandharv Tongia, Executive Director and CFO at Polycab India Limited. On this call, we shall discuss the Quarter Four and full year 2023-2024 results, which were approved in the board meeting held earlier today. We will be referring to the earnings presentation, financial results, and financial statements, which are available on the stock exchanges as well as on the investor relations page of our website. Joining me today from the management team, we have our Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Inder Jaisinghani, and our Head Investor Relations, Mr. Uncertain Upadhyaya. Let me now hand over the call to Inderji for his comments.
Good evening, everyone. Before we discuss our financial performance, I would like to provide an update on the recent development with respect to the Income Tax search. Further to the sequence of the event that happened during the last fortnight of the previous calendar year, the company have received request, request from the Income Tax Department for filing certain details and providing explanation, all of which are being diligently complied by the company. As of the present date, we want to emphasize that no demand notice or any other order has been issued to us by the Income Tax Department. We are confident of our compliance and remain committed to maintaining full cooperation with the department's investigative process, extending all necessary assistance as required. Our priority continues to be ensuring transparency and adherence to the regulatory requirements. We appreciate the continuous support and understanding of the stakeholder during the period.
With that, I turn to the main agenda item. This past year has been nothing short of extraordinary for us, marked by milestone growth and commitment to excellence that defines our journey. The company surpassed a monumental milestone of INR 180 billion in revenue during FY 2024. Making a significant win of the entire Polycab family, this achievement underscores our unwavering dedication to innovation, quality, and customer satisfaction. In addition to our impressive revenue growth, we also achieved the highest yearly, yearly profit in our company history, further solidifying Polycab's position as the most profitable company in the consumer electrical industries. With the demand environment expected to remain strong, we are fully prepared to capitalize it on our momentous opportunity. With that, I would request Gandharv Tongia to give you a flavor of the macro environment.
Thank you, Inder Jaisinghani. The Indian economy continues to outperform global counterparts in the... framed by a plethora of high-frequency indicators showcasing robust resilience. From strong foreign reserves to improving industrial production, higher tax collections and credit growth, the Indian economy remains on a solid footing. Particularly encouraging are the significant milestones achieved in the manufacturing and services sector, with PMI readings reaching multi-year highs. Furthermore, the housing market has been a standout performer, witnessing robust growth in both volume and value terms, signaling a promising trajectory for the medium term. On the consumer front, there is encouraging discourse surrounding signs of rural demand resurgence, translating into improved sales for FMCG products. The RBI's Consumer Confidence Index reinforces this sentiment, surging to its highest level since mid-2019.
With anticipated normal monsoons, declining inflation rates, and expectations of a rate cut within the calendar year, consumption-driven demand is poised to gradually ascend, resulting in enhanced sales for consumer products and an upswing in private sector CapEx to bolster capacity in anticipation of the projected demand surge. In conclusion, the Indian economy stands steadfast on a robust trajectory, poised for continued growth and resilience. Against this backdrop, let's delve deeper into Polycab's performance for fourth quarter and full year 2023-2024. I would now hand over to Chirayu to take you through our financial performance.
Thank you, Gandharv. I would request everyone to refer to slide 4 of the earnings presentation. For the quarter ending 31st March 2024, our consolidated revenues grew by 29% year-on-year on the back of healthy volume growth in the wires and cables business. This was the first time ever that the company surpassed INR 50 billion of quarterly revenues. Moreover, our top line of INR 56 billion for the current quarter is also the highest within the consumer electrical industry.
EBITDA for the quarter grew by 26% year-on-year, with EBITDA margins coming in at 13.6%, a 50 BPS improvement quarter-on-quarter on the back of better operating leverage and lower advertising and promotion spends, partly offset by lower gross margins on account of increase in contribution from the lower margin EPC business. The company also registered its highest quarterly PAT, exceeding the threshold of INR 5 billion for the first time ever, growing 29% year-on-year. PAT margin stood at 9.9%. For the full year, our revenues grew strongly by 28% year-on-year, surpassing the INR 180 billion mark, which brings us strikingly close to our projected target of INR 200 billion in annual revenues. EBITDA was up by 35% year-on-year, with margin expansion of 70 BPS to thirteen point eight percent.
Margin expansion was achieved through improved cost margin, resulting from strategic pricing revisions, as well as favorable change in product mix. Profits after tax grew by 41% year-on-year, with PAT margin expanding ninety basis points to 10%. As mentioned in the opening remarks, our revenue, EBITDA, and PAT for the year are the highest yearly numbers in the history of our company. A detailed breakup of the other income and finance costs have been provided on slide 27 of our earnings presentation. Net cash position improved to INR 21.4 billion, over INR 18.9 billion in Q4 of the previous year, while working capital cycle, at 48 days, showed a stark improvement over the previous year. Delving deeper into the business-wide performance, please refer to slide 10 of the earnings presentation.
