Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Raymond Lifestyle Limited Q4 and FY25 earning conference call hosted by Antique Stock Broking Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Abhijit Gundu from Antique Stock Broking. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yeah, thank you. On behalf of Antique Stock Broking, I would like to welcome all the participants in the Q4 FY25 and FY25 conference call of Raymond Lifestyle Limited. Today we have with us from senior management of Raymond Lifestyle, Mr. SL Pokarna, President Corporate Commercial, Mr. Amit Agarwal, Group CFO, Mr. Sameer Shah, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Jatin Rana, and Mr. Sunny Deosa, Head Investor Relations. Without taking further time, I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Amit Agarwal. Over to you, Amit.
Thank you, Abhijit. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 and annual results for fiscal 2025 conference call. I hope everyone has had an opportunity to go through our financial results and investor presentation, which have been uploaded on the stock exchanges as well as on the company's website. Before we delve into our quarterly performance, we wish to express our heartfelt condolences to those affected by the tragic events in Kashmir, our thoughts are with the victims and their families during this difficult time. We stand in solidarity with the people of India and support efforts to restore peace in the region. Moving ahead, it is essential to consider the broader macroeconomic landscape that has influenced our performance and strategic decisions. As we know, the global landscape continues to be challenging and unpredictable, with geopolitical dynamics causing various fluctuations.
Recent policy changes have introduced a degree of uncertainty impacting markets worldwide. However, we believe India stands in a unique position to potentially benefit from these global economic shifts. India's GDP growth is estimated to remain at around 6.5% for fiscal 2025. However, consumer spending continues to remain weak, including in this quarter. Lower CapEx and persistent high inflation impact discretionary spending as households prioritize essential goods and services over non-essential items. The consumer price index has remained elevated, driven by higher food and shell prices. However, the union budget for 2025-2026 has been favorable towards urban consumption and middle-class households, introducing tax cuts which would benefit to the tune of INR 100,000 in the hands of the taxpayers. As a result, we anticipate an increase in purchasing power with the mid-income housing segment. Now, I would like to talk about the performance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025.
The performance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 was subdued, with revenues of INR 1,580 million versus INR 1,728 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, which is down by 9% year-on-year basis amidst high inflation leading to weaker consumer demand. The situation was exaggerated with the ransomware attack that disrupted operations during the quarter, which led to temporary system outages and supply chain delays impacting sales and operations. These factors led to lower sales, scale delivery, and impacted profitability during the quarter. The IT team, with the support of cybersecurity experts, restored back normalcy of the operation. During the whole year of fiscal 2025, the company reported a total net income of INR 6,360 million at an EBITDA of INR 651 million, with a margin of EBITDA margin of 10.2% in the fiscal 2025.
The annual performance was as well impacted by the subdued consumer demand, prolonged heat waves, general elections, fewer wedding dates in the summer, inflationary pressures, and upfront investment in retail store expansion and adverse segment effects of the various products. Now, let me give you the highlights of the various segments. How did it fare? In terms of our branded textile segment, revenue declined to INR 727 million by 21% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 as compared to INR 920 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024, predominantly on account of weaker consumer demand and also impacted by the ransomware attack leading to scale delivery, resulting in lower EBITDA margins at 7% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 as compared to 21.8% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024. The business has been adversely affected by the weaker consumer demand and continues to be sustained.
During the second half of fiscal 2025, secondary sales have picked up. However, the dealers remain hesitant to restock the inventory due to the consumer demand pressure they had seen over the past few quarters. Despite this, we are observing some decent booking for the branded textile business for the autumn-winter collection of 2025. In terms of the branded apparel segment, revenues stood at INR 391 million compared to INR 409 million in the same quarter last year. The segment reported an EBITDA margin of 0.4% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, vis-à-vis 13.5% in the fourth quarter fiscal 2024. During the quarter, we have opened 35 new stores, including 9 for ethnic wear stores as well. Ethnic wear now has got more than 150 operational stores. Our ethnic products have been well received in the market, indicating acceptance.
