Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q1 FY 2027 earnings conference call of Prince Pipes and Fittings Limited, hosted by MUFG Intime . 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Sumeet Khaitan from MUFG Intime . Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening everyone. I welcome you all to the earnings conference call to discuss Q1 FY 2027 results of Prince Pipes and Fittings Limited. To discuss the results we have from the management, Nihar Chheda, Vice President, Strategy, and Anand Gupta, Chief Financial Officer. They will take you through the results and the business performance, after which we will proceed for Q&A session. Before we proceed with the call, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. For more details, kindly refer to investor presentation and other filings that can be found on the company's website. With this, I now hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Sumeet. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our first quarter FY 2027 financial results call. The presentation and press release has been issued to the stock exchanges and uploaded on our website. I hope everyone has been able to go through the same. Before I share the demand outlook and our strategic initiatives, I would comment on the raw material scenario. While PVC resin prices witnessed a recovery during the March quarter, prices saw a sharp correction from early April following the temporary suspension of import duty on PVC resin till June 26, which introduced fresh uncertainty into the market and resulted in destocking, across channel partners across the industry. Despite these external challenges, Prince Pipes remained firmly focused on executing our long-term strategy, which is based on three pillars: product innovation, distributor network expansion, and retailer network expansion.
Innovation and product development continue to be key pillars of our long-term growth strategy. As the Indian piping industry evolves, we are actually seeing a gradual shift from conventional commodity products towards more advanced, performance-driven solutions. This transition presents a significant opportunity for value creation, and we are focused on expanding our portfolio with differentiated offerings that address the customer's needs. While PVC has been the traditional material of choice, evolving customer expectations around faster installation, low noise performance, and lower lifetime maintenance are creating demand for next generation solutions. We have developed our polypropylene-based drainage system, DECILO, which is designed to deliver superior performance across these parameters. We believe that DECILO has the potential to redefine customer expectations and establish new benchmarks for architects, developers, and plumbing consultants while selecting pipes.
We have started manufacturing DECILO at our Haridwar facility, and material has started to be installed in not only residential projects, but also commercial projects like hospitals and hotels across India. Our second pillar for growth has been distribution network expansion. At the beginning of this fiscal year, we have identified wide spaces at a district and taluka level across India. In the June quarter, we have been able to add many new channel partners, and we will continue to do so aggressively in the September quarter. Network expansion will be a key lever for growth going forward. Thirdly, we have strengthened our program of digitizing our value chain. DMS, which is Distributor Management Systems, are now fully in place, and now we have complete visibility and tracking of secondary sales at a retailer level.
Our scheme spends are now directly targeted to retailers across the country, which has helped us move to a pull-based demand model rather than the legacy push-based way of selling. Furthermore, SFA, which is sales force automation, also is in place, which is helping us improve productivity of the ground level sales force. Lastly, brand building also is a key strategic priority for us during this quarter. We significantly enhanced our consumer outreach through high visibility campaigns across local trains, buses, and other strategic locations with strong daily footfall. These branding initiatives are designed to reinforce Prince's brand recall and to further strengthen our positioning as a trusted provider of high-quality piping systems. We expect industry demand to be supported by a recovery in infrastructure activity, increasing premiumization across product categories, and the benefits of operating leverage as market conditions normalize. Thank you for your time.
I will now hand it over to our CFO, Anand, to take you through the fiscal highlights.
Thank you, Nihar. Very good evening, everyone. I will be taking you through the quarter one FY 2027 financials now. Revenue from operation in this quarter stood at INR 609 crores, a growth of 5% YoY. Our volumes for the quarter stood at 40,729 metric ton, degrew by 7% YoY. EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 77 crores, a growth of 93% YoY, while margin stood at 13%, registering a 600 basis point growth. Profit after tax for the quarter stood at INR 34 crores, a growth of 580% YoY. Tax margin for the quarter stood at 6%. Working capital days stood at 71 days in Q1 FY 2027. Receival days stood at 40 days, whereas inventory days stood at 100 days as of 30th June 2026.
With this, I now end my speech and open the forum for question-and-answer session.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, may please press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is on the line of Shravan Shah from Dolat Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, sir. A couple of questions to get a better understanding of results. Congratulations on a good set of results, particularly on the margin front. Before asking the question, just a couple of data points, if you can share. Bathware revenue and Bathware EBITDA loss and any inventory gain in Q1.
The revenue for Bathware segment is at INR 13 crores. EBITDA is INR -5 crores, and there is no inventory gain for this quarter.
