Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the a2 Milk Company FY 2024 results presentation. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. David Akers, Group Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining. Starting on slide three. On the call today, we have David Bortolussi, our Managing Director and CEO, and David Muscat, our CFO. We also have the leaders from our regions, Li Xiao, Yohan Senaratne, Eleanor Khor, and Kevin Bush. The team will present our results and outlook, and there'll be time for questions at the end. I'll hand over now to David Bortolussi.
Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. We're pleased to present our FY 2024 results, which delivered strong growth in revenue, EBITDA and EPS. We grew total IMF sales, despite a double-digit decline in the China IMF market, becoming a top five brand. We also achieved another record high in China label market share in a year of market-wide transition to new GB products. Encouragingly, after several periods of decline, we stabilized our English label sales and achieved growth in the second half. Pleasingly, we announced on Friday that we have resolved our Synlait arbitration disputes, subject to Synlait completing its equity raise and refinancing. Moving to slide five, which summarizes our financial results. Revenue for the period was NZD 1.68 billion, up 5.2%.
EBITDA was NZD 234 million, up 6.9% with an EBITDA margin of 14%. Our net profit after tax was NZD 168 million, up 7.7%, and EPS was up 9.2% to NZD 0.232. Net cash at the end of the period was NZD 969 million, up NZD 212 million compared to June 2023, and our operational cash conversion improved to 126%. Revenue growth for the year was again driven by our China segment, which was up 14%, while our ANZ segment was down 15%, reflecting the change in our English label distribution strategy. US sales were up 8%, while MDM sales were down 11%.
From a category perspective, we grew total IMF sales by 4.6%, with China label sales up 9.5% and English label sales flat. Sales in our liquid milk businesses both grew, up 3% in ANZ and 7% in the U.S.. Lastly, sales in our other nutritionals category also grew more substantially by 37%. Moving to slide six. Beyond our financial results, I'm very pleased with what our team has achieved this year from an operational perspective, and I've called out some of those over the next couple of pages, including growing our IMF sales by 4.6% when the market was down over 10%. Launching and transitioning our upgraded China label product successfully. Gaining share in BCD cities and online. Improving China brand health. Developing our distribution partnership with Yuou.
Launching our new English label product, a2 Gentle Gold, and accelerating growth in other nutritionals. On the next page, some more highlights. Continuing to drive lactose-free growth in Australia. Improving U.S. profitability significantly. Completing our growth study for FDA approval. Expanding our English label sales with supply chain partners, and making significant progress on our sustainability program. Moving to slide eight. Since we refreshed our strategy in 2021 , the China IMF market has been more challenging than we expected, but is showing some improvement in trajectory, as indicated by the charts on the right-hand side of the page for the total market and its China label and English label components. In FY 2024, the total China IMF market declined by 10.7% in value, with the decline in key and A cities greater than BCD.
The China label IMF market declined by 12.5% in value terms, driven by the combination of volume pressure and higher promotional activity during the GB transition period. English label IMF outperformed the overall market significantly, up 3.8% in value. The a2 type protein segment grew rapidly and now accounts for 18% of the total market value, and brand concentration continues to increase among the top players, particularly the top 5. Turning to the next page, we are extremely pleased with how our China label business has performed in FY 2024. It was a critical year with the launch and transition to our upgraded a2 Zhichu product. It's difficult to explain how complicated and challenging such a transition is to manage, and our team and partners executed perfectly and achieved record market share at the same time. An amazing achievement.
Li Xiao will talk to this in more detail shortly. Moving to page 10. We are also pleased to see an improvement in English label performance, with the total market returning to growth and a2 sales growing in the second half. Yohan and the rest of our team have been executing various initiatives to drive growth over the past couple of years, and it's pleasing to see this coming through in our results. In fact, we achieved our highest English label market share since April 2021 . Moving to the next page, and we're very proud that a2 has become a top five brand in the total China IMF market, with a value share of 7.3%, up 1.4 percentage points for the year.
This includes being a top 10 brand in the China label IMF market, with almost 5% share, and the clear number two player in the English label market with over 20% share, both of which improved in FY 2024. Turning to slide twelve and taking a closer look at our other nutritionals and liquid milk businesses. Other nutritional sales grew 37%, driven by a more dedicated team structure, improved supply and innovation... Liquid milk sales grew 4.8%, with Lactose Free growth in Australia and grass-fed growth in the US being key drivers. Eleanor and Kevin will cover our liquid milk businesses in more detail shortly. So in summary, our results in FY 2024 were in line with our expectations and reflected strong execution by our team. Moving now to slide 13 and our outlook for FY 2025.