The total retail store network now stands at 1,688 stores as of 31st of March 2025. Our strategy remains focused on brand building, strengthening distribution, as well as broader product range to meet the evolving customer needs and requirements. We had invested during our journey in the store expansion, however, due to continued pressure on the demand, which did not meet our expectations, leading to lower sales in review and impacted the store profitability. Our focus continues on improving the store sales and as well as the efficiencies at the store level. Our journey to enter new categories with sleek fire remand was launched during the previous quarter. In order to expand the product suite for the complete line, we had entered the innerwear category with the successful launch of Park Avenue Innerwear.
With this, we have now entered the core innerwear category with the new range, trendy designs, new age fabric, and product construction. We are positioned to cater to the mass premium to premium segment, keeping our consumer style, fashion, and functionality in mind. Now, let me also talk about the garmenting segment, where during the quarter, the company reported a revenue of INR 248 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 as compared to INR 250 million in the same quarter previously. During the quarter, EBITDA loss was 2.9% as compared to 12% reported in the previous year. However, due to global uncertainties, customers have adopted a wait-and-watch approach. This has primarily impacted our margins as customers have renegotiated pricing. Additionally, the cost of training personnel for new product lines has further affected profitability.
Our vertically integrated supply chain, which enables seamless conversion from fabric to garment, provides us with a distinct advantage in the marketplace. This integration supports our growth ambition and positions us as a unique player within the industry. In fiscal 2025, we have successfully added over 20 new clients across the markets, including the U.S., U.K., and Europe. We continue to expand our capacity, a move that will significantly bolster our global standing. Once this expansion is complete, we would become one of the largest suitmakers worldwide, paving the way for further growth and customer acquisition. On the U.S. tariff front, for all our garmenting products, we would be benefiting from a substantial tariff differential of approximately 31% vis-à-vis China. This competitive edge allows us to offer more attractive pricing and enhance our market position and improve the market share with our customers in the U.S.
Furthermore, the recent free trade agreement between the U.K. and India presents a good opportunity for growth in that market as well. However, it is important to note that realigning the supply chain to fully leverage this agreement took normally some more time. In our high-value cotton shirting segment, the revenue declined to INR 185 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 compared to INR 213 million in the same quarter of the previous year. The EBITDA margin stood at 33.1% in the fourth quarter, vis-à-vis 11.3% on account of one-time subsidy receipts of INR 53 million. We are continually expanding our range to provide a comprehensive suite of products embodying the essence of a complete man. Our primary objective remains to establish a long-term sustainable business. On the balance sheet side, we continue to have a net debt preposition with net cash of INR 90 million as of 31st of March 2025.
In terms of net working capital, which stood at 87 days, amounting to INR 1,473 million in March 2025 compared to 89 days, which is INR 1,553 million in December 2024. This decrease is mainly due to reduction in trade receivables and inventory. We continue to remain focused on optimizing our net working capital. Looking ahead on the outlook, we expect 2026 to be a year of recovery as we observe a positive start in the textile and apparel bookings for the current financial year FY26. We'll be back to the growth trajectory in FY26 and continue to build on our initiative to deliver sustainable growth and value to our stakeholders. We appreciate your continued support and engagement as we navigate the opportunities ahead. Thank you once again for joining us today, and we look forward to addressing any questions which you all might have. Operator, please open the call 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 the touchstone 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 Sameer Gupta from India Infoline. Please go ahead.
Hi everyone, and thanks for taking my question. Sir, my question is primarily on ethnics. Can you share some data around ethnics? What is the sales currently in FY25, and what is the kind of run rate, let's say, for the close to two-year-old stores which are clocking right now? When the year started, I remember that the expectation built was around 80 store additions, but we've added only 34 on a net level this year. Have there been any closures that we have seen in this format, and what is the plan for FY26? I know there's a lot of questions, but primarily around ethnics.
Absolutely. I think, as you said, the fundamental in an ethnic business is, as I talked to you earlier in the branded apparel segment, which is a part of the ethnics, that the stores take a little longer than what we had anticipated, considering the fact that the demand scenario was weaker. If you have a demand scenario weaker, you do not have summer weddings, naturally the sales would not happen. This is primarily, this category is largely led by a wedding category. Second thing, if I talk about the stores, I think we have reached a level of revenue which is decent, and I do not say on a month-to-month basis the revenue is relevant. I think what is relevant is that during the wedding period, am I seeing the revenue, which is more likely than not we expect?
