Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Sapphire Foods' Earnings Conference Call for Q3 FY25. 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 the management for the opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Sanjay Purohit, and I'm the Group CEO for Sapphire Foods. I'm joined, as usual, by Vijay Jain, who's our CFO. Firstly, apologies for this delay. We were having technical glitches in being able to connect to you all, but we should now be able to start the conference immediately. We are going to be talking about our Quarter Three and our nine-month consolidated financial highlights. Quarter Three FY25, Sapphire Foods has delivered a healthy, good quarter. The way that I'd like you all to remember it is double-digit everywhere. We've had double-digit revenue growth at INR 755 crores, 14% revenue growth. We've had double-digit growth across all three verticals: KFC, Pizza Hut, and Sri Lanka. Our adjusted EBITDA growth has been at INR 81 crores, or 12% growth. We have delivered double-digit adjusted EBITDA margin also of 10.7%.
Like I said, all three business verticals have delivered double-digit revenue growth. Restaurant EBITDA increased 9% year-on-year, and restaurant EBITDA margin was 15.4%, down by 60 basis points year-on-year. Consolidated EBITDA of INR 140 crores at 18.5% increased year-on-year by 14%, up 10 basis points. And consolidated PAT of INR 12.7 crores, or 1.7%, and adjusted PAT was INR 19.4 crores, or 2.6%. In the quarter, we added 54 restaurants taking our total to 963. We added 35 KFC, 16 Pizza Hut stores in India. We added four Pizza Hut and one Taco Bell in Sri Lanka. And we had two closures in Maldives. While we closed two stores in Maldives in the quarter, the balance two stores have been closed in the month of January. And therefore, as we intimated to you last call, now that we have closed all the four stores in Maldives.
Let me take you through the KFC details. Our KFC SSSG trajectory improved slightly versus our previous two quarters. SSSG came in at negative 3%. The heartening part was SSTG was 0% in this. And our strategy of driving or focusing on value offers on core products is enabling us to get TG momentum. Our recipe for SSSG revival over the short and medium-term revolves around increasing occasions of consumption. Now, late night, for example, is nearly 10% of our business in the stores that we operate late night. We want to drive value on core products. We want to drive product innovations like chicken rolls, Zinger Burger. And apart from late night, focus on other day parts like lunch and Wednesdays. The brand priorities that I'm speaking about, I'm referring to slide number 18, remain consistent. The activities that we undertake under each of them are slightly different.
The biggest opportunity on KFC is for us to enhance the fried chicken category relevance, thereby increase the consumer base of KFC consuming people. And that we will do by popularizing our core variety offerings and our Taste the Epic campaign, which is a start in this direction. You would have already seen being on air January onwards. From a flavorable taste perspective, we want to increase frequency of consumption by building day parts and product innovation. On value, we've got now a sharp three-tier value structure in core at INR 99, individual meal offerings at INR 149, and then group meals at INR 399. We are accelerating our rollout of digital kiosks. On operational excellence, we have made big progress. 98% of our stores on Swiggy have 4-plus rating, nearly 80% on Zomato have 4-plus rating.
We have implemented a dynamic kitchen planning tool to improve product availability and reduce wastage. The last quarter, we called out that we'll give guidance on further openings. While we have doubled the store count in three years from December 2021, going forward, we believe that we should be able to continue our current pace of expansion, about 70-80 stores per year, which is the financial highlights.
I'm on slide number 23, channel-wide sales contribution. Dining and takeaway came at 59% for the quarter, delivery at 41%. It's similar to previous two quarters. Slide number 24, the SSSG came in at minus 3%. Trend improved over the last two quarters. The ADS was 115,000. This includes 90 stores which we opened in the last calendar year. That's 22% store growth. Overall revenue grew by 12%. Gross margin was largely stable, and restaurant EBITDA came at 18.2%, drop of 190 basis points. This was primarily because of the operating deleverage. If you look at slide number 26, it gives you a four-year and a five-quarter trend. And while SSSG has remained negative for KFC, the brand over the last nine months has delivered double-digit revenue growth, and with that growth, a reasonable level of profitability as well.
