Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Wonderla Holidays Limited Q3 FY 2022 results conference call hosted by ICICI Securities 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 touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Adhidev. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the Wonderla Holidays Q3 FY 2022 results call today. Today from the Wonderla management we have with us Mr. Arun Chittilappilly, the Managing Director, and Mr. Satheesh Seshadri, the Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks, just a summary on the quarter gone by and the road ahead. Over to you. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Q3 earnings of Wonderla Holidays Limited. Wonderla has started to restore confidence and lift the spirits of citizens to go outdoors and entertainment. We are pleased to inform that our parks were mostly operational during Q3 FY 2022. Our Hyderabad and Bangalore parks are in fact operational for the full quarter, whereas Cochin park was partially operational. During Q3 FY 2022, the company focused on its efforts to provide a safe environment with COVID protocols and uncompromising priority placed on protecting our people. We also paid a heightened attention to protecting our balance sheet through astute cost control initiatives and cash preservation. We've also been following a park plus strategy, wherein we try to bring in crowds to our parks after park hours. That also has resulted in good footfalls for us.
Along with such strategies, we also ran various campaigns and events and lot of moment marketing initiatives. All these initiatives seemed a strong footfall during the quarter, exceeding about 3.8 lakhs. For the nine months, we've exceeded about 5.6 lakhs of footfalls. We are seeing some tremendous pent-up demand and desire in people to venture out again after being confined indoors for a majority of two years, part of the two years. Coming to our performance, it gives us a lot of pleasure to inform you that, despite multiple headwinds, including severe weather conditions and the prevalent fear of the third wave led by Omicron virus, we are reporting a very resilient and strong financial performance.
We are also reporting better operational numbers in terms of footfalls and ARPU. Our Q3 FY 2022 was the best quarter over the last 7seven quarters. We are also PAT positive for the first time, and at INR 4.5 crores. The gross revenue for the same period was about INR 50.1 crores, and our EBITDA stood at INR 16 crores. Our performance reflects the outcome of our strategic focus on increasing footfalls from various segments and our experimentation with new ideas, introducing an array of F&B and non-ticket revenue sources. Sharing updates about the current Q4 in progress and onset of third wave led by Omicron. There have been restrictions which have impacted Bangalore and Kochi parks. The Bangalore park was closed for two weekends on January and then reopened around 22nd of January 2022.
Whereas the Cochin park was shut for about two Sundays in January 2022. We have seen a slight decline in footfalls. However, I think now since the wave has abated, we are seeing a recovery in footfalls. Also the restrictions on weekends have been lifted. With overall restrictions loosening up gradually, we look forward to steadily moving back to pre-COVID levels of business very soon. We thank you for all your continued support and look forward to seeing you at our parks. Thank you.
Yeah.
Do we move forward with the QA session, sir?
Yes, please.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have the first question from the line of Nikita from Galaxy Investment. Nikita, you may please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. As you mentioned that super 's strategy attracting footfalls of more than 1K. How much achievements, like more such achievements you have planned for this quarter?
This is the operator. Sir, can you hear us?
Yeah, I can hear you.
Yeah, yeah.
Are you able to hear my voice?
Yes. Mr. Arun is connected with us.
I think we will keep doing events like that depending on how we see demand. Sometimes it could. Like, for example, we did it for Dussehra and we did it for New Year. I mean, depending on how, you know, the things improve and, when we see an opportunity in terms of, a festival or an event and where we can actually have after-hours parks, then we will do events like that. Because it's something that we are doing new, we don't have a timeline for it yet. Maybe in a couple of years we will have a strong timeline for that. We could, maybe we could do something for Holi or we could do something for Valentine's Day.
Valentine's Day we are not doing, because we are just coming out of the wave, and we are not seeing that kind of traction yet. Maybe we will do it. I don't see us being able to do much this quarter. We might do more in next quarter.
Okay. Is it possible to give park-wise ticket ARPU?
Satheesh, I don't know whether we usually share park-wise ticket.
We don't share park-wise ticket ARPU, but I can share the ARPU breakdown for consolidated.
Okay.
I can share the ARPU is we did the average ticket price for this quarter at INR 886.
Okay.
Our retail and F&B was about INR 303. Total ARPU was INR 1,189.