The wires, cables business exhibited a growth of 22% year-on-year during the quarter, capping off a stellar year wherein the business grew by 27% over the previous year. Robust domestic demand, as well as strategic internal initiatives led volume growth, drove the outperformance for the business. The domestic cables and wires business registered a volume growth of between 30%-40%, both for the quarter four as well as for the entire year. We believe Polycab has significantly gained market share during the year, with our share of the domestic organized cables and wires market increasing to about 25%-26%, from the 22%-24% estimated in the previous year. At an industry level, this should translate to a market share of between 18% and 19% for Polycab.
Revenue from international business bounced back during the quarter, with a 60% sequential growth to stand at INR 4.3 billion for the quarter. On a year-on-year basis, the international business registered a degrowth during the quarter, which can be attributed to the transitioning business model being undertaken in our largest demand geography, the USA. We believe this transition will take another 3-5 quarters to stabilize. During this time, we expect business from other geographies to continue to show robust growth. For example, in the fourth quarter, sales to Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia, UAE, and others, contributed almost 60% of the sales for the quarter. We will continue to add newer geographies in our international business so as to create further avenues of growth, as well as to reduce any concentration risk.
Overall, for the year, contribution from the international business to the consolidated revenue stood at 8%. The company has expanded its global footprint to 79 countries spread across all the 6 continents. Moving on to slide 13 for an update on the FMEG business. The FMEG business exhibited decent growth during the quarter, as we were able to capitalize on a seasonally strong quarter for fans, our biggest segment within the FMEG business. On Y-o-Y basis, the revenues grew by 17%, partly also supported by a lower base in quarter four of the previous year, which was affected due to high channel inventory on account of the BEE transition in the fan segment. Within fans, we launched over 90 SKUs during the year, with the majority of them in the premium and BLDC range, in line with our premiumization drive.
We launched our new range of fans, Silencio, pan-India during the quarter and have received encouraging response. The premium range, along with the BLDC range, contributed to almost 28% of the fan sales during the quarter, a marked improvement from the historical performance, as we derived benefits of focused initiatives to drive premiumization in fans. The switches and switchgear segment continued with a strong growth momentum during the quarter, riding on the back of uptick in real estate. Within both these categories, our new product development initiative is bearing fruits, supported by our efforts on brand building, improvement in distribution network, and focus on influencer management. Within the switches segment, the Etira range, which we introduced towards the beginning of FY 2024, contributed significantly to the sales for the year.
Within the switchgear segment, the 6 kA MCBs, again introduced during the beginning of FY 2024, contributed in early double digits of the year-end sales. As we have communicated in our previous quarterly result calls, we aim to increase the contribution of both the segments in the FMEG basket to improve our profitability, and based on the results so far, we believe we are progressing well in this direction. Coming to lighting and luminaires, the segment registered sequential growth during the quarter, although the industry still saw a decline in prices in the range of 7%-8%. We believe there may still be more price correction in the offing. Within this category, too, we are looking at improving the contribution of premium offerings, such as panel, ceiling, COB, curve, downlights, and so on, in the sales mix.
EBIT margins for the segment registered a significant decline during the quarter, largely on account of a couple of one-time impacts. An impact of almost INR 105 million was on account of impairment of tech on our investment in Techno Electromech, wherein we have a 50/50 JV. Due to the losses incurred by the company on account of continued pricing decline in lights segment and corresponding impact on business, the net worth of the company has eroded completely. As a result, out of abundant caution, we have written off our investment in the JV. The second impact of almost similar size was on account of provisioning we undertook on our aged inventory of lights and fans.... Operational inefficiencies due to lower utilization of capacities further accentuated the margin decline.
Overall, as we communicated in our last earnings call, we are in the process of taking steps to improve our execution of the strategic roadmap. We are making good progress on that front. We anticipate the process to be completed by the end of this calendar year, post which we expect the FMEG business to start growing at a rate better than industry average. Let's now move to slide number 16, which gives an update on our other businesses, which largely comprises of our strategic EPC business. Herein, we clocked revenues of INR 4,676 million in quarter four, over 4x growth over the same quarter last year. For the year, the revenues in this business grew by 169% year-on-year to reach INR 9,642 million.
Largely, the increase is on account of the projects we've won under the RDSS scheme of the government, wherein we now have a good open order book, which is to be executed over the course of next 3-4 years. We expect this business to continue to contribute in single-digit to the consolidated company top line going ahead. Profitability for the business grew by 605% year-on-year for the quarter, with segmental margin at 8.5%. On annual basis, the profitability registered a growth of 156% year-on-year, with margins at 11.5%. Annual sustainable operating margin in this business is expected to be in high single digits over mid- to long-term. That was the financial update for the quarter.
Now let us talk about our key transformation project, called Project Leap, which completed 3 years this May. As you all are aware, we embarked on this project post FY 21, partnering with BCG, to work on a range of strategic themes and initiatives focused on growth, profitability, and long-term capability building for the organization across both B2B and B2C businesses, with a goal of achieving INR 200 billion of top line by FY 26. Under the project, we have been working on various streams clubbed into 4 key strategic themes, namely customer centricity, go-to-market excellence, winning with new products, and set up of organization enablers. We have made tremendous progress on each of these key areas over the past 3 years. I will highlight a few initiatives we've undertaken in the last year under each of these topics on that one.