I'll make a few comments here, but also direct you to our results, commentary, and outlook released this morning, where we have the full version of our FY 2025 outlook. In terms of market growth, we're expecting a further decline in the China IMF market in FY 2025. The company is expecting mid-single digit revenue growth in FY 2025, with growth affected by IMF supply constraints, which are expected to be resolved in the first half. Gross margins are expected to be broadly similar to FY 2024, with the first half down impacted by air freight and the second half up. Brand reinvestment rates are expected to be similar, and SG&A is expected to be similar to down as a percent of sales.
Overall, EBITDA margins as a percentage of revenue, expected to be broadly similar to FY24, with the first half down and the second half up compared to prior year. Cash conversion is expected to be less than 100%, mainly due to the Synlait settlement, and CapEx is expected to be approximately NZD 20 million. Moving now to a brief strategy update. Slide 14 shows our growth strategy on a page which is focused on five key priorities. Our strategy hasn't changed and is focused on capturing the full potential of the China market, with supply chain transformation a key priority. Moving to slide 15. This slide shows how we are tracking towards our medium-term goals reflected in our measures of success. Overall, we're making solid progress against the plan with a few changes here since our update at the half.
In the people section, we have added gender pay gap as a measure and marked it as work in progress, so we have more work to do here to reduce the gap. Under market share, we have marked O2O and Daigou share as work in progress, given the decline from FY 2023 to FY 2024. Australian fresh milk has improved, while US share is work in progress. In innovation, the only change is US sales from new products. While this was positive for the year, it was slightly lower than what we had been targeting. Under supply chain, we've marked service as work in progress, given the challenges we are currently experiencing with IMF supply.
Under shareholders, our expectation for US and MVM profitability has moved out to FY 2027, and we mark the U.S. as work in progress until we have more clarity on our IMF opportunity and potential investment levels. Moving to slide 16, which is another slide we've been reporting our progress against, we've defined our medium-term financial ambition to grow revenue from NZD 1.2 billion in FY 2021 to approximately NZD 2 billion by FY 2027 or later, and to target EBITDA margins in the teens with year-on-year improvement. From FY 2021 to date, we've grown revenue by NZD 469 million and improved our EBITDA margins to 14%. Our China label IMF growth is on track with significant share gains.
English label IMF growth is behind plan due to the market decline, particularly in the Daigou channel and lower share gains to date, but is showing signs of improvement. Overall, we are on track to deliver our medium-term revenue ambition by FY 2027 or later, with EBITDA margin improvement a key focus. Turning to slide 17. We thought it might be helpful to conceptualize how we are thinking about the growth in our IMF portfolio over the next few years. For simplicity, we presented this chart based on China market definitions of price segment, segments being Ultra-Premium, Super Premium, Premium, and Mainstream.
From left to right, you can see the indicative positioning of our current English label products, the 3.3% market share being a2 Platinum and our recently launched a2 Gentle Gold, with a further product to be positioned in the premium to super premium segment, targeted to launch in FY 2025. We then show our China label, a2 Zhichu product, playing in the ultra-premium segment with 4% market share. Our ambition is to have at least another three China label registrations over time. In connection with the Synlait dispute resolution, we expect to access an additional China label registration slot at Synlait's Dunsandel site, subject to SAMR approval, and additional China label registrations are being explored through our supply chain transformation strategy. This brings me to slide 18. The resolution of the disputes with Synlait improves IMF supply chain certainty and flexibility for a2.
In essence, we have conditionally resolved our Synlait arbitration disputes relating to exclusivity, pricing, and other matters, subject to Synlait completing its proposed equity raise and refinancing. We have also agreed to support and subscribe for shares under Synlait's equity raise on terms to be agreed, which will be set out in Synlait's notice of meeting. Hopefully, our announcement on Friday was clear, but I'm happy to clarify any questions you may have during the Q&A. Turning to page 19, we are very conscious of the significant amount of cash we have on our balance sheet at year-end. Our capital allocation framework prioritizes investment in growth initiatives ahead of returning capital to shareholders. Consistent with this, priority is being given to transforming and de-risking our supply chain to enable future growth focused on investment in New Zealand and China.
We are continuing to explore M&A and JV opportunities, which may require significant capital investment. Once our supply chain transformation is further developed and other investment opportunities are considered, to the extent there is a capital surplus to achieving our priorities, the board will make a disciplined assessment of the potential return of capital to shareholders and the most appropriate option to do so. Lastly, on page 20, I wanted to highlight the significant progress we've made this year towards achieving our planet-related goals through our sustainability program, particularly in relation to emissions reduction. There have been two key milestones during the year. Firstly, the electrification of the boiler at MVM, which has reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 45%, with more to come this year.
Secondly, our investment in AgriZeroNZ, which we're pleased to have the opportunity to join this year alongside other industry stakeholders and government. I'll now hand over to Dave to cover our financials in more detail.
Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone. Moving to slide 22 and a summary of our group P&L. We delivered net sales revenue of NZD 1.67 billion, up 5.2% on prior year. This reflected strong growth in the China and other Asia and USA segments, partially offset by a decrease in the ANZ segment and MVM. Moving down through the P&L, gross margin of 45.8% was down 0.6 percentage points on last year, mainly due to a NZD 10 million accelerated depreciation related to MVM's coal-fired boiler and was otherwise flat to last year. Our distribution expenses were slightly lower, thanks to improved USA distribution costs due to lower freight rates and an increased focus on optimizing customer cost to serve.
Investment in marketing was higher in dollar terms to NZD 280 million, with a focus on China and the support for the launch and transition of our upgraded China label IMF product. Our administrative and other expenses were 3% higher due to capability and other investments, partially offset by lower LTI expenses and reduced hedge losses. Interest income increased, reflecting our higher cash balances and increased market interest rates. Overall, our net profit after tax increased 7.7% to NZD 168 million, with basic EPS up 9.2% to NZD 0.232 per share. Slide 23 shows our segment performance. You can see on this slide the significant growth in our China and other Asia segment of 14% for both revenue and EBITDA.
It also shows the impact of the deliberate shift of English label IMF distribution from the Daigou channel in our ANZ segment to more direct channels in the China segment, such as CBEC & O2O . This explains most of the ANZ segment being down 14.6% in revenue and 32.6% in EBITDA. The USA segment grew 8%, and importantly, we improved EBITDA by 33.7% to a full year loss of NZD 15.5 million. That included some costs related to pursuing long-term FDA approval. MVM's external sales decreased 11%, reflecting lower GDT auction prices and a higher level of in-sourced a2 Milk Company sales. And finally, the lower EBITDA in the corporate segment was mainly driven by capability investment in our central supply chain function and further investment into sustainability and science.
Moving to slide 24, which summarizes our performance from a category perspective, our total IMF sales were up 4.6%, despite a very challenging IMF China IMF market. Over 90% of our IMF sales are now through the China and other Asia segments, achieving 1 billion of sales in that segment in FY 2024 and representing an increase in sales since FY 2021 of 90%. This slide also shows the accelerating growth of the other nutritionals category, with a 36.7% increase in sales for the year. This category includes plain and fortified milk powders and liquid milk exported into the China and other Asia markets, which Yohan will discuss further. Turning to slide 25. Here you can see gross margin percentage of 45.8% for the year, down 0.6 percentage points.
Following the successful commissioning of MVM's high-pressure electro boiler, we accelerated the depreciation of its coal-fired boiler. This represented a NZD 10 million impact to gross margin. Excluding this non-cash impact, gross margin percentage was otherwise flat. Improvements in MVM and US gross margins were offset by a slight decrease in IMF margins due to higher input costs for China label, offset in dollar, but not percentage terms by price rises and a lower mix of English label Daigou sales relative to CBEC sales. Moving to slide 26. Consistent with our growth strategy, our marketing investment has increased significantly in absolute terms and as a percentage of sales. This reflected the continued step-up in China investment and support for the transition to our upgraded China label product. Xiao will provide more color in his section.
SG&A, in absolute terms, increased in absolute terms due to the continued investment in China and supply chain, and was partly mitigated by a reduction in LTI expenses. As a percentage of sales, SG&A decreased versus FY 2023. Moving to slide 27, which shows our cash flow. We achieved net operating cash flow of NZD 255.7 million, and cash conversion of 126%, both significantly higher than prior year. The higher cash conversion was due to lower payments in FY 2024 made for China label stock, as all opening China label stock was manufactured before the end of February 2023 and was paid for in FY 2023.