I think we are seeing we have achieved close to 75-80% of the threshold which we had anticipated. As far as the stores which are older than two years, obviously our expectation at that point of time was much higher that the store should do well, much better sales, but that has not been achieved considering the weaker demand scenario. As far as stores are concerned, you see we had always mentioned that certain stores, because every single location would not do well, we would be able to open the store, and we would also close some of the stores.
Overall, if I look at the health of the stores, today we are sitting almost 150 plus stores, and we told always that in the over a three to four-year period, we should be able to get to a 300 store, and our journey continues to be the same. However, in what we are going to change big time is that we will go more and more to a franchisee-led store than a company-led store because now the whole business model is fully established.
Anything on the numbers? I mean, there was an expectation of 100 floors this year. Have we reached there? How short are we from that level? On store closures, can you give a number? How many have been closed?
No. So basically, I think only 10 stores we have closed, not more than 10 stores we have closed. As far as number of stores is concerned, it is not right for me to give only the next 12 months. As I said, over the next 36 months, we will get to a level of 300 stores.
Sir, the revenue number, I'm still not able to get that. Sorry. It's okay if you don't want to share, but it was an expectation that was built in last quarter that this will cross the 100 store threshold.
Yeah, so we have crossed INR 100 crore threshold.
Okay. Got it. Thank you. Thank you so much, sir. I'll come back to the field for any follow-ups.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Deepak Bodar from Sapphire Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello? Am I audible, sir?
Yes, yes.
Sir, just wanted to understand. I mean, we have mentioned somewhere that we are already witnessing some early signs of recovery across channels in the month of April. Can you just elaborate more what sort of signs we are looking at, and then how should we look at growth for this year on an average? Yeah.
Yeah, sure. No, absolutely. I think that's a fantastic question. Look, at the end of the day, as I mentioned, in the second half of 2024-2025, we saw the secondary sales have been doing fairly well. Now, if the secondary sales do well, people have to restock their products, their shelves. Why did that not happen in the last quarter? Reason simple. People have not seen the demand coming in for the last 12 to 18 months. Now, when they saw that the demand is happening consistently, they are coming back to the normalcy and ordering these products. With that, what we are seeing is that the booking compared to last year to this year, we have seen clearly a growth of anything between 12-13% vis-à-vis last year's bookings. I think that is a good early sense. Can I say that the whole year is given?
Answer is no. We are seeing early signs. I think overall, as the money flow is going to improve, the inflation is settling down. We just saw the inflation coming down around 3.5%. I think these all give that the money can move to a discretionary spending. If the money moves into discretionary spending, we are in the rightful category where we will be able to see a growth coming. Very clear that compared to the last year, there will be a decent growth.
What is the range? I mean, 10-15%, would that be a fair range where we would like to work for this year's growth?
Yeah. It is absolutely fair to consider this kind of a growth, maybe slightly higher as well.
Understood. I mean, one point that you mentioned was, you are seeing some restocking happening. Actual demand is also coming back. Would that be a fair assumption to make on the ground?
Yes, yes. Because people would restock provided there is a demand. One, the inventory fulfillment is happening. Second, people are anticipating to have, and again, this summer, I think till tomorrow, day after, we have the wedding, which was practically not existent in the last year. Therefore, that wedding demand continues to be there, and there is all excitement. I think the CapEx is going to be also spent. Overall, consumption is going to improve.
Understood. Understood. At a steady state, I mean, this quarter was an exceptional quarter, right? I mean, in terms of the demand side also because of the cyber attack that you faced. On a steady state, what sort of margins one should look at? What margin will we be looking at?
In a branded textile, we have always mentioned that it is a margin in the range of 20-22%. That is the kind of margin we have been always mentioning. Overall, if I look at the business, I think anything, if I take lifestyle as a business, anything between 14-15%, you can consider as a decent margin.
Understood. Fair enough. Just one last thing. I mean, in terms of inventory, do we have, in terms of number of days, what sort of inventory would be there in the systems as against what is the normal scenario?