At the heart of our customer-centric initiatives, lie the commitment to excellence and innovation. We've bolstered our key account management strategy, ensuring that our complete portfolio reaches key builder accounts, thereby enhancing our relationship and service offerings. To amplify our support to influencers, we've assembled a formidable team while integrating a digital-first platform, facilitating seamless engagement and assistance. Moreover, leveraging CRM, we've significantly ramped up efforts by our TSIs to enhance our outreach and service efficiency to get better control over pricing, market dynamics, and direct dealing with the customers for secondary sales. Leveraging the power of AI and ML, we've developed a cutting-edge pricing engine, optimizing winning rates and mitigating human errors, thus ensuring competitive pricing strategies that resonate with our customers. In our pursuit of go-to-market excellence, we've undertaken transformative initiatives to fortify our brand presence and market penetration.
We've successfully completed a brand identity refresh, unveiling the new brand identity, Ideas Connected, symbolizing our commitment to innovation and connectivity. Furthermore, we've intensified our brand-building efforts by augmenting advertising and promotion activities, amplifying our reach and visibility. Based on the dynamics, we've also adopted geography-specific GTM initiatives to drive growth, ensuring sustained market expansion. Additionally, we've implemented targeted initiatives to unlock potential in untapped markets, fostering inclusive growth and market diversification. In our commitment to innovation and meeting evolving market demands, we've embarked on a series of initiatives to drive new product development. Fostering product-led growth, we've expanded our brand portfolio across multiple tiers and wires, ensuring comprehensive market coverage.
The initiative has worked exceedingly well for us, with the new ranges of wires launched over the course of past two years, namely Atira, Sigma and Green wires, having contributed north of 30% of the retail wire sales during the year. Intensive performances of similar NPD initiatives with the brand switches and switchgears have been discussed in our technical commentaries. In our quest to enable organizational excellence, we've implemented transformative measures aimed at enhancing operational efficiency and strategic alignment. Embracing vertical specialization, we've created distinct verticals across all product portfolios in B2C, fostering strategic focus and agility in our operations. Additionally, we've recently launched a new revamped version of our loyalty app tailored for electricians and retailers, with improved functionalities, fostering stronger engagement and loyalty within our ecosystem.
Moreover, through the revamping of our B2B CRM systems, we've achieved a remarkable 80% reduction in inquiry time, ensuring swift and seamless customer service. Furthermore, by streamlining our back office support functions, we've significantly slashed response times by two-thirds, thereby minimizing losses attributed to delayed responses and bolstering overall organizational effectiveness. A continuous endeavor within this arc for us will be identifying the right set of individuals capable of propelling the company towards its objectives and unlocking its full potential. On slide 19, we have presented the key themes and priorities for the company under Project Leap for the coming years. We will be regularly updating our stakeholders of our progress on the same. We are swiftly approaching our Project Leap target of achieving an annual revenue of INR 200 billion.
As previously communicated, we will unveil our new midterm goal plan during the course of the current financial year. The previous month marked a significant milestone for us as we celebrated 5 years since our listing on April 16th, 2019. We take immense pride in Polycab's pivotal role in nation building, and in the process, being able to deliver remarkable growth and generate substantial wealth for our shareholders. Key performance indicators highlighting the company's achievements have been outlined on slide 7 and 8 of the earnings presentation. While slide 9 provides a brief overview of Polycab's contribution to powering India's development through the supply of cables and wires to diverse infrastructure projects across sectors. Amidst a significant infrastructure upcycle sweeping across the nation, Polycab reaffirms its unwavering dedication to playing a pivotal role in the country's development journey.
We steadfastly pledge to harness our extensive expertise and input resources towards bolstering vital infrastructure projects critical for the nation's progress. To be able to successfully deliver on this promise, we have augmented our capital expenditure to enhance our manufacturing capacities. In FY 2024, we allocated INR 8.6 billion towards CapEx. Over the next two to three years, we will be investing between INR 10 billion-INR 11 billion each year to expand our capacities. To give you a more granular picture of the CapEx that we've undertaken in this coming years, almost 20% of the CapEx that I just mentioned will go towards the EHV manufacturing plant in Halol. This will have an asset turnover of over 5-6x at peak, peak capacity.
The plant is expected to become operational by the end of FY 2026, contributing to the company's top line from FY 2027 onwards. A further part of the CapEx will be utilized towards setting up plants for special purpose cables, cables used for in our international business, as well as OFC cables. All of this will be in our Halol facility. Going about this, there will be expansion of facility for high tension, low tension and other cables at the Dharwad facility. Across all the incremental CapEx that we are doing, we expect an asset turnover of about 5-6x. Thus, creating enough opportunities for the company to grow in the future and cater to the incremental opportunities coming in the market. So that was the update for the quarter and the year.
Thank you, and we are now open for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use 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 Natasha Jain from Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, I would just wanted to confirm, you said the volume growth had been 50%-40%, right?