Okay. There is no inventory gain because what we are seeing, the significant improvement in the gross margin for this quarter, close to a 30% odd, primarily because of the change in inventory, which is a kind of a INR 100 crore negative figure, and that is why there is a significant improvement. Just wanted to understand, given the PVC prices. In the last almost 13, 14 days, we have seen a INR 12.5 PVC prices again going up. How one can look at in terms of the gross margin first. Will there be any kind of inventory gain or loss in the Q2?
Thank you for your question. With the MIP, I think that essentially acts like a floor for PVC prices. Rather than, I will not speculate on inventory gain or loss going forward, but I think the good part is that now there is less uncertainty for distributors to be scared of destocking because they are scared of prices to fall further. Now there is a very clear bottom of $766 per ton in PVC. Going forward, we should see good realizations and good growth because of this lack of uncertainty going forward.
Yeah. To understand better, for this quarter, the 7% YoY degrowth on the volume front. Last time we said that in the May month, April definitely was a problem. But in May, we have seen a kind of a recovery in terms of the channel again restocking. This 7% degrowth is mainly because of the April month and May and June have we seen kind of a plateau or maybe a marginal growth? Similarly, now because we were looking at 12%, 15% kind of a volume growth, the ask rate obviously in the nine months is 17% - 21%. July is there and are we sticking to our volume growth number?
Yeah, I think the April degrowth of 7% doesn't keep me up at night because like you rightly said, fourth quarter we had delivered a 25% kind of a volume growth, which obviously is not sustainable. That was led by very heavy restocking in the channel. At beginning of April, one is channel level inventory was very high, and then prices started to correct. April was like a washout, and May and June, we saw strong recovery. July also, obviously, I will stay away from quantifying, but we have seen good growth. April was a blip because of the one-way decrease in PVC prices and high level of channel inventory as of March 31st. But if I look at June, July, again, we are back on the growth trajectory.
For full year, we will be doing a 12%-15% guidance that we have said last time in terms of the volume and on the margin front, 11%-13%. Any change in the guidance?
We will stick to our guidance on growth going forward.
Okay. A couple of data points in terms of the CapEx in Q1 and for full year, how much the CapEx will be and net cash as on June.
Whatever we had given data point in the May call stands as it is. There is no change in CapEx plan. For this quarter, around INR 40 crores-INR 42 crores has been spent, and that has primarily been on the completion of second tranche of Bhuj plant takeover. That is the only thing which has happened. Rest of the CapEx will flow in next nine months. What was the second part?
Net cash, and if you can also spell the gross debt also, that would be helpful.
Net cash is almost neutral on June 30. I think the gross debt is around INR 120 crores kind of, including long term and short term both.
Okay. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one now. The next question is on the line of Sneha from Nuvama. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good evening, team, and congrats on great set of numbers. Just couple of questions. You said that there was no inventory gain or loss in this particular quarter, but we have seen a phenomenal improvement in margins. Would you want to give some reasons of why these margins have improved despite the volume drop that we have seen? Also, how sustainable are these margins going ahead? That is first one.
Yeah. Thank you, Sneha. I think let me answer the question in two parts. First is the gross margin level, and then at the operating margin level. As far as gross margin is concerned, Q1 typically is the agri heavy quarter. But this time, given that the prices were so volatile, we have seen more demand coming in from plumbing. Agri has actually seen a major degrowth relative to the rest of the portfolio, which is plumbing and drainage. So one is product mix has improved relative to what it usually is from a segmental point of view. That is point number one. Second point is from a polymer mix as well. CPVC, PPR, PP, these kind of product contribution has improved compared to what it was in the past. So one is agri versus building material, and second is PVC versus CPVC, PP, PPR.
Both product mix improvements at a segmental and at a polymer level have helped as far as gross margin is concerned. At the EBITDA margin, apart from these two, while volumes degrew, better realizations helped better operating leverage. So that is how the margins have played out in the June quarter.
Just a clarity there. As products have been improving in quarter four, because typically quarter four is somewhere [inaudible]
Sorry to interrupt, Sneha Ma'am. Your voice is breaking.
I was saying, typically. Are you able to hear me now?
Yes, ma'am.
Yeah. I was asking, typically, what we see is quarter four is the best product mix. Have we seen product mix improvement even over quarter four?
Yes, I think even because quarter four also is agri heavy relative to Q3 and Q4. Q1 is the heaviest in terms of agri, followed by Q4. But if I see contribution of plumbing versus agri and contribution of CPVC and PPR versus PVC, both have been superior in June quarter.