Okay. Thank you.
At the pre-COVID level it was INR 934.
Okay.
Q3 2019-2020, ARPU was INR 934. We have done close to INR 1,200. This is basically because of the walk-in and group mix. We have a better walk-in and group mix this time.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Niteen S. Dharmawat from Aurum Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, you are.
Yeah.
Okay. Couple of questions. You mentioned about the marketing expenses which you are, you know, some effort that you're taking. Can you tell us the budgeted marketing expenses percentage of revenue for this year versus pre-COVID level?
Satheesh?
Yes. I can give you some details on that. Okay. The advertising marketing, we have spent about close to about INR 4 crore during this quarter, okay, for a INR 50 crore revenue. The pre-COVID level we have spent about INR 8.9 crore. I mean, when I say advertising marketing, it includes all the marketing efforts, the BD, BDP spent and everything together was INR 8.9 crore on a INR 73 crore revenue.
Got it. That is for, again, for the quarter only, right?
I'm talking about the quarter for 2019-2020, pre-COVID level.
Yes.
Versus the current quarter. Okay.
Got it. Thank you so much. My second question is, you mentioned about Kochi being operational partially. What is the situation now, in the month of January? Kochi as well as the other parks, are they operating at full capacity or partial capacity?
No, there were some shutdowns for Cochin in January, but not full shutdowns, just partial weekend lockdowns kind of a thing. Now as of February, everything is open.
Wonderful. Thank you so much and all the best.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone telephone. We take the next question from the line of Kaustubh Pawaskar from Sharekhan by BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah. [Manish], thanks for giving me the opportunity.
Mr. Kaustubh, I would request you to kindly come a little closer to your mic. Your voice is not clearly audible.
Yeah. Is it better now?
Sir, a little closer to the mic, please.
Can't hear you.
Is it better?
No.
No, it's not pretty clear. I'm sorry.
Just a second.
Mr. Kaustubh, are you there?
Hello. Yeah, yeah.
Yes. We can hear you now.
Yeah. My question is on the footfall. You mentioned that you have achieved around 3.8 lakhs of footfall this quarter. Can you just give me the breakup of footfalls for your various parks?
Satheesh?
Yes. Yes, sir. I can give it. We have recorded about 176,000 footfall for Bangalore, 91,000 for Kochi and 113,000 for Hyderabad park. 381,000 is the footfall for the quarter.
This for 50, operating at around 50% capacity in all the three parks, right, sir?
Yeah.
There's no restriction on 50% capacity.
There was some restriction, I think.
Yeah.
There was some restriction, I think, in some parks.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Not for the entirety of the quarter. It was sometimes, I think in the beginning there was some restriction in Kerala or towards the end, I think there was a restriction in Kerala. Stuff like that. Yeah.
Right. When things were normalized in quarter three, like, you know, during the festives or, you know, before the emergence of Omicron, at that time, what was the capacity utilization for your parks? Was it better than 50%? Because I guess your revenues have now recovered to 70% of pre-COVID levels in quarter three. Q3 is one of the important quarters for you after quarter one. Whether the capacity utilization was much better in Q3?
Not yet, because I think it's still, you know, there are still. We've not really had a quarter where we didn't have any restrictions. Even-
Right.
Last quarter, there were some restrictions. Like for example, towards the end, we were told not to have New Year parties in Bangalore. We couldn't do any, you know, so a lot of some of those events had to be canceled, you know, because around New Year is when the new Omicron wave, you know, started, you know, everybody started panicking around end of 2021, right? We still haven't had a quarter where all three of our parks are allowed full capacity.
Right. I can understand that Q4 will be again, there will be some kind of.
Yeah, it will be similar only. It'll be similar.
Yeah.
It will not be full capacity.
Yeah.
Hopefully, I mean, if there are no further lockdowns, it should be, I mean, I think that's hopefully seeing the end of the pandemic and, you know, things should improve from now.
Yeah. My question was more from the FY 2023 point of view. Like, if we say that now the things would, you know, move towards, you know, there won't be any significant restrictions from here. Q1 is one of the strongest quarter for you. Considering that, and you have already mentioned that you are witnessing lot of pent-up demand. Considering that, do you expect Q1 to be, you know, in line with?