Cables and wires business was 30%-40%, both for quarter four as well as for the entire year.
Got it. And in that, can you give me the split between wires and cables separately, if possible?
Cables have grown faster than wires. Cables would be in high thirties, whereas wires would be in the lower thirties.
Okay. So my next question is on the CapEx figure that you said. So you said in combination, it will be close to INR 12 billion for three years, right? Or each year? I could not get that clearly.
Right. So, actually, our targets for doing CapEx for next year was between INR 6 billion-INR 7 billion. But looking at the opportunities that are ahead, we believe that we will need to invest much more, and as a result, we will be investing about INR 10 billion-INR 11 billion each year over the next 2-3 years.
Got it. And, my next question is on copper pricing. So now we've seen a rise in copper prices, and, given that the volume growth was 40%, there's clearly a pricing pressure also. So I want to understand, going forward, how do we, you know, in combination, see the pricing pressure plus raw material price increases, and therefore, what kind of gross margins can we expect?
Natasha, we've seen such instances wherein there has been a rise in copper and aluminum in the past, but we have a very robust mechanism, pricing mechanism, within the industry, and we have not seen any material impact of any such rise in copper prices or aluminum prices in the past. So we believe that this shouldn't have any form of material impact on either our gross margins or on growth.
Understood. And, in terms of your strong growth, now I understand that copper prices have been rising, and therefore, there has been an increased inventory stocking by the channel. And if that is the case, I just want to understand what kind of growth moderation can we expect, you know, in the immediate quarters as a result of this high inventory stocking, which happened in fourth quarter? That's all. Thank you.
So, Natasha, we don't believe that there is material increase in the sales number just because of the increase in copper prices. While there might be a bit of an impact, but we don't believe that that is material in nature. The growth that we have been able to achieve is rather more because of the demand environment, which is there. Over the course of past 1.5 year, there are various infrastructure projects for which the government has given up. We've also started witnessing good amount of progress in private CapEx as well. And across all the industries, we are seeing pretty good demand.
So we believe that as a result of all of these things, we are realizing good amount of sales, and there shouldn't be any material impact because of increase in copper prices that would have resulted into higher sales or in this particular quarter.
... Understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Venkatesh Balasubramaniam from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. Hello?
Yes.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. The first question is: if you actually look at your cables and wire margins for the full year, it is at historic highs. So if you look at the EBITDA margin, it is at 16%. If you look at the EBIT margins for cables and wires, it's at 14.7%. The first part of the question is, what has driven these historic highs in margins in FY 2024? And the second part of the question is, as you yourself have upped your guidance, you are expanding capacity. I think Havells' cable capacity is coming online in first quarter of the current year. KEI's greenfield capacity is coming online in one year.
Do you think that will have an impact in terms of lowering your EBITDA margins because the supply will increase, or it just doesn't matter because the demand is so strong?
Thanks, Venkatesh. So, first answering your first question, the improvement in margins from the cables and wires business during the year has been on account of multiple reasons. First and foremost has been the good amount of operating leverage that we realized because of high utilization of our capacity. Over and above that, we've been able to improve our margins because of change in product mix. For example, and this is something that has played out over the course of the entire year. The between HDC and LDC cables, we've been able to grow the LDC cables at a much faster rate, which are better margin accretive.
Other than that as well, in our exports basket, we've been able to get orders for such type of cables, which are a better margin accretive. Even in wires, we've been able to realize good amount of margins. Or within our FMEG businesses as well, across all the product categories, we have been able to improve on our gross margins. So on account of all of these reasons, the change in product mix, change, a bit of change in business mix, all of that have contributed in terms of better margins. Coming to your second question, in terms of the CapEx that we're undertaking, it is largely because we see good amount of demand coming in for the next four, five, or 10 years.
We don't believe that the current amount of capacities which is there with the existing players will be able to cater to this new higher demand which is coming up. If you look at various targets which are being laid out for different types of infrastructure sectors, for example, we are going to be increasing our highways by almost 33% over the course of next decade. We are going to be expanding our railways and investing almost INR 7 trillion over the course of next decade on that improvement.
On the power side, we are gonna be requiring much more power because as there was an article in just during the day that we are expecting there to be power deficit in India in June. So there is definitely gonna be need for much more power expansion. India is going betting on renewables in a big way, targeting to reach 500 gigawatts of energy generation through renewable sources by 2030. On PLI as well, there is a lot of going lot of investment happening, and that too will result into a lot of new setup private cables coming up. So across all of these sectors, we see enough and more demand coming in over the course of next 5-10 years.
As a result, we believe there is need for more capacities from domestic players. In spite of the other capacities coming up from other players, we don't believe that there will be any such a case, where there will be any form of pressure on pricing or growth because of capacities. We believe that the demand is more than enough to support for all the players to grow in volume.
Okay. Thank you. Thank, thank you for the detailed answer. Now, the second question is, your cables and wires exports was a little bit weak this year, in 4% growth. Now, can you please explain why was it weak, and are those factors reversing next year? What is the outlook for exports growth, cables and wires exports growth for FY 2025?