Let me now take you through Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut delivered a system sales growth of 10% and positive SSSG of 5% after eight quarters. ADS has remained stable in line with the previous two quarters at 48 ADS, and our priorities remain as enumerated in slide number 28. We want to drive taste superiority, a differentiated dine-in experience, continue to improve our delivery experience. Value is important. We will continue to invest higher marketing spends behind the brand, and that's what has caused the uplift on the brand from January-February-March of 2024, and we will continue to be cautious on store expansion till we see sign of double-digit store-level EBITDA. The consumer promise is quite simple. It's a dine-in-led, omnichannel customer promise built on superior product and built on great value and great experience. Over to Vijay on the financials.
Slide number 33, dining and takeaway mix came at 50%. So largely 50-50 between dining, takeaway, and the delivery. The mix has remained similar to the previous two quarters. On SSSG, it was positive 5% with stable ADS of 48,000, same as H1 of FY25. Overall revenue grew by 10%, so double-digit growth for the brand. Gross margin largely remained stable, and the restaurant EBITDA came at 4.7%, which was 10 basis points higher than last year for quarter three. Slide number 36 gives you, again, a four-year and a five-quarter trend, and while the performance has largely remained stable over the last six months, as mentioned by Sanjay, we continue to back the brand with additional and increased marketing spends put behind for product innovations and promotions.
Let me take you through now the Sri Lanka performance. The Sri Lanka business delivered a very strong quarter. In fact, our best quarter after 10 quarters, we've delivered double-digit SSSG of 14% and strong double-digit SSTG also. Our focus on operations, product innovation, value strategy has helped deliver superior performance. Our belief is that if we do the right things in ensuring customers get great product, great experience, value, and we are careful with our—we are cautious with our store opening strategy, we get our size of assets right, even in a challenging demand environment, once things start to turn, we should get a large proportion of the benefit. That's exactly what we are seeing in Sri Lanka. The numbers, Vijay, will just talk about.
Slide 41, channel-wide sales contribution. Dining and takeaway mix at 63%, similar to previous two quarters. Delivery steady at 37% mix. The SSSG was 14%, backed by double-digit transaction growth. That was the heartening part, the transaction double-digit, same-store transaction growth. Overall revenue grew by 15% in LKR and 30% in INR. The gross margin was up by 30 basis points. Restaurant EBITDA came in at 17.8%, which was up by 360 basis points. If you look at slide number 45, which gives you a four-year and five-quarter trend, this has clearly been the best quarter for us in the last two and a half years. We remain confident of the growth prospects as we move forward. Slide number 46, update on ESG, which we would have given previously as well. DJSI ratings, we scored 50.
This actually allowed us to be ranked number one amongst all QSR brands in India for second consecutive year. We were ranked number seven amongst global QSR companies, placed in 97th percentile amongst global QSR companies. The only Indian QSR company to publish ESG report under GRI, SASB, and BRSR standards for third consecutive year. With this, we can open the session 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 touchscreen phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.
We can start. There's already a queue that has been.
The first question comes from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Congrats on a good set of numbers. On KFC, the SSSG is still in negative territory. Do you have any visibility or any initial signs of it sort of turning positive? And if so, over what time period do you think this can happen?
So again, as you can see, the trajectory has improved over the last two quarters. We had minus 5% in Q1 and minus 8% in Q2. So trajectory has definitely improved. But we would still say the overall consumer sentiment remains soft. While from an SSSG point of view, because of the base effect, you may see that we will still improve further as we move into Q4. But we don't see the environment changing materially any sooner. And having said that, for a brand like KFC, you have to look at both SSSG as well as SG. We have still added a substantial number of stores. Our SG at 12% still is very strong.
Got it. Got it, Sanjay. Vijay, because of base effects also, I mean, there are many companies in the QSR business who are reporting SSSG because of base effects. So I think that's an accepted outcome now. So even if it is because of base effects, but do you see that visibility that at least in Q1 it will sort of turn positive?
That's what we hope for because of the base effect. But again, while few companies would have reported positive SSSG this quarter because of the base effect, fortunately for KFC, last year we did not fall down by much. I think our SSSG last year was -2%. So we didn't have a big advantage of base effect, and that's a positive for us in a way.
Sure. Secondly, just wanted to understand on Sri Lanka. I mean, you had earlier, a year or two ago, problems in the economy, and sales and margins had fallen. And now it is sort of reverting back maybe on a little bit of a lower base. But sustainably, let's say over the next three years, CAGR, what kind of top-line growth do we expect, assuming a stable currency?
So again, we have called out our medium-term to long-term ambitions. So I think we should be at least aiming for a 15% revenue CAGR over there.