Understood. Secondly, with respect to the recent price hikes which have taken place in PVC, could you help us understand how much of it is actually passed on at this point in time on ground?
I think we are passing it on in a phase-wise manner. Usually, we give one to two weeks to the channel. Accordingly we have done it this time as well.
Despite everything, quarter two would look like a quarter which would have inventory gains. Is that understanding correct? Along with the volume growth because of restockings.
I would not like to comment on inventory gain or loss right now because while the MIP is in place, we also have higher cost cargo coming in because we did see a correction in the month before this month. I do not think there will be a significant inventory gain or loss in the second quarter. But yes, for the rest of the year, with better price certainty because of the floor of PVC pricing, I think distributors should not be anxious while stocking material, which will definitely help us from a growth perspective going forward.
Understood. Lastly, I just wanted to understand the end user demand. While I understand agri season is almost done with, how is the end user demand when it comes to plumbing? While you were saying that you are following a pull strategy versus historic push, could you explain us more in terms of what are the actions you are taking on ground?
Yeah. I think couple of strategies that we are working on. One is, while network expansion always is a focus for Prince, I think at the beginning of this financial year, we had again sort of identified white spaces and done an exercise, and we have identified white spaces across key markets. It is a KPI for the sales team to sort of fill these white spaces with channel partners. With the kind of consolidation that is happening, we have been able to add channel partners not only from unorganized players, but from organized players as well during this quarter, which should reflect in the growth going forward. That is as far as primary is concerned. As far as secondary at the retailer and plumber level because now DMS has been in place for a few quarters now.
Apart from data collection, now we've been able to start working on this data. There are tens of thousands of retailers who we now directly give schemes to and directly reward from the company to the retailer. While the supply happens through the distributor, this kind of a focus at the retail level really helps us create pull rather than push. Digitizing of the value chain happened over the past, I would say six quarters, and now the dividends should play out over the next few quarters. The third part is as a part of this digitization is also digitizing the sales force tracking through sales force automation where we are able to improve productivity of the feet on street effectively which is sort of synced with our distributor management systems.
To conclude, primary network expansion, retailer network expansion, and improved productivity at the sales force ground level. This is what we have been working on, and raw material scenarios could change, but these are things which will really help us build a robust sales engine. This is not hypothetical anymore. This is being done on ground, and I am confident that this will play out in industry-leading growth going forward.
Got that, team. Thanks a lot and all the best.
Thank you, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one now. The next question is from the line of Praneeth from SJ Investments. Please go ahead with your question.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. You mentioned the fact that you are focusing on high-value products. What is that meaning? Are we changing our strategy in terms of focusing on basic pipes to this? In terms of the high value, do they already exist or are we creating these new products and trying to educate the audience that this can be easier?
No, so product mix improvement is primarily by two things. One is the existing portfolio or value-added products are CPVC and PPR plumbing systems. Here the mindshare is more at the sales team and at the management level of how do we increase our contribution from these products both in retail and project vertical. The second phase is higher focus on product innovation and R&D and which starts with our new product of DECILO, which is low noise drainage PP pipes, where we are ahead of the curve and an early mover to introduce this product. We are looking at many more new product launches within the pipe vertical where gross margins will be significantly better than our core products of PVC. So existing products, we are putting more mindshare of how do we grow higher than industry in both retail and project segment.
Second is product innovation and R&D, where we can have new product launches within the pipe segment.
Basically, the new products are mostly focused towards projects, is it?
No, it is retail and projects, both.
Understood, sir. In terms of the contribution from agri, projects, and remaining retail, how was it split for the last year and in this quarter?
Agri typically is, so we do not give segmental breakups, but just for direction. Typically, Agri is around 30%-35% at an annual level. This quarter, it was more skewed towards the public.
Just, I was trying to understand, is our growth being mostly focused from projects, or is it retail? Because you mentioned that retail had been but just to understand otherwise.
No, let me be very clear. We have to grow. We are still working on low capacity utilization. We have just completed a large CapEx cycle of capacity that we've put up in Jaipur, Telangana, and Begusarai at all our three manufacturing facilities. Today, we are not in a position to pick and choose whether we want to grow in retail or projects. The sales engine has to fire across verticals, so the retail and projects both. The more important thing is we see that there is market share up for grabs if we play our cards right, with some of the larger players also struggling and consolidation happening where smaller players are also struggling. There is room for growth across retail and projects, and our focus is on growing in both verticals.