Right. So you are aware, within our international business, we are moving to... We are trying to move to a distribution model, similar to something that we did in India a decade back. We, we believe that there are a lot of opportunities, a lot of advantages of operating through a distribution model, and that is why we want to replicate it in our international business as well. We've started implementing that model within the U.S., which is our largest demand geography. Now, any model transition or business model transition takes some time to stabilize.
We are within that phase wherein we are trying to get to know or trying to engage with as many distributors as possible, trying to get to know which products are required in which geography, and then manufacturing and supplying also within the warehouses of those geographies. Until this, the entire stabilization continues, the sales to the US geography will be a bit soft. But having said that, demand from other geographies is very robust, and we'll continue to add newer geographies to our international bouquet. We keep on adding a couple one or two geo newer countries every quarter to our international bouquet. And that is where we believe that a lot of growth will be coming up.
A very good example of it is in our Q4, which I, as I mentioned in our initial comments. While the growth or rather sales to the U.S. was relatively soft, but we are able to grow a lot in the Middle East. Similarly, we see a lot of demand coming in from Europe, Australia, and other countries as well. So we believe that we will continue to grow in our international business. Specific to what amount it will or what growth, or what rate it will grow, be growing at, I wouldn't be able to comment.
But largely, we believe that, under our Project Leap, the target that we had taken, that we wanted international business to contribute about 10% to the top line by 2026, we should be able to achieve that, within that timeline.
Okay. Just one small data question: What was your capacity utilization in cables and wires separately? That is all combined.
So, we don't give out separate utilization rates, but largely combined for cables and wires, we were operating at in mid-70s during the quarter.
Okay. Thank you. All the very best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Girish from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Just wanted to understand the sustainability of this 15% EBIT margin in the cable and wire business, because always you've spoken about at a lower number, but the number keeps going up. And then the second question is on EPC segment. In the presentation you said high single digit, but for last two years you've been doing 11% EBIT margin in the other segment. Wanted to know the backlog and what should be the sustainable margin in EPC business.
Sure, Girish. So on the margins for the cables and wires business, we believe that about 12%-13% is the margin profile that we should be able to consistently deliver on the cables and wires business. Depending on what level, what kind of product mix, business mix, we are able to achieve on quarter-to-quarter basis, the margins might have a positive trajectory. But largely, in the long term, 12%-13% margin profile is something that we should be able to consistently deliver on. Coming to the EPC part, yes, we have been able to deliver better margins in that business, but we have been very selective in that business till now. If you...
But going ahead, we are seeing a lot of opportunities coming, and largely, for example, we have mentioned the RDSS project undertaken by the government, where we have received good amount of tenders. We have an open order book of almost INR 48 billion in that business, which we have to complete over the next two to three years. And we believe that in, if you take a long term, mid to long term view, we should be operating in mid to high single digits in that business.
Okay. Then, maybe on the FMEG side, if you can, help us on an annualized basis, what is the kind of, contribution by fans, which is in, other segments? And, you said that contribution margin has increased, broadly for the quarter and for probably for the year in FMEG. Can you quantify, like, like, what has been, like, has it been a 200 delta through the year for FMEG on gross margin level, or is it more than that? If you can help on that.
Sure. So, on the first question, so a question of segmental mix, largely the fans and lights business both combined would have contributed almost 50%. Both of these segments used to contribute about 60% of the FMEG top line, but because of the degrowth that we witnessed on the lights segment, the contribution would have fallen to about 50%. The contribution from other segments, business product lines would be almost similar, with a bit of improvement in contribution from switches and switchgear segment. On the contribution margin front, yes, we've been able to realize a good amount of improvement, but we are still lagging a lot as compared to where the industry peers are operating.
We are still a long way off as far as what we visualize the gross margins coming in from those product categories. Once we are within those suites, we'll be giving out exact numbers of contribution margins of within these product categories.
Just in terms of your key sectors contributing to cables and wires, if you can help, the top two or three sectors, which are they and how much they would have contributed for the full year? And on exports, the percentage of revenue that is there for FY 2024, do you think, based on your comments, that it will probably take some time? So how should one think about... Will it be similar contribution or, and, maybe there is a big step up in FY 2026. How should we think about exports contributing?
So based on the exports front, as I mentioned, we had this target of reaching 10% of contribution from international business by FY 2026. Based on the demand environment that we see within all geographies, wherein we are able to export, we believe that we should be able to achieve that target within that timeframe. So lastly, I believe over the course of next couple of years, we should be able to improve the contribution from the international business. Sorry, I forgot your first question was on?
The key sectors contributing to cables and wires growth, if you can quantify the top two, three sectors based on your assessment?
So Girish, it would not be possible for us to know which end sector is exactly contributing to what amount of demand, since almost 89-90% of our sales are done through distributors. Only in about 10% of the sales it is wherein we directly get in touch or deal with the customer. And the breakup of those 10% might not be equivalent to the 100% mix. So it will be difficult for us to give the exact end sectors which are contributing to the demand.