Is there a decent amount of store opening opportunity remaining in Sri Lanka now?
Yeah, there is Percy. Typically, this 15% might be half and half store opening or perhaps slightly higher SSSG and marginally lower store opening. But we continue to expand the brand. I think for the next five years, at least, we can see the visibility of areas where we will open stores.
It's about just getting back the unit economics back where they were. I think they're already in the right direction. So we've been cautious over the last one and a half years. If the unit economics continues to remain healthy, I think you can see an increase in our store opening plans.
I think one of the things when we look at Sri Lanka is transaction growth. You see, with the kind of inflation that happened two years ago, and then it's taken one year for us to bend down that entire inflation. Today, we are again, consumers are voting with their wallets and coming back to Pizza Hut. We remain the strongest QSR brand in Sri Lanka.
Right. And my last question, again, on KFC, assuming that starting from the beginning of FY26, you do go into a sort of positive SSSG territory, what kind of restaurant operating margins is your target? See, because I ask because on the higher side, you touched even like 22% or something like that. And on the lower side, it's been like 17%-18%. So what is the kind of margins you would target which are sort of not so high so as to sort of affect sales or encourage competition, but at the same time are respectable enough and acceptable for us in the medium term?
So again, Percy, while we don't get into quarter-on-quarter margin conversations over a longer period, we require a 5% SSSG just to take care of the inflation, right? And the current level, the floor is around 18%. So if we're able to get an SSSG or flat to positive SSSG, I think that should be the range. And to drive our margin expansion from there, we will require an SSSG which goes beyond 5%.
Got it. Got it. Okay. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you, Percy.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all the participants in the conference, please restrict your questions to two each. If you have any follow-up questions, you may rejoin the queue. The next question comes from Avi Mehta from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Just two quick questions. First, have we seen any change in the competitive intensity on the ground or in terms of third-party aggregators in the last few quarters? And two, if you could give us a sense on how you see the recent announcement in the budget and that benefit panning out in same-store sales growth? Thank you.
So we are not seeing tangibly any major difference in reduction of tangible reduction in competitive intensity, at least for now. So I'm not too sure. I mean, I don't think capacity is being added also. So right now, it seems to be a little stable. Having said that, so that is point one. Point two is.
Sorry, sir, this is across KFC and Pizza Hut both, right? Or would you say it's different?
This is across QSR, I would say.
Okay, sir.
KFC, Pizza Hut, burgers, right across. And the fact that there is one lakh crores that has been given back to middle-class consumers is only a positive. We are hoping and wondering as to how soon we will see that reflect in consumption. But that can only be a positive.
But your guess is this should flow through in the next few quarters. Is that a fair expectation to have?
That's a fair hope to have. Yeah, that's a fair hope to have. But we have not had any immediate past experience of this. So to say that.
How soon it should trickle down?
How soon it should trickle down? It should be a fair hope.
Sir, just a clarification to the earlier participant. What you said does suggest that the pace of recovery is gradual and has not changed materially even as we speak. It's more at the same pace status quo.
Yes.
Okay. Thank you very much, sir.
Thank you. The next question comes from Saurabh Kundan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is around on Sanjay's comment on popularizing core offerings menu in KFC. I believe you have been piloting such experiments in some geographies. If you could share your learnings from there on how it impacts frequency or footfall, if you could share any color on that, that would be useful.
Yeah. So I'll take two minutes to perhaps explain the thinking behind this. And then, yeah. So the brand today is large enough that we actually see that there are two types of consumers: one who are brand loyalists and who are aware of all the offerings of the brand. And the second lot will be non-users or infrequent users of the brand who most likely are still aware of the brand, but they use it infrequently. While we drive accessibility to such customers, that's an important enabler. But as we scope out the market opportunity for the brand in a largely or in a category that is still under-penetrated, increasing the base of consumers we believe is the larger opportunity for a brand like KFC. Once you do that, over a period of time, you will also increase frequency.
In any case, we have got a lot of frequency-increasing initiatives that talked about day parts and so on. One of the consumer insights behind what will make an infrequent and non-trier to come to the brand is really to present the brand as it might have been presented perhaps 10 or 15 years ago to refresh that these five products, as we call them internally, these are the best of KFC and enable the consumer to start his or her journey with the brand through the core variety products. Our core variety products are chicken on the bone, Zinger Burger, rolls, wings, and boneless, which is Popcorn and chips. Interestingly, a large portion of infrequent-slash non-triers of the brand don't even know that we have got a very, very strong boneless portfolio. That is the entire that's the intention.