Understood. And sir, you mentioned the fact that we were able to gain some in terms of distributors and final touchpoints from organized and unorganized players. What exactly has driven that? Is it because that we are not increasing our prices compared to our competitors, or what was it?
No. It's not price-driven. It's up to our distributors by just giving a better price. I think more is just a stronger relationship and a stronger demand engine. Today, more than margin, I think what is important for a distributor is how fast you can rotate their material, the amount of inventory terms you can offer them in the retail market. Because we now have DMS and SFA in place, and a direct control on retailers across the country, distributors want to be associated with a strong brand where there is a pull for demand rather than a push. Of course, then relationship building, which is very important at the senior management and at the family level. I think it's a combination of these.
Basically, right now, how many other players, organized ones, do have a DMS system?
I will not have an exact count, but we have been ahead of the curve. Not everyone does out of the top five. We have been ahead of the curve, and we have been one of the early movers in digitizing the value chain. Just by having a DMS is not enough. It is what you do with the data. Data collection is only half the journey. It is also how you put that data to work and make schemes accordingly and have direct outreach to retailers. I think it is a combination.
Sir, the reason I am stressing on this factor-
Sorry to interrupt, Praneeth sir. May we request that you return to the question queue for follow-up?
Just one last question. With regards to our utilizations, at what level will we be able to reach your guided of 14%-15% EBITDA margins?
We have not guided at 14%-15%. Our guidance is 11%-13% kind of operating margin.
When do you think you will be able to reach that level? Will it be existing utilizations also will be able to reach, or how is it going to be?
Yeah. It is a function of product mix, pricing power, operating leverage, decentralizing of manufacturing footprint now with a new plant in the East. Those freight benefits also have kicked in. Apart from utilization, which leads to operating leverage, we also have product mix and decentralization benefits. These are the three or four levers. And of course, focus is on improving capacity utilization. Our guidance for operating margins remains in that 11%-13%.
Understood. Just to back and check. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one now. The next question is from the line of Anu Parakh from Anand Rathi. Please proceed with your question.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Sir, what will be the gross margin we can expect for FY 2027? Is the 34% ever going to sustain going forward? What will be the guidance for the rest of the year?
I mean, we will stick to an 11%-13% kind of an operating margin guidance. I think I have just walked through the, I think more than the numbers, what is important is the levers for margin. I am happy to maybe go through it again. Product mix, pricing power, operating leverage, and freight benefits which come through decentralization of the manufacturing footprint, which we have done through new plants in South, which is in Sangareddy, Telangana, and in East, which is in Begusarai in Bihar. So these are going to be the three or four levers for optimizing our operating margins.
Sir, I was asking about the gross margin.
Yeah. Out of these, product mix and pricing power are at the gross margin level. Even freight is at the gross margin level. Operating leverage is the only one which is at the EBITDA level.
We can expect the same levels to continue for the rest of the year.
We do not guide at the gross margin level. I will repeat. We guide at the EBITDA level, which is 11%-13%. But I have walked you through the three or four levers which help us strengthen our margins.
Okay. And sir, last question. What will be the amount of inventory debtor and creditor at the end of June?
We have guided the numbers, which is around 40 days for debtors, 100 days for inventory, around 70 days kind of for payables. These are the inventory days, payable, and debtor days.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one now. The next question is from the line of Roshan from Antique Stock Broking. Please proceed with your question.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity and congratulations for the set of numbers. Sir, we wanted to understand, have the channel partners resumed normal buying behavior or are the dealers still operating with low inventory due to the uncertainty-
Sorry to interrupt, Roshan, sir. Can you speak a little louder?
Yeah. Is that better now?
Yes, sir.
Yeah. I was asking, have the channel partners resumed normal buying behavior or are dealers still operating with lower inventory levels because of the uncertainty in PVC prices that had happened? That is my first question.
Yeah, I think, in June and July we saw better stocking from channel partners, which is more reflective of the secondary demand or the last-mile demand. Especially now with the MIP in place, there is no uncertainty of what is the bottom anymore. So that waiting game with the channel partners is over, at least for the next couple of quarters. So distributors are happy to keep regular levels of inventory, which we have seen play out in the past couple of months.
Okay. On the unorganized front, have the smaller regional manufacturers recovered from the raw material volatility that we have seen over the last few quarters? Or are the organized players still continuing to consolidate the market share?