Yeah. I think inventory, you see, at the end of the day, what is more relevant is that the inventory at my supply chain internal, when I look at the downstream, be the wholesaler or the franchisee or the dealer network or the small retailers, MBOs, I think that has come down. That is very, very clearly visible. I can give you a very simple example. Last week, we had a number of wholesalers, dealers who came for the booking. They have clearly announced that all the inventory levels in the market have come down. That is why there is a lot of excitement of restocking.
Understood. Fair enough. That's very helpful, sir, and all the very best to you. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask questions may press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Rohan Kade from InCred. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Just wanted to check in terms of secondary sales with the inventory levels also coming down. How are they trending currently, and have they picked up, and which formats are seeing better growth for us now?
Looks like we have the management line disconnected. Please stay connected. We'll get the management line reconnected. Yes, Mr. Rohan, you can go ahead.
Yeah. Sir, I just wanted to check.
Mr. Rohan, we cannot hear you well. Could you move a bit closer to your phone and speak again?
Yes. Is this better?
No. We are experiencing static from your side.
Okay. Just a second.
Is this better or any?
No, sir.
Hello?
Yes. Go ahead, Rohan.
Mr. Rohan?
Yeah. Hi. Is this better?
Yes. Yes. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Okay. So sir, I'm a little bit—.
Rohan, we can't hear you.
Rohan, it looks like we have a problem from your end. Please reconnect. We'll connect you.
Okay. Sure. Yeah. I'll do that.
Until then, the next question is from the line of Madhavendra, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hello?
Mr. Madhavendra?
Yeah. Hello?
Yeah. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Yeah. So my question is, how long it will take the margin to recover? And if you have some estimates then, how much sales are being captured by the cyber attack? And the last question is, is the month behind, or there can be some, I mean, say, more data time margin or that?
Okay, if I have understood your question, your question is, how much was the impact because of the ransomware attack? And second question was, is the month behind, or are we expecting some more pain? If that is the correct thing, let me answer that question.
Yeah.
Yeah. Let me answer that question one by one. As far as the ransomware is concerned, it is approximately 25-26 days of impact had happened. Whatever the sales, because it is an entire production, we are connected on all the IT systems, and the systems were not available, it impacted all the production, sales, and everything. However, almost 50% of the sales loss has been recovered during the quarter, and the balance most likely would be recovered over the next six to eight months. That is the situation. Maybe marginally, we might lose some sales here, some production loss that might be lost. As far as the work, ransomware impact, obviously, we do not expect ever to happen that again. That clearly is going to restore back the sales.
As I mentioned in the earlier response to the earlier question, we are seeing clearly the demand and customers ordering as far as booking and all is concerned, we are seeing a very positive, healthy time. Therefore, I believe that other than the demand challenge, we did not have any other major issue in terms of the branded textile business. That gets settled. Secondly, as far as the retail branded apparel business was concerned, we had opened these EVOs, which were taking a little longer. Now, we are putting more and more effort in order to see that the retail sales get picked higher and higher. That would also start delivering results. We will have a calibrated approach in terms of opening the newer stores.
To that extent, I can easily say that 2025-2026 will be a year of very good recovery vis-à-vis 2025.
Can we expect the 10%-12% margin in 2026?
Obviously, there will be improvement, but I'm not able to put a guidance on this call. I can assure you that as you have seen, compared to 2023, 2024, when the sales did, the profitability gets impacted sharply because the loss of gross margin impact. As you recover back those sales, the gross margin comes back, and it will reflect into the profitability. Very clearly, there will be a strong recovery in terms of profitability.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prateek Dehriyas, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Am I audible?
Yes, Mr. Prateek, you may go ahead.
Yeah. My question was regarding the store opening. Specifically for the previous fiscal year, since you had seen a lot of disruptions, be it inflation, wedding season, and then the cyber attack, should you not have looked at a more calibrated approach in terms of store opening and probably looked at a better capital allocation as well in terms of the overall generic business?