I hope I've been clear here. Now, we have been running pilots. Those pilots are both from an advertising perspective as well as from ensuring value with core variety. Those are, while I can't give you specifics of what kind of results we have had in the pilots, sufficient to say that really this is the way that I think this is one of the important levers that we will use to drive brand growth in the next coming years.
Saurabh, just to add to that, while footfall is getting represented by transaction growth, what we have called out this quarter is that SSSG is negative, but transaction growth has been flat. In the previous quarters, even the transaction growth, it seems to transaction growth was on decline. So sufficient to say that the early results have been encouraging on the value piece.
Thank you. That was very helpful. So the interpretation here is that eventually this pilot actually turns into a full Pan-India.
See, the Taste the Epic campaign that we've just launched, Taste the Epic campaign is saying, "Try the epic core varieties of KFC." So you can see already the expression of what I enumerated as the key driver we believe in future growth. Already you're seeing that in our advertising message and yeah.
All right. One last question. Are there any margin implications of this strategy?
So Saurabh, again, when we do such experiments or pilots, we would typically have a revenue upside target. So while there could be a marginal gross margin impact, they typically end up compensating at a restaurant EBITDA level.
Yeah. So like I said, gross margin is one of the things that we look at. Finally, we look at restaurant EBITDA margin. And if we are able to use all of this to drive healthy SSSGs, restaurant EBITDA margin will also get taken care of.
Got it. Thank you. Thanks a lot. So your earlier guidance through the previous question that if the SSSG is at a certain level, then 18% is maintained and it goes up if the SSSG is higher than 5%, right? So that guidance remains.
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah. Thank you.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question comes from Priya Shah from Avendus Spark Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I joined a bit late, Sanjay. Just wanted to know what is the new store expansion guidance for both KFC and Pizza Hut and two associated questions. Some retailers are calling out headwinds pertaining to unsustainable rentals, not in QSR, but in general. So any read there? And what markers you will actually monitor because SSG seems to be now not giving a right lead indicator? What markers you will monitor to ramp up the store expansion?
Yeah. So right now, from a store guidance perspective on KFC, we are saying anywhere between 70 and 80, which has been roughly our pace of expansion over the last three years. We should be able to continue this. On Pizza Hut, again, we'll be cautious. Perhaps 2025 is what we are looking at. From a rentals perspective, and this is what we are not seeing any extraordinary pressure on rentals.
Actually, we have a long-term lease period. So our lease period ranges anywhere from 18 years to 24 years. So we are not seeing any additional pressure on rental front.
No, Vijay, for new store expansion, I meant.
Yeah. So even from a new store expansion point of view, we are not seeing rentals which have gone through the roof. So I don't think the trajectory has changed materially or dramatically to call it out. From a metrics point of view, yes, SSSG would be one important parameter and continues to remain an important parameter. So that along with the ADS as well as the restaurant EBITDA, these are the three typical lines which we look at from a financial perspective. Having said that, Vijay, previously also we have called out that the more important metric which we look at for a new store expansion is the strike rate, and how many stores you have opened in the past, how many of them are hitting the required ADS level, whether at the cohort level they're hitting the ADS mark.
That is, again, a more important marker which we track internally apart from this SSSG and profitability markers.
Thanks. Very clear. Second and last question. So you guys are very honest about the base effect of Pizza Hut on SSSG, which will actually show up in improvement in numbers. So at least for now, SSSG does not seem to be any guidance value even for margin expansion or margin movement. So how should we think about SSG margin relationship, or should we monitor, as you said, more of an ADS journey to understand how margins will play out?
For Pizza Hut, absolutely true that SSSG may not give you a direct indication on margin. It's the ADS level. And we called out previously that if it's in the range of INR 47,000-INR 48,000, you are at where you are, that 5% range, which includes additional marketing spends as well, by the way. If you fall below that, you go towards that break-even or even loss-making. And you move towards INR 50,000, maybe you are high single digit. You need to move towards that INR 55,000 mark to go towards double digit. So that's the range of ADS at which the various margins are likely to look at. You are right. SSSG, after the point, may not give you a direct indication on the margins.
Very clear. Thanks and all the best for coming quarters.