My view is that larger players continue to consolidate because in the volatility, a lot of the smaller players face raw material insecurity. In our kind of industry, unless your machines are running 365 days, it is very tough to survive. Even now with the MIP, actually, the open market rates are much higher than what Reliance prices are or what kind of inventory large players are holding. So supply security also at the right price becomes very important because currently there is a more than physical, it is a sentiment-driven also where open market prices are really high. So it becomes very tough for smaller players to compete with larger players who have better supply security. Apart from this, end user, even for a product which is behind the wall, is becoming more and more brand conscious.
As we are aware, piping is less than 1%-2% of an overall project cost. So this industry has consolidated and will continue to consolidate and these kind of volatility in raw material prices or any changes in raw material prices only support this.
Okay. That's helpful. That's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Sunil Jain from Nirmal Bang Securities Private Limited. Please proceed with your question.
Yeah. Thanks for this opportunity. Sir, last quarter you had sacrificed the inventory gain to gain the market share. Rightly you gained a lot of volume in the last quarter. Was that policy still continuing in the current quarter or current, in the sense Q1 and Q2?
No, we are not continuing that. I think that was one time because there was a very sharp increase in raw material prices in March quarter. We thought it is only fair to share that with the channel partners and with the market and focus on growth. But that is not sustainable every quarter because we will not have those kind of price swings every quarter. So now any increase or decrease we pass on either immediately or maximum within a week or two we pass it on to the channel. Especially now with the MIP there is no reason of having those kind of strategies. I think that was more just a tactical part in one quarter because it was a very severe swing and we thought it's opportunistic to get the sales engine firing again and do a record kind of a volume.
But that cannot be done every quarter. We are confident that more long-term initiatives like network expansion and digitizing of value chain, new product innovation, these are going to be the levers of sustainable growth going forward.
So in Q1, do you see you gained market share because the competitors sales degrowth is higher than yours?
Yeah, I think, obviously it is not a zero-sum game between two players, I think. But overall, if I look at the industry, yes, I think our degrowth has been lower than what industry degrowth has been or what peers degrowth has been. So I think we are confident about volumes now.
Okay, great, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Shravan Shah from Dolat Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you, sir, for the opportunity again. Sir, in Bathware, we were looking to break even in Q2 or Q3, where we will be having a kind of a INR 25 crore-INR 30 crore quarterly run rate of revenue. But this quarter also, we were having a similar kind of a INR 13 crore revenue. Do we think that in Q2, Q3, we will be able to achieve a break-even or maybe a INR 25 crore-INR 30 crore kind of a quarterly revenue run rate?
I think in Q2, we should have a much better performance than Q1. Q3, I think INR 25 crores is an achievable number, if I look at the monthly run rate. In the December quarter, we should be doing INR 25 crores, which will be very close to breakeven.
Okay.
Q3, we will see a significantly better performance than Q1.
Okay. Great. Sir, you highlighted in terms of everything, particularly on the channel strengthening, the pricing power and digitization and the product mix, all this. This will be, as you highlighted, that will help us to post industry-leading volume growth. I assume this will be a kind of a structural thing for next couple of years that we are talking about in terms of growing better than the industry.
Yes, definitely. There is market share up for grabs. We do see that for an agile player like us with a focus on products, new products and new markets, there is structural improvement in volume and industry-leading growth is our aspiration and we are confident.
Do we also think that maybe a couple of years, maybe two years down the line, then once we will have a better than the industry growth, obviously this will be also can have an operating positive leverage and can help us to improve the margin what right now we are guiding 11%-13%? Is there a possibility, can we see maybe two, three year down the line that or are we aiming to kind of a 15% + kind of EBITDA margin?
I think for now if I look at medium term, I think 11%-13% kind of operating margin with industry-leading growth should be the focus. Any improvement in margins has to be driven from value-added products like CPVC coming in, as well as new products like DECILO. Superior product mix and superior contribution from value-added products is a sort of key performance indicator for us internally as well, which should help margins improve in the long term. For medium term, I think growth is primary.
Got it. This quarter, broadly in terms of the project versus sales business mix would be the similar of the Q4 or has that changed?
What is the question? Could you repeat?
The project versus retail business mix. You have highlighted that broadly on annual basis 30%-35% that we have agreed, but in terms of the project level, this quarter broadly would be at what level?
It would be broadly similar where 25%-30% would be project and balance would be retail.
Okay. Got it, sir. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Sushant Soni from Dhrishya Capital . Please proceed with your question.
Yeah, hi team. Are you able to hear me?
Yes, sir.
Yes.