I think if there is no other further restrictions, I think we should do better than pre-COVID. Again, we don't know, I mean, what is going to happen and if there is a new wave or something, right?
Right.
In fact, when Omicron started, everybody said the wave will happen only in February, March, but it, wave happened only in January itself, so.
Right.
I don't think we can predict. Still I don't think we've come to a normal stage yet. We are still going through the pandemic, so it will be hard to predict.
Right. Sir, in this quarter, we did EBITDA margins of around 29%, which is very, you know, strong considering the business environment and the way the business is shaping up, looking at the volatility. If we have done 29% EBITDA margin and if things normalize in Q1 or maybe FY 2023, should we expect margins to move up to around 30%-35% what you used to do historically?
Yes, sir, because it all depends on the footfall. The better the footfall, you know, the capacity is there. Hello?
Right. Yeah.
So it-
I can-
Once the footfall improves, the EBITDA margin will improve.
Absolutely. Sir, one last one, if I can. In Q3, which was one of your strongest day where the footfalls were reached maximum and if you can share that number?
I'll give it to you.
Sorry. I was saying the call dropped. As I was saying, we still don't know how it's going to play out, but it looks like all the signs are showing that there won't be much restriction. If there is no other major variant of concern or you know, things like that, I think we should have good footfalls going forward.
Right. Sir, on the number, footfall number, which was one of the strongest day or weekend where you have seen footfalls hitting, you know, maximum, in Q3?
We have taken about 6,000, more than 6,000 numbers in Bangalore park on a particular day.
Okay. Okay.
The date is in October.
Okay. That was how much of that particular day capacity?
See, each park for us can easily do about 9,000, okay?
Okay.
We have also handled beyond that.
Right.
On that particular day, our maximum footfall was in Bangalore park with 6,300 numbers, close to 6,300 numbers. Overall footfall was about 10,000 on 15th October and 16th of October, we had about 11,700 footfalls.
That is overall for all the three parks?
All three parks together. Again, Bangalore was the highest with 6,200.
Yeah. That is wonderful to hear. We can consider from this we can indicate how the demand is shaping up, you know, for you. That's wonderful to hear. All the best for your future quarters. Thank you.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. We have the next question from the line of Harish Shah from HS Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. I have basically two to ask. Number one, what is your park-wise mix of tickets to non-ticket spend for this quarter? Secondly, with third wave residing, what would be your immediate, you know, medium-term plan for the coming quarters?
Our mix of ticket and non-ticket is about 75/25. I mean, obviously we are in a recovery mode again after the third wave, so we need to, like, ramp up footfall. You know, usually Q4 is not really a very strong quarter for us, so we don't do too much of, you know, I mean, it's also an exam quarter, so a lot of kids have exams and things like that, so not really a very strong quarter. We will, depending on how we see footfall trends emerging, and I think they're emerging quite well, we will do, you know, different marketing spends.
Mostly we don't do too much because we usually save that towards the end of the quarter when we are, you know, when our summer season starts. We don't do that much in Q4.
Okay. Thank you, and all the best.
Thanks.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Manoj Dua from Geometric. Please go ahead.
Good morning, sir. In the last seven, eight quarters we were battling the pandemic and so it was a different battle. Now, assuming that pandemic is over and the world is post-pandemic, is it the right time to ask what new initiatives this company is thinking going forward? Any exits looking to add? What about from Chennai park? A little bit forward looking, what new can we do forward if some clarity? That's my only question.
Yeah. I mean, like I said before, once the footfalls are stable, and I think they're getting there, almost, I think we should be able to look at new projects. We are definitely looking at Chennai and, our park in Bhubaneswar. I think maybe by the end of this quarter we will finalize which one of these we'll take it forward in the next financial year. Most likely, I think we will start off with our Odisha project, and I think we will when there is a final announcement on this, we will definitely keep you updated. Chennai also, I think we are still working with the government to see whether we can, you know, remove the deadlock on this.
As and when there is news, we will keep you updated.
Thank you. Best of luck.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Meet Jagani from PS Associates. Please go ahead.