Thank you, Vijay.
Thank you. The next question comes from Gaurav Jogani from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Sir, thank you for taking my question. And congratulations on the resilient performance both on the Pizza Hut side and even on the KFC side. So my first question is with regards to KFC. While we have been having this negative base for some time now, what would be your sense when possibly could we turn positive here? And like you mentioned, for the ADS for Pizza Hut, which is a more actually trackable format, what should we track here in KFC also in terms of margins?
Sorry, your first question was Pizza Hut, right? KFC.
KFC, sir. KFC.
So again, as I called out previously, maybe the base effect itself will probably put the brand into a positive territory. But that is not sometimes good enough to drive margins. As I called out, whether we can actually see not a base effect, genuine increase in the sales, which is ADS. So hopefully the brand will get into positive territory over the next two quarters.
Sure. So yeah. So I mean, my question was.
The second question. The second question was related to the same corollary you gave for Pizza Hut that the 47-48 range would be 5% margins, 50 would be this margins. So similarly, if you can highlight this for the KFC bit as well.
Again, I called out, while Pizza Hut, we have called out ADS specifically because over the last two years, there has been significant erosion on our ADS. We were at 62 levels and came down to 41, 42. Hence, it's easier to look at that way. On KFC, I would say if we are currently trending at 18% margin, if you are able to drive a 5% growth from here, let's say next year, then it will take care of the inflation. So at that level of SSSG, our margins should remain stable.
Stable, you mean to say is 18, right?
In and around 18% plus minus.
Okay. Okay. Sure. And sir, my second question is with regards to how should we look at the impact on the ADS, right? Do you think is it the impact because of the new store openings that are happening and they are not scaling up, which is having an impact on the ADS recovery, or is it largely the footfall or the transaction that has a higher impact? Which one you would accord more in terms of the ADS recovery impact?
It's SSSG, the negative SSSG, and negative SSSG for over the last four quarters or so, which is causing the bigger one. The new store ADS, diluting the overall brand ADS is anyways, if I may use the word, budgeted for in a way. It's anticipated, right? Because the new stores would come at anywhere between 75%-80% of the brand average ADS. The existing stores, if they grow by 5%, 6%, it neutralizes the impact of the new stores, which helps you to maintain the ADS level. Right now, the ADS is dropping because while you're opening the new stores, your existing stores are not growing by that 5%, 6%. I would not blame the new store expansion over here because for new stores, we continue to monitor strike rates. Those strike rates have been pretty healthy for us. Hence, we continue to expand.
So I would say the drop is more because of the existing stores not delivering the SSSG.
Sorry, sir, just to ask this other way around. My question was more as in because the system average has also come down, and you generally mark that the new stores should be at 75%-80% of the system average. So are the new stores at least what they were performing earlier? They are at least performing at those levels? And it's just the existing ones.
Perform at the reasonable expectation. The payback model, which we try and track on, the new stores continue to track on those lines. So our strike rates have been pretty healthy over the last few years. And that's why the expansion continues. The 70-80 stores expansion continues.
Got it, sir. Thank you for answering my question. That's it.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Jay Doshi from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Pizza QSR category was impacted more during the slowdown, at least when it started. And recently, this quarter, obviously on a low base.
It's slightly louder. Barely audible.
Okay. One moment.
Hi. Pizza QSR category was impacted more than the other QSR categories during the slowdown, at least at the earlier phase. And now we have seen a strong recovery, at least from the market leader, and even your performance has improved. So fundamentally, has anything changed for the category per se? Are you seeing either the competition from fragmentation of category has stopped, or is the traffic moving towards national players or anything at all that you sort of can?
Yeah. So I think in a general slowdown, first, you see everyone gets impacted. Perhaps the listed category, listed brands, you are able to see their results. But I would have thought that everyone, especially given the high competitive intensity, everyone would have got impacted. Once everyone gets impacted, then it depends on who's staying in the game and who's doing the right things with the customer to get out of that situation. And we have got brands that operate single franchise, large number of stores with single store franchisees. Always you find that in a worsening sales situation, in such places, the customer experience actually starts to go down. And what we have done is to double down, despite the slowdown, to double down on customer experience, still ensure great product, great experience, good value.
Therefore, we'll be seeing the gains accruing first to the market leader and then, in some cases, to us also.
So do you think that this is a more sustainable trend that the organized players will probably make a comeback in some form?