Perfect. Thanks a lot for giving me the opportunity and would like to first appreciate the efforts put in by management, right, to correct the trajectory that our company has seen in the last two years.
Sling on human working capital, which clearly can be seen in the numbers. My question kind of revolves around management's strategy or view on the appropriate ROCE for this business, particularly in light of competitive intensity and also the fact that most of the CapEx is now behind us.
Sir, what is the question?
Sir, management's view on the appropriate return on capital employed for the business. Clearly currently it's depressed because we were in the investing phase and we were correcting a few operational things, right, like volume and working capital. What is your view on a sustainable ROCE for this business?
See, if you historically see apart from the past few years, 15%-20%, sometimes even higher than that has been done. Of course, for us that is the rules. So with volumes coming in, stricter capital allocation, that we have done that in the past and there's no reason why we can't do it again. So I think that is the range where I think any good business needs to be.
Is there like a particular utilization level that you track internally where you hit those levels?
Typically, 60%-65% is where we hit it. Anything more than that, I see it that we have been late with our CapEx cycle, because at Prince, while of course utilization levels are important, one of the reasons that we have been able to reach the scale that we have is that we have been ahead of the curve in adding capacity, and we've always had the financial muscle to have that waiting power and put up capacities well in advance. So I'm not too fussy about reaching 70%-75%. I think 60%-65% we'll hit. If we hit more than that, I see it that we've been late with adding more capacity.
Understood. Thanks a lot. Just one last thing on this. The utilization you say is on the installed capacity or the production capacity?
Production.
What you mentioned in your notes. Okay, understood. And sir, just one last question on just the inventory, that I understand that it's 100 days for this quarter versus our stated guidance of 65-75. That increase is just maybe specific to this quarter, given the supply situation that you alluded to earlier on the call?
Yeah, it was two parts. One is of course, we stick to our guidance of 65-75 days for inventory. Two things. One, there was supply insecurity during the wartime, and second, we did not expect 7% kind of a degrowth, so obviously there was sales loss. While we are better off than what industry is in June quarter, we had planned our inventory as per better volume performance. But we should see immediate correction in inventory. This is not a structural thing. We will be back to our stated guidance by end of September quarter.
Perfect. Thanks a lot, and best of luck.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Sonal from Prescient Capital. Please proceed with your question.
Hi there, this is Sonal Minhas. I hope I am audible.
Yes.
Yeah.
Sir, just carrying on from the question from the previous participant, you mentioned that 60%-65% is a good capacity utilization. Is there a broader timeline that you have in mind when you would be hitting this capacity utilization?
As of now, we are at around 52%-53% kind of utilization.
Yes.
What we have guided is 13% - 15% of growth in this year, which translates to if the capacity is static, then we will reach to around 60% of full utilization.
Got it, sir. That 13% is volume, basically, is what I am hearing?
Yeah. 10% - 15% is what we have guided, and we hit the upper circuit of what we have guided, we will reach to 60% of our utilization.
Got it, sir. One more question with regard to you passing some benefits of inventory gain in last quarter, and there is an inventory gain in your books as well this time down. Is there a visible change in your debtor days because of this practice that you started, that you have seen, and you do mention that your debtor days are to be in 50-60 days kind of guidance. But because of this, is there a longer-term trajectory that this number can come down to 40-45 days?
If you see June end, we are at 40 days of-
Got it. Okay.
debtor days. This is key for us. As the brand becomes stronger, this has to reduce. Compared to my peers, my debtor days is still higher, and we recognize and acknowledge that. Our complete focus internally as an organization is twofold to reduce debtor days. One is to use channel finance aggressively. Second, as the brand becomes stronger, as we digitize the value chain and move to a pull-based demand model, debtor days will also come under control, which I think is the true sustainable way of tightening the working capital cycle. In my business, I have to keep inventory of raw material and finished goods, so I cannot reduce it beyond two months. Debtor days eventually has to go in the next couple of years towards 30 days, is what my target for debtor days is.
Inventory and all of that, passing on the gains is more tactical, but fundamental growth levers that I have explained in terms of network expansion, new product launches, and keep investing in the brand visibility in good and bad quarters. I think these are more fundamental ways of driving demand. But debtor day control and reduction is a key priority for us. We will not have any growth at the cost of using credit as a lever.
Understand that. That is reassuring, that sir. That should translate into ROC and presuming that should also be at par with or directionally trending towards the market leaders in the peers that you have been alluding to.
Exactly.
Got it. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of Prince Pipes and Fittings Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.