Hi, Arun. Congratulations for a good quarter compared to last seven quarters. My question is, are we sticking to our expansion plan starting from April 2022 or shall we still wait to see how the pandemic evolves?
No, I think we are reasonably confident that, I mean, the worst is over, so we are definitely kick-starting all our expansion plans. As and when there is updates, we will keep you posted, like I just said. We don't have anything to announce right now, but whenever there is updates on this, we will announce it.
Suppose if you go with the Odisha park first, will it take the same as Chennai project?
Sorry, I can't hear you.
For that, Arun.
I couldn't hear the question.
Suppose if we go for the Odisha park first, as you mentioned in the last question, should it also take two years for completion of that park for going live?
Yeah, it will take about two years. Roughly two years is the timeline for us to complete one project.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Siyaram, who is an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Arun. Can you hear me?
Yes. Yes.
Yeah, yeah. Actually, I just want to know whether we are going to participate in the auction for Imagicaa that is going to happen in this month?
Sorry, I didn't hear that clearly. Could you please repeat it?
I just want to ask, like, are we going to participate in the Imagicaa auction that is going to happen in this month?
Probably not, because I think, you know, I think there's too many issues with that. You know, for us, it doesn't look very attractive. We are not going to invest directly in it. If some ARC or somebody else invests, we are willing to help them with it. We are not gonna invest directly in it. I mean, that's not what we are looking at right now.
Doesn't this look like a lucrative offer, given that they have given us a price of INR 575 crores for, you know, a very big, you know, and it will actually give us an opportunity to expand to the eastern side, like, it's?
Yeah, I think I mean, there are so many issues with the project and, you know, operationally also there are issues and I mean, I don't know whether we'll be able to take over something like that. Also their footfall trends also have not been very encouraging. Even during the pandemic, they've not been able to get their numbers decent. I mean, I don't know. It doesn't look very exciting for us. In fact, the last ARC who wanted to take over that asset, they have themselves backed out of it. That doesn't give us a lot of confidence that, you know. Unless somebody willing to take up the asset, we can help.
We can be an operator, but I don't think we will enter as an investor in it.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Adhidev. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Arun and Mr. Seshadri, if you could just tell us about any inflationary pressures which are there in the business. I understand we have been in obviously a cost savings mode because of the pandemic. When things fully normalize, how do you look at your employee costs and other optional expenses versus pre-COVID on an absolute basis?
I think as the you know, as the pandemic abates and, you know, as, you know, operations slowly ramp up to a full operations, I think our costs also will go up and inflationary pressures will be there. Like we have been able to demonstrate in the last quarter, our ticket price also quite elastic. Actually, we increased our ticket price, I think almost by 30% last quarter, and still we had good footfalls. You know, in that sense, I think we are in a good space. We are not really concerned about, inflationary pressures on our business.
Do you expect some getting into second half of next financial year or whatever, our ARPU growth outpacing the increase in costs? Is there some further margin expansion possible as compared to pre-COVID levels?
Hard to say that because, you know, the main difference is we are doing a very different strategy for our marketing compared to before 2020. It could happen, but we are not really sure how the margin expansion will happen. I think as like I've said before, the moment footfalls improve and sentiment improves, our margins will expand. In that sense, we are hopeful, but I cannot put a definite number on it.
Okay. My final question is on a marketing strategy. Obviously, we have had to rely on the digital format a lot in the pandemic. Now that things are opening up, so just qualitatively, how are things different, how different are things going to be going ahead over the next one year?
I think a lot of this will be permanent. We've realized that, you know, digital marketing is the way forward for us, so we have not really spent anything on traditional media in the last almost two years now. Which is a huge change for us in terms of our marketing strategy. We are still learning the digital world as such because, you know, it's still a new area for us. There is a huge area that we can learn, and I think we can strengthen our position in the digital world quite easily. Also for our target audience, they are usually young kids and young adults. Digital marketing is definitely the way of the future.
I don't think we'll go back to a traditional method anytime soon, unless there is a huge change in the way the people behave, which I don't think will happen.
Sure, sure. That is, very helpful, yeah. That answers my questions. Thank you.
Thank you. As we do not have any further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you all for participating in the Wonderla Holidays Q3 FY22 result update. We wish you all the very best, and please stay safe and take care. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of ICICI Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.