It also reflected amounts withheld from Synlait payments subject to dispute resolution to be paid in FY 2025, and it reflected large catch-up payments in China in FY 2023 due to COVID-19 related delays that impacted FY 2022 payments, which were outside the company's control. Our total net cash at the end of the period was NZD 969 million, 28% higher than FY 2023. On slide 28, our balance sheet remained strong and was further strengthened in FY 2024 by a significant operating cash flows and lower working capital. Inventories were 7.1% or NZD 13.8 million lower, resulting from reduced IMF stock with lower English label stock that was high at the end of last year, and lower early-stage IMF stock due to sales performance.
Other current assets were higher due to the timing of IMF purchase deposits impacted by the FY 2023 China label stock build, while other non-current assets reduced by NZD 31.6 million, mainly due to the devaluation of the company's investment in Synlait. Trade and other payables were higher, mainly due to higher payments made in FY 2023 for the China label stock build. That completes the financial overview, and so I'll hand over to Li Xiao to take you through the strong performance of our China label business.
Thank you, Dave. Starting on slide 30, it has been a milestone year for the China team. The China MF market and the broader environment have been very challenging, but we have performed strongly again. Most importantly, we successfully launched and transitioned our new GB registered China label MF product, ahead of plan. The launch and the transition was supported by a large-scale integrated marketing campaign. Another highlight was further extending strong business plan into more regional key accounts, and increase our offline distribution in lower tier cities with BCD cities, which was the biggest driver of offline growth in FY 2024. We also improved new user recruitment in online channels, achieving safe growth and a historical high share in domestic online. We also continued to grow our other nutritionals, delivering strong growth across fresh milk, UHT, and adult milk powder.
Turning to slide thirty-one, and looking at the results for China label, we grew revenue 9.5% to NZD 612.3 million for FY 2024. We achieved this growth despite the China label market declining 12.5%, and in a period of heightened volatility with the IMF market transitioning to new GB registered products, and wider China and economic pressures. We are pleased that our new product continued to resonate with consumer and has been well received by the trade. Our successful GB transition was underpinned by diligent planning and execution, with a minimum product write-off incurred. Our strong performance and the momentum resulted in a record market share and being a leading share gainer. In MBS, our share is up to 3.5%, and in DOL, our share is up to 3.9%.
Moving to slide 32. This slide describes the upgraded formula and the packaging with our new GB product. We invested in a significant campaign launch during the second half to support the transition. This includes integrated marketing across high traffic and high impact out-of-home advertising, new point of sales material, in-store tasting, and the training of promotional people as brand ambassador. Slide 33 highlights how we integrated the campaign execution, including collaboration with the key account customers. A significant contribution from the in-store promotional team under the O2O's collaboration leveraged through in-store activation. Slide 34 shows the opportunity we developed through our O2O's collaboration to maximize online and offline exposure. This was integrated across traditional and the digital channel, and in high impact sales channel to drive awareness. Turning to slide 35, we were pleased with our performance in DOL in FY 2024.
We focused on early-stage products and the new users, collaborated with key Door accounts, and utilized live streaming events and online store management. Moving to slide 36, our hard work has again translated into new heights in our brand metrics. Total brand awareness is up to 66%, and unprompted, and the top-of-mind awareness increased. Our trial and the loyalty metrics also increased. These results give us confidence in our marketing investment, the power of our brand, and our positioning in the market. Slide 37 shows our performance in MBS for the period on a national basis, and also split by key and A and the BCD cities. Our record market share in MBS was driven by our growth in BCD cities.
Our overall market share grew to 3.5%, with slight decline in key and A, more than offset by our share increase in BCD, which is the largest portion of the market. Moving to slide 38, we grew in new stores, as well as achieving some modest like-for-like growth in mature stores. You can see in this slide the impact from, deactivated stores. Our distribution was broadly stable, with a numerical and VA distribution constant at 28% and 48% respectively, based on Nielsen data. With our push into BCD, our numerical distribution increased to 26% and the VA distribution to 44%. Turning to slide 39, online growth outpaced offline sales growth in FY 2024. We achieved record market share in Douyin of 3.9%, and our market share is now higher than in Douyin than in MBS.
We achieved strong growth with Tmall and the JD, and are continuing to pursue growth in emerging online content-based channels such as Douyin, TikTok, and Red, which generated significant growth in the period. Slide forty shows market share movements by IMF brand in the MBS and the DOL channels. We are a leading share gainer in both the MBS and the DOL channels. Slide forty-one highlights that we have gained share in virtually all stages across MBS and the DOL. In MBS, we have higher share growth in early stages. In DOL, we delivered share growth across all stages, with continuous strong share gains in early stages, a healthy indicator that the channel is growing rather than the consumer switching from offline. Now I will hand over to Yohan to take you through English Label IMF.
Thank you, Xiao, and good morning, everyone. Moving to slide 42. In English label IMF, we are pleased with our performance for FY 2024, with a number of key points to highlight. During FY 2024, in CBEC, we focused on direct account management and emerging social e-commerce platforms. Combined with investment in a significant brand campaign in the first half, this contributed towards a steady overall English label market share and awareness in China. We continued to optimize our route to market model through drop shipping, which has shortened lead times from manufacturer to consumer and lowered trade inventory requirements. Our relationship with Yuou in O2O has resulted in greater distribution and increased share. We were also excited to launch new products with a2 Gentle Gold in IMF and a2 Immune and a2 Move in fortified milk powders for adults, and commencing shipments of IMF to Vietnam.
Moving to the results itself on slide 43. The overall English label IMF market grew in value by 3.8%. CBEC grew 11% and O2O by 5.5%. This was largely offset by continued weakness in the Daigou channel, which was down 14.3%. Our FY 2024 revenue was NZD 546.4 million, broadly in line with FY 2023. Our second half revenue was NZD 17.4 million, higher than the first half. Looking at the English label channels more closely, our CBEC revenue, including O2O, increased 16% and now represents 82% of all English label sales. This performance reflects our strategic decision to focus more on controlled channels. Our ANZ IMF revenue decreased 39.4% versus FY 2023, also reflecting, in part, our strategic focus more on controlled channels.
We are starting to see signs of stabilization in the English label market. The charts on slide 44 show channel growth rates in key key and A cities on the left, versus BCD cities on the right. In both charts, you can see that the rates of market decline have reduced in FY 2024 versus FY 2023. In key and A cities, total English label, CBEC & O2O grew, while the decline in Daigou channels slowed. In BCD cities, the total English label and CBEC grew, while Daigou and O2O decline slowed. Slide 45 shows the composition of English label market sales by channel and major platform. This highlights that CBEC is now over half of English label. It also highlights the growth in Douyin TikTok, which is a key emerging platform. Slide 46 shows a stabilization in our overall English label market share.
Kantar data shows our total English label share across all channels at 20.2%. Our CBEC channel share is 20.5%, and our O2O and Daigou share is 19.7%. Both have declined slightly since FY 2023, but are above FY 2022 levels. It's important to note differences in movements between total English label market share and channel market shares may be due to scope and sample size limitations at a channel level. Slide 47 highlights our integrated brand and e-commerce campaign approach, aiming to drive awareness and trial. In April, we held a super brand day with JD, which included activation on major digital platforms through paid and owned channels, combined with store live streaming, driving to in-store sales conversion.
The result was a 35% growth in offtake and a 55% increase in new users, with the majority of offtake in early stage products. On slide 48, we highlight some of the opportunities we are pursuing in emerging markets. Our focus is on expanding our reach and product portfolio. In Korea, we're expanding retail distribution with UHT and IMF. In Singapore, we are arranging fresh milk with major retailers, and in Vietnam, we are launching our IMF and a2 Milk portfolio. Finally, slide 49 highlights the new products launched in FY 2024. We expanded our IMF portfolio with a2 Gentle Gold, as well as launched our new fortified milk powder range, targeting adults and seniors. With that, I'll now hand over to our Managing Director for ANZ and Strategy, Eleanor Khor.
Thanks, Yohan, and hello, everyone. A key highlight for us in FY 2024 was the relaunch of the a2 Milk brand in Australia, supported by new packaging and a new advertising campaign. In addition, we continued to focus on growing a2 Milk Lactose Free, investing in price and marketing activities to drive awareness, trial, and brand penetration. We also expanded our liquid milk portfolio into new sizes and formats. Within our supply chain, we completed our first methane inhibitor and