Yeah. Absolutely. Clearly, you have gone through a tough, challenging year, and I would call 2025 an exceptional year, which should not be considered for any kind of basis for comparison and so on and so forth. Very clearly, as I said, you see the two places where we were opening stores, one was on the apparel side, another was on the ethnic side. Now, the apparel business, we have reached to a certain level, and our whole focus of going forward in the store would be more and more in terms of opening a franchisee-led store. As far as ethnics are concerned, again, the business model is set. People are seeing the value in this business, and therefore, we will be getting more and more franchisees to open the stores.
Our journey may be slightly less number of stores can get opened in 2025, 2026 as we want to, what should I say, stabilize the performance of the stores, which has already been opened. More than 350 stores have been opened in the last three years. I think the year after, we should be opening more and more stores in order to get everything moving upward.
Okay. Fair enough. Just in terms of my understanding, I've seen competition posting good numbers, not good numbers, but yeah, probably decent growth, not seeing impact of inflation. At our end, we've seen a lot of impact of inflation, demand being slowed down. Any specific reason that you could identify why we've been an outlier as compared to competition?
Look, as I recall, industry-wide, you should see consumption has been a challenge. Everywhere, demand, especially in the discretionary segment, has been a challenge. Therefore, maybe there is one or the other who have not said there is a discretionary spend has been a challenge. The rest, everybody has clearly talked about discretionary spend has been a challenge, and so has been things with us. The only difference with us, in the fourth quarter, we had an extra sort of impact because of the ransomware, which clearly impacted for a period of 26 days, of which, as I mentioned, 50% of the sales recovery has happened and the balance would happen. Other than that, if I look at it, there has not been a major change.
As far as us is concerned, what we have opened these stores over the last three years, I think they should have delivered much better in a decent demand scenario. However, did not do as good as it should have done because the demand scenario was weaker. Therefore, our results were more impacted only on this account and ransomware.
Okay. I just have two follow-ups now. One, in terms of your store addition, you mentioned that you're going more towards the franchising model. If you can just give me an assessment of your own stores and the franchisee store, how was that performance? Do you see the franchisee store being a drag to your business in the previous fiscal, and do you expect it to get corrected during the next fiscal? The other part, other follow-up, you mentioned that ransomware was a major impact during Q4. If you were to remove the impact of ransomware, how would your numbers look like for Q4?
Okay. Fundamentally, let me first address the ransomware. It's very simple. I think if you look at it, ballpark, the company does almost INR 200 million a day sales because if you see INR 17-18 billion for a 90-day period, if you were down for 25-26 days, you would have taken a knock-off to INR 5 billion, and we were able to offset 50%. We had to take a hit in the quarter of INR 2.5 billion-odd sales. Can I say absolutely everything? It is very difficult to say whether it is 100%, INR 2.5 billion is on account of that. Some mix between demand as well, demand weakness, as well as the ransomware. I think anything between, you can say, INR 1.5 billion to INR 1.75 billion. Again, it's a wild, probable guess. You cannot put it exactly, a number is on account of the ransomware.
Roughly INR 70-80 crore you can say easily quantify in terms of profitability. The EBITDA should have been better. That is number one. Number two, when you talk about a franchisee store, is it a drag? The answer is no. None of the stores, either franchisee, is a drag or the company-owned would be a drag in terms of the sales. What happens is in a franchisee-run model, the rent, which is a fixed cost liability for us, would get paid by the franchisee. They also consider this as an investment. Over the next two-three years, when the stores become profitable, they consider it as an investment and get the return thereafter. That is a fundamental model. The franchisee model is such a successful model.
If you notice, our Raymond Shop franchisee, which has existed for many years, people have made a substantial amount of money through that. They are convinced about the Raymond franchisee model.
Okay. I get that point that franchisee is looking kind, but I think you mentioned about the store count or the store investment that you had done over the past three years, and you expected better performance, which has not gotten delivered. If I remove the demand part of it, outside of the demand part, do you see any other fundamental issue which has impacted your store performance?
No, I think the demand is one. You see, normally, 24 months is a decent time frame by which a store becomes decent, breakeven. If the demand scenario goes weaker, obviously, 24 extends to 36-40 months. That is that additional one-year period. As we said, 350 stores we have opened in the last three years. You can well imagine the impact of these rentals, demand, power costs, which is sitting, has not been able to perform or deliver the efficiency or the profitability which is available.