Actually, we have seen this in cycles in the past, but based on your experience, do you think that that cycle has also played out, and now it's probably likely to play out in your favor?
Yeah, so there has been this in the past also that I have great belief that if we continue to do the right things, we will get a larger portion of the gain when the market starts to turn, and in downturns, you have to focus on what you can control, and therefore, if you've seen our presentation also, we talk about the brand priorities. Those brand priorities are a combination of what we will do from an advertising perspective, both message as well as quantity of advertising. Now, that is not replicable by everyone, then what will we do to improve operational excellence? How will we look at store expansion?
So I think going back to fundamentals is absolutely important. And given past experience and also here, I'm quite confident that brands like KFC and Pizza Hut should do well as the market starts to improve.
Sure. One question on KFC, I know it's early days, but in the markets where Popeyes has scaled up or at least opened a few stores, are you seeing any divergence in your SSSG performance versus other areas where they're not present? I mean, any impact at all from competition?
No, nothing at all. And it goes back to the immediate question that you raised. And so first of all, gains accrue to the largest brand. So we have seen that in the pizza category also. First, gains accrue to the largest brand if the largest brand does the right thing. That is number one. Also, it is important for the number two brand to differentiate itself clearly from the number one brand. Otherwise, what is the use? So why will consumers go to that number two brand? Now, in Pizza Hut, we are articulating how will we be different. And we are also putting in the marketing rupees behind it. And that's why we've got a legacy of 20-25 years of consumer goodwill. That will enable the brand.
I mean, in the case of KFC and the competitors, I think we have to ask the question, why will a consumer go to the smaller brand? Is there anything differentiated that is being offered? And if it isn't, then the smaller brand will suffer. And this is exactly what you've seen. There's no impact at all on KFC, even in markets where we operate side by side.
Very useful. Thank you so much. That's it from my side. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Jay.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Priyam Khimawat from ValueQuest. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi sir. In KFC, our margin used to be around 19%-20% levels when we used to achieve an ADS of 125,000-130,000. Now, considering the competitive scenario which is there and also considering our ADS has dropped, I believe that 18% margin is what we should assume for the next three, four quarters. Or you believe that if and when we start achieving that ADS of 125,000-130,000, there is possibility that we go back to the 20% margin level?
Look at the current level of ADS, and if SSSG remains in the near term, let's say in the range of 0 to 5%, I think that's the range of margin to be taken. For us to break out from this particular margin zone, you require a really high level of SSSG, which could be towards double digit. So unless we hit that double digit SSSG, I think the margins are likely to be in this range.
Okay. So double-digit SSSG is any which way a tall task, considering the demand, you're right. So 18-18.5% margin is what we should assume, at least for the near term in this business?
I would say 18 plus minus.
Got it. Got it. Got it. And what would be our CapEx number for this nine-month FY25?
So again, we have not called out an overall CapEx number, but yes, we have called out previously that KFC continues to be in the range of INR 2 crore rupees per store, and Pizza Hut is in the range of INR 1.35 crore-INR 1.4 crore per store.
Okay. And next year, any CapEx number which you would like to call out on a cumulative basis that 80 stores will be opened in KFC and 25 stores in Pizza Hut?
So this is the store guidance which we have given and the per-store. We can do the math, but on top of that, there are always the rental cost, the IT investments. So I would like to avoid a CapEx guidance separately for a year-specific. Let us just come up with the annual numbers, and that will give you some indication on what kind of overall CapEx looks like.
Got it. Got it. And there was a rise in other income in this quarter. Any material reason behind that, or it was just regular business activity?
Regular, regular. There were things that is very specific, different.
Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. That's all from my side. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Dhiraj Mistry from Antique. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Congratulations on very good set of numbers. Sorry if I missed out on this, but can you tell us month on month, how was the demand during festival period and after that? And how do you see now we entering into Q4? How do you see that demand has been panning out?
So again, we typically don't give out a month on month trend. Suffice to say that the Q3 was definitely better than the H1, H1 which was minus 5% in quarter one and minus 8% in quarter two. Definitely, Q3 trended a bit better. And the more heartening part on Q3 in KFC was the transaction growth was flat. So while transactions, we saw some transaction decline, which was SSTG, same store transaction decline in H1. At least Q3, the trajectory improved and the transactions were flat. When we enter into Q4, we still see the consumer demand environment being challenging. So we don't see a big pickup from a demand perspective on KFC. On Pizza Hut, the SSSG has turned positive. Again, SSTG, which is the same store transaction growth, has also remained positive for Pizza Hut.