...And then the INR 3,000 crore CapEx that you've highlighted, three, 3,000, 3,300-odd crores, how much of that is going towards FMEG?
So it will be a smaller part. We will be expanding capacity for our switches and switchgear plans over the course of next 2-3 years. But yeah, relatively, a large part of that INR 300-3,000 crores of CapEx will be going towards cables and wires and a bit towards better integration and a small part towards the FMEG business.
There is no new category that you are looking to invest right now?
Not as of now.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Chandra Govindraju from Ashmore Group. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on great set of numbers. So, on the FMEG project and product side, specifically on the fan side, if you could share the volume growth for the year and the quarter, and, in terms of market share, where you stand at and how it moved in the last, one, two years?
So, Chandra, on the fans, this particular quarter has been good for us because being the season for fans is the peak summer season. We've been able to deliver good growth, but largely we shouldn't read much into it because the base was relatively smaller. As well as we are a relatively smaller player in the fan segment, so we will be one among the top 10 or top eight within the fan segment. But we still have a long roadway ahead. As you are aware, the general DNA of the company is always to be the market leader in all the product categories that it is in.
We've gone through that journey in cables and wires, and we want to go through a similar journey in all of our product categories within the FMEG business. So we have a lot of work to be done on the fan side. So, because of our smaller size, we might, we might have be growing at a faster rate as compared to the industry as a, or as compared to peers. But, I mean, over the long run, we, we... The target, ultimate target is to be first among the top five and then top three players and, within each of the product categories.
So that's why I'm asking this question. In the FMEG segment, which segment within that segment is contributing higher negative profits for you people? Either is it lights, or fans or the switchgears?
So, Chandra, on the top line, as I had mentioned, in the previous question, we, the contribution from fans and lights combined would be almost 50% of the overall FMEG top line. Switches and switchgears are the second largest, so again, will be contributing in high teens also, and then the other categories are, pretty small as of now.
When should we expect positive operating margins in this segment? Will it take another 1-2 years?
So, Chandra, in this business, we operate a bit different than what our peers operate at. What we do is that we manufacture everything in-house. As a result, over the course of past few years, we've invested a lot in building in-house capacities. As of now, the capacity to utilization of this capacities is on the lower side. Over the course of next 2-3 years, once we are able to scale up the sales on across all the product categories and improve on the capacity utilization, we believe we should be able to improve on the operating leverage or operating efficiencies that we have in that business. Over and above that, what we are trying to do is improve the mix more towards switches and switchgears, which are, again, better margin product businesses.
Again, over the course, as I mentioned, as of now, it's contributing in high teens, but we will aim to increase that contribution even higher. Again, as we are able to achieve it, that should incrementally add to our profitability. So largely, these are the levers which are available to us. So we believe over the course of next two to three years, once we are scaling up our FMEG business, we should be gradually be able to deliver on profitability as well.
Got it. Got it. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
I'm done.
The next question is from the line of Srinidhi from HSBC Asset Management India. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, and thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on great set of numbers. Couple of questions on other segment. You alluded to some RDSS orders. Can you please elaborate the, this basically orders and what is the really scope of work here?
Right. So RDSS is a scheme which is undertaken by the Indian government, wherein the government is expanding on the power generation and distribution capacities, as well as setting up new capacities in spaces where there is a need for one. Over here, there is a component of supplying cables to the projects as well. As a result, we have bid for this project and have been able to gain a good amount of tenders. Overall, the total outlay by the government within this scheme is of about INR 100,000 crore.
As of now, we would have roughly an open order book of close to INR 50 billion, which we have to execute over the course of next 3-4 years.
Wow! Would you have a lot of cable going into this INR 50 billion, or it's just a construction contract?
... No, no, see, the EPC business for us, as you are quite aware, is kind of an enabler for the cable business, so we wouldn't go and bid for a project if that it's an execution project. We've undertaken that project because there is a supply of cable element as well. So yes, there is a supplying of cable.
Yeah. Now, the INR 50 billion, including the cable, what you would be supplying, right? That's what my question was.
Yeah. Yes.
Okay, right. And here, you also, in this other segment, you capture only the construction part of it, right? For example, the INR 964 crore revenue you have had in financial year 2024, that doesn't include cable. Is that understanding correct?
That's right.
Okay, cool. Yes. Those were my questions, and thank you for answering them. All the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Mahawar from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah, just one quick question, Chirayu. Congratulations on a great year. In FY 2024, what are retail house wire top line and market share?
So, it will be difficult. We wouldn't have done that calculation as of now, but probably we'll have to wait for other peers to come out with their results, and then probably we can have a bit more clarity in terms of what is our market share on retail wires. But we are definitely the largest within that segment. But perhaps we can wait for a few more days, and once the results for the other larger peers are out, we shall be able to give a more concrete number as far as our market share in retail wire is concerned.
Sure, sir. Maybe, the share of, cable and wire, you know, within, within that, what's the branded wire? At least you can tell that in FY 2024.
I'm sorry, are you asking in FY 2024, what is the mix of-
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So, last year it was at about 70/30, 70 cable, 30 wire. This year, since cables has grown at a bit of faster rate than wire, it would have moved by a couple of hundred basis points in favor of cables.
Fair. Fair. Thank you. One parting question, maybe quickly. You are the only company which is able to preempt the, B2B demand, especially on government projects across a few important states who are spending on the underground cable or, you know, other sorts of cable and the capacity limit which we have, you know, we are the only player amongst maybe one or two, more. In FY 25, any idea of what kind of top line? Because you have the idea of your order book. In FY 25 and 26, any idea what kind of turnover you would be on the domestic, you know, government projects? That's it. Thank you.
So, Amit, as you're aware, we, we don't normally give out yearly guidance. We have closed this year at INR 18,000 crore of top line. We had the target of reaching INR 20,000 crore of top line by FY 2026. So, we'll, we'll revise or we'll come out, come out with our new mid-term guidance on top line over the course of this financial year. Perhaps at that time, we can give a bit more, more general information on what is the mix that we expect between cables and wires and what development can be, I think.
Sure. Thank you, and good luck with the branding.
Thanks, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anupam Goswami from SUD Life. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Sir, can you give some light on the EHV segment, where are you currently? And, overall, there was a plan to merge with some foreign company, and partner. So how are these things looking at? And if the EHV segment comes out, what kind of a margin accretion we can see?
Right. So, Anupam, we've started with this EHV manufacturing plant a year or so back. We've guided that we expect that this plant will become operational by the end of FY 2026 and start contributing towards the company's top line in FY 2027. We are on that path right now. We are moving in that direction. Yes, we have tied up with an international, large international player. It is a tie-up to get the technology for manufacturing that EHV cables, and that, too, is still there. As far as the contribution or from the EHV segment is concerned, we believe that this plant will help us or will give an asset turnover of between 5x-6x.
But yeah, and this is something that at peak capacity, but this is something that will become operational only and start contributing only in FY 2027. On the, on the margin profile, again, I mean, as of now, we have a weak visibility of what our other peers who are within the segment are, and are earning, but, that might not be, the, the case two or three years down the line. So perhaps maybe we can comment more on the margin profile that we expect from this business, a bit closer to when our plans are in, close to becoming operational.
Okay, sir. Thank you. I'll turn back.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Omkar from Guarga Dare Sri Investment. Please go ahead.
Hello. You have talked about the FMEG business transformation, I mean, it will be-
Omkar, you are not audible. Can you be please-
Am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah. My question was regarding SMID business. You mentioned that by the end of this calendar year, there will be turnaround in the FMEG business, and could you list out some factors, what exactly you are doing? Because if you see quarter-on-quarter, it's been, the losses are increasing. So any specific points you can give on transformation, when it can turn black?
Sure, Omkar. So, specifically, first, commenting on the margins or the losses which are in the segment, as I had given more color in terms of what led to these high losses. This was as a result of two one-time impacts. But again, having said that, we are on a path to improving profitability within this business. There are a few things that we are doing—we are gonna do differently over the course of next two to three quarters. But what the large change that we have done is that now we have merged all of the B2C business verticals under one business head. There will be a lot of decentralization of decision making within that business.
And over and above that, what we did was, we've identified a few execution gaps that were there on the strategic roadmap that we had identified for this business within Project Leap. What we are gonna be doing over the course of next 2-3 quarters is allocating responsibility to these new heads who are responsible for this business to close out all those execution gaps. And do a better, more pressing job of execution on the improvement of distribution network that we are going to do. More focus on new product development, more focus on influencer management, and so on. So over the course of next 2-3 quarters, this is the thing, these are the few changes that we are going to do.
Hence, we believe that once this is behind us, the FMEG business for us should start growing at a rate which is better than industry.
I mean, you are quite certain that by FY 26, we will be in the black for FMEG?
So, Omkar, one can only believe and try to execute, and that is what we are trying to do. We believe we have identified the gaps that were there in our execution, and hence, that roadmap is ahead of us in terms of what it is that we need to do differently over the course of next two to three quarters. If we are able to do what we have are planning out to do, we believe that we should be able to start growing at rates which I just mentioned.
Okay, and, the next question is on-
Can you rejoin the queue for your follow-up questions? Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashish Jain from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. My first question, you know, is on the EHV. Where are we in terms of our product approvals and all? Like, can it happen parallelly? I guess not, for the EHV cables, you know.
Yes, Ashish, there are a couple of things over here. One is we are still in the process of setting up that manufacturing plant. The plant will only become operational by end of FY 2026. So anyways, doing commercial sale of that will only happen from FY 2027. In terms of approvals, yes, when there is case for EHV, there generally what happens is that you have to get your product approved, and you also have to be approved as an EPC player. Both of this is something that we will be able to get. One of them is because we have a JV with Satec here, who has been manufacturing EHV cables for a long time in India, and as a result, we have those approvals in place.
As far as the EPC is concerned, we've been in the EPC business for a good many years, and again, there are two more years until our plant becomes operational. So by the time that our plant will become operational, the products we will have we will be qualified to supply those cables to the end customers, and hopefully, that should result-start resulting to a good amount of contribution to the top line from FY 2027 onwards.
Okay, so approvals will not hold us in 2027, in particular, from a revenue point of view. We are confident about that?
Right. That is.
Okay. And similarly, you know, similar question for our switchgear business. You know, that's another category which, you know, historically has been within, you know, select players, because of the technicality, in my view, at least. So, so where are we on that in terms of our technology, partnership and all, what have we done there?
So on switchgears, we don't have any technology partnerships. We manufacture those in-house. We have our very robust R&D setup. As you'll be aware, a couple of years back, we acquired a small startup by the name of Silvan in Bangalore, and now that team is working with our R&D division for the FMEG business. So those guys are helping us in coming out with newer SKUs, newer products on all of our FMEG products. And that is where we are also coming out with all our filling out all of our product gaps on the switchgears businesses as well.
Got it, got it. And, you know, last question on, on the cables and wires export. I know you gave a certain number of, you know, as a percentage of revenue. But can you, you know, also talk about where do we see, you know, this potential in the next three, five years? Can it be a big thing, or will this 10% as a percentage of overall revenue is, is the kind of cap we should think about, or can it be much bigger than that?
So, Ashish, again, as I mentioned, the Project Leap top-line guidance is something that we are very close to achieving, and as a result, we'll be revising or coming out with our new midterm guidance in this financial year. Perhaps at that time, we'll be coming out with the revised guidance for the international business contribution growth thing as well.
Okay, okay, got it. Thanks a lot, and best of luck.
Thank you. The next follow-up question is from the line of Natasha Jain from Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
So my question, a previous participant already asked, but I'm still not able to clearly gauge to how do we see it. So, Polycab has consistently over, you know, a couple of quarters, rather a couple of years, been giving guidance in a particular range, and we although almost always seem to exceed those guidances. Now, even for EPC, the new guidance that you've given, that is very high single digit, but still we seem to exceed that guidance as well. Just a request, as to if, you know, we could, we could get more in, in line with the guidance or rather increase the number if that is what we're going to sustainably achieve. So that's, that's just one request from our side, because it's difficult to then estimate, because you consistently beat your own guidances. That's it. No question. Thank you.
Thank you, Natasha.
Thank you. The next follow-up question is from the line of Girish from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah. So my question was on, exports and the right to win in places like U.S. I know we are doing a lot of work there, but I wanted to understand that whether this, you know, geopolitics that is there right now, is there any, you know, taxes that are levied on, you know, U.S. importing the Chinese wires or Mexican wires or anything of that sort, which is helping us or which would help us in the next couple of years? Or is it like purely economical driven? Because, you know, they can import wires from or cables from any part of the world. So I'm just trying to understand what's our right to win as a country and as Polycab.
So Girish, there are multiple reasons through which we are able to win orders in the U.S. One is definitely the China plus one thing, as you mentioned. Definitely U.S. and other countries are looking to diversify their supply chain. They don't want to be over-reliant on one single player, and that is where they are looking for other alternatives. Now, when looking for other alternatives, obviously they would want to look at a player who will be able to provide them at a cheaper price point. And that is wherein they are looking at countries from Asia. And again, India is something that obviously comes among the top three in that list.
If you look at other players within India as well, I mean, we've been working on this geography for almost three, four years now. You need to get approvals for various different types of products that you want to supply or provide in that geography. And we have almost all the approvals for all the different types of products that we want to supply. So that is one major reason where we have been able to grow a lot on the US side. Second thing, and this is something that will help us out in the future, is that we establish our distribution network. We'll be able to even curtail on our delivery timelines as compared to other exporters of cables.
So, as of now, how we operate or other people operate is that we manufacture it in India, and then there is a transport time of about a few weeks to transfer it to the U.S. But once we have our warehouse there, our products will be stocked up over there, and we'll be able to deliver within a few days, similar to how we operate in India. So that can be something that will help make us a differentiator in the future. The third point, wherein we are able to win against, let's say, a Chinese competitor, is that there is a lot of consistency in terms of the quality and the availability of our products.
Something which is not very well true or executed by the Chinese pro players. So even if, let's say, 4 years, 5 years down the line, the import duties, which are there on the Chinese cables, is lifted up, there will still continue to be this differentiator in terms of the consistency of quality and product availability, as well as the kind of service levels that we are delivering to the end customers. So I believe, it's a host of reasons. All these 4, 5 reasons are the ones which gives us the right to win in U.S. or rather, in all the international geographies.
Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
In the interest of time, that will be the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Gandharv Tongia, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer, for closing comments.
Thank you so much for taking out time, and reviewing our performance. We deeply appreciate your support over the years. In case if there are any unanswered questions, please feel free to write to us at our IR mailbox, and we will get in touch with you, at the earliest. Thank you, and have a great day. Bye-bye.
On behalf of Polycab India Limited, that concludes this conference.