Okay. Fair enough. Thanks.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Nishan Baghricha from InCred. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, sir. I have two questions. First on apparel. Again, how are the secondary sales running currently? I mean, have things stayed up? If yes, which formats are performing better for us?
Okay. Apparel sales clearly, we have seen vis-à-vis last year. The EVOs have done well. The LSS have done well. We saw, as we speak today in the middle of the month of May, we saw clearly in the months of March, April, May, the EVO sales have done well. The LSS sales are doing well. That is the typical secondary which goes into the market by the customers who buy. That is the clear positive sign.
Okay. Okay. And sir, last one is garmenting business. Again, with the new FTA with the U.K. coming in, do we expect more orders from the U.K.? Again, how much does it currently contribute to our garmenting sales?
Yeah. I think very clearly, this FTA, we have been waiting for this FTA for a very, very long time. Clearly, it's indeed a great move. We do roughly, I think, 20%-22% of our entire garmenting business as deals with the U.K. We expect clearly maybe 30%-40% to grow that business over the next two years or so. The reason why I say two years, and even I qualified in my script that what happens is when a customer moves, he has to get the pattern, design, the comfort of the facility, and so on. I think for the newer customers, the expansion with the existing customers will continue to happen. That is why it takes almost 12-15 months before they get into the commercial order, so to speak, a larger quantity order.
Okay. Lastly, do we have any plans in lifestyle business like inorganic acquisitions or entering into any new segment, particularly in the apparel or even textile also?
As of now, not really on the inorganic. If you talk about the new segment, we have gone into ethnic, sleek, innerwear, passive new. I think we have got quite a few categories entered, and we believe very strongly that these categories have significant potential. I'm sure you might have seen also even the launch of our Chairman's Collection on the ethnic side has also a very good potential. There is a lot of new things which are happening. The whole product portfolio in the branded apparel, we are moving into casualization. That itself opens up a huge marketplace for us.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit Gundu from Antique Stock Broking Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi sir. So essentially, on the ethnic menswear category, how has been the competitive environment? Because one of the leading ethnic menswear players said that the number of stores have tripled in the last three years, and there has been a significant increase in competition. It's not that the menswear category is not growing, but the competition has increased. The pie is there, but the number of players are high. What's your view there? What should be done going ahead? What can be expected from your side as well? Yeah. Cool. Okay. That's my question.
Sure. Sure. Look, I think fundamentally, you are absolutely right. I think over the last few years, there has been a clear big sort of plan to wear ethnic in the wedding. The wedding, which used to be normally a two-day affair, has ascended to three, four, five-day affair. People would like to wear, and with the themes and everything, there is clearly a demand which is getting bigger and bigger and large. Now, as far as the competition is concerned, very clearly, when any business becomes larger, industry becomes larger, more and more participants come in. In this business, there are two types of participants who come in. One, national players like us. Then there are city-specific boutique shops who also see, who may be a small output, five years, seven years, they have a batch.
Today, they are thinking that it is a big business. Can I capitalize on this? That is, again, a big unorganized sector which is going to grow. In my opinion, this is a sort of business which would take three to five years to mature itself. You will find a place for a national brand like us to play the role. Then you will have a city-specific or a town-specific boutique player who will have their own place. Both will coexist, and each one will have a market. The good part is that the demand for these products will continue to grow at a faster pace. Actually, that will enable both types of players to coexist in the marketplace.
Okay. My other question was on your branded apparel business. You said that branded lifestyle and branded apparel are now seeing a reduction in inventory at the secondary level, and hence, there is a pickup in ordering on their side. I mean, one thing is that what we have seen is that lifestyle brands in branded apparel have seen a bit of moderation in growth in the past few years. That double-digit growth has been very difficult to conquer for all the leading lifestyle brand players. At the same time, there is a strong growth in value fashion. With the Zulu of the world, now others are also stepping in, glance at telecom. Also, Shoppers Service has come in. They are ramping up their value fashion offerings. Any thought internally that we ever thought of, whether Raymond Lifestyle should also try this format?