But this is largely on back of, if you see the base effect, the ADS has remained constant over the last nine months. So it does not help really from a margin improvement perspective. What we need actually is the ADS improvement on Pizza Hut for us to improve margins from here on.
Got it. Got it. And sir, second and last question from my end. So if I look at demand growth for KFC as well as for Pizza Hut across channel delivery, takeaway, and dining format, correct me if I'm wrong, that dining channel continues to decline in KFC despite our effort of driving footfall-led growth in doing menu innovations on that. Whereas for Pizza Hut, it has been positive 6%, roughly give or take 6%, which has been there. So what is driving this difference between dining channel declining in KFC versus growth in Pizza Hut?
So again, first of all, both the brands, the channel performance of delivery has been better than the dining channel performance. It's just that when you're looking at the numbers for both the brands, Pizza Hut has a huge base effect, and KFC doesn't have that kind of a base effect. That's why you're looking at numbers where one channel has gone positive and other is in decline. But if you look at the relativity for both the brands, and I think that's true for most QSRs, if not most, all QSRs where delivery continues to perform better than dining at this point in time. But again, when you look at the long term, medium to long term, we don't think this differential performance is going to remain infinitely there. The dining should come back eventually.
All our measures in terms of product innovations and product promotions are focused to get the dining channel back in positive trajectory.
Yeah. Just one question related to that. Is there any material difference in terms of margin between delivery and dining channel for both the format?
From a gross margins perspective, no. But from a network flow through, which is a variable contribution margin, the dining definitely has a higher flow through than delivery because delivery has a cost associated with it. While the dining flow through, fixed cost remaining fixed, the flow through, every INR 100 I sell, the flow through is significantly higher vis-à-vis the delivery.
Got it. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Vishal Gutka from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, team. Excellent set of numbers, sir. I have one or two questions. First is on anti-U.S. sentiment towards certain brands. Sir, are you seeing those trends mellowing down a bit during the quarter? If we can throw some light on that.
I don't think we are able to see either positive moment or negative moment. So I think it is just the same, Vishal.
Even when there was an impact, there was an undercurrent impact. We were not able to really quantify that impact what we had on our business, especially because KFC is 95% non-vegetarian. We were not precisely able to quantify. There was some impact, but I don't know whether we have, I would say neutral. I don't see SSSG as positive or negative moment.
Got it.
That is continuous is started.
Neutral from where we were, I don't think it has improved or worsened off.
Got it. And sir, in the case of Pizza Hut, any scope for reducing CapEx per store or OpEx so that we are able to achieve margins despite ADS remaining in this range around INR 50,000-INR 52,000? So broadly, any further scope left or we have already achieved the optimum possible?
If you look at our probably our CapEx two or three years ago used to be at 1.5 Cr, that itself had come down significantly from a number which used to be 2 crore several years ago. 1.5 Cr was on back of a 1,200-1,300 sq ft model. We did introduce a year ago a 1,000 sq ft model where there was no compromise on the front of house, which was the covers. It was all about the backward integration and getting the kitchen tighter. So now combination of a 1,000 sq ft and a 1,200 sq ft. 1,000 sq ft typically in a tier one or a metro town where we have enough number of stores where the delivery cycles are higher. You can crunch your backend storage. The CapEx is low for 1,000 sq ft.
So, combination of INR 1,000 and INR 1,200, we are now at INR 1.35 crore or INR 1.4 crore. That itself is a reduction of 10% over the last three years. In the inflationary scenario, I think we have done a really good job of that INR 1.35 crore. Cutting down it any further would mean you are then compromising on the consumer experience. So I don't see there is any much room left from a CapEx perspective point of view.
Got it. Got it. Thank you. Wishing you all the best for the future quarters. Thank you.
Thank you, Vishal.
Thank you. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we take that as our last question for the day. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Yeah. Thank you very much to everyone who's joined in. Just to reiterate the big messages, we've had a healthy good quarter in quarter three, double-digit revenue growth at a consolidated level and all three business verticals, double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth, double-digit adjusted EBITDA percentage margin also. That's it from me. We'll hope to see you in a quarter's time. Thank you very much. Good night. Good evening.
Thank you. On behalf of Sapphire Foods Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.