Because this is a format where scalability is in this. Even if it is, I mean, good designs and with the backup of your own textile and manufacturing capability, Raymond can do very well. Raymond Lifestyle can do very well. What are the thoughts there? What are your thoughts on the lifestyle brand's growth going ahead? What do you think about it?
Yeah. No, actually, see, what you are saying that there is this value fashion which has created a decent state and at a growth rate. I feel that, look, Raymond Lifestyle has a huge opportunity in the existing segment. We have just scratched the surface because there exists still a very large unorganized market. That shift from an unorganized market to an organized market is the process in which we are on a journey. We believe that all of our four formidable brands and ethnic have a great role to play. It is just extending the basket only from a formal to getting into casualization. That space is still a great opportunity.
As of now, we are very focused on this, creating the brands, ensuring that this gets much more sustainable and a long-term play can be created by virtue of expanding the distribution with our EVOs and such things, going more doors through LFS, MBOs. I think that is a big focus for us. As of now, our focus stays firm to build this premium lifestyle fashion brand. Again, as I say, there is huge opportunity there. The affluence keeps coming more and more into our country. Economic development is happening. When those things happen, people prefer brands rather than saying that I will go for a value fashion. I think we are on the journey to capitalize on this aspect with our good quality products which have been delivered by Raymond for the last 100 years.
Let me see. One follow-up on the benefit of U.K. FTA. If there is a probable FTA with European countries, what could be the probable benefit that would come out? Do you export to other European countries? How is it? I mean, what could be the benefit, if at all?
Yeah. No, absolutely. See, any FTA puts us very clearly in an advantageous position without the competition. Very simple. Today, we all are getting excited with the differential reciprocal tariff between India, China, Vietnam, and so on and so forth. Reason being simple, that you become that much more cost-competitive. I think that is the name of the game that over the next three or four years—I would not call upon three months because when things are very, very volatile, changes very, very fast. I think the game of free, the trade and all that, people will start moving more like a bilateral trade than a multilateral trade. I think that is a journey which we all are on.
A company like Raymond, which has an integrated supply chain right from the fabric all the way to the garment, will clearly have a distinct advantage vis-à-vis some of the countries and some of the players who may not have a fabric, who might have to import the fabric from a country A, which may not be in the most desirable tariff structure. The concept of value add comes in. Therefore, people or countries or the companies who have got an integrated value chain will get clearly an advantage over the others.
Understood. Two questions. One is, in terms of discounting in branded apparel, how has been the trend? Have branded players focused more on full price sell-throughs, or is there a competition in terms of discounting that is going on? That is one question. The second is that very challenging years actually teach a lot. You had seen, I mean, a very challenging period earlier, which helped you to focus on supply chain and inventory management, and you have done that very well during the year. What other things, I mean, in this year, were there any new learnings that you would like to highlight and any initiatives taken, any cost-saving initiatives that you have taken? Yeah. Those are the two questions.
Clearly, if I look at the cost-saving initiative, first of all, the learning, two or three very, very clear learnings. I think we should have rigged the weakness in the bookings in the last year and should have recalibrated our business, especially in the branded textile, slightly better. Very, very clear learning that the demand was not coming, and we should have started to plan that better, which I think is a great learning which we have gotten. Second thing, in terms of the store expansion, the other learning very clearly that when the stores have started to do or taking longer than expected in terms of break-even and profitability, maybe we should have calibrated a little bit more than what we calibrated in the second half of this year. I think these are the two big ticket learnings.
The usual stuff about cost reduction, cost control, I think you will continue to see more and more rationalization of costs and becoming much more sharper. Third thing, in terms of the product range, we clearly see that we are expanding. We are having the right good quality products which continue to expand and improve over delivery performance. I think that also we have seen that some of the delivery performance has been weaker, which we try to improve upon.
Understood. That's it from my side. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Abhijit.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Amit Agarwal for closing comments.
Thank you very much. Thank you for taking interest in Raymond Lifestyle Limited. We will talk to you in detail in the next quarter.
On behalf of Antique Stock Broking Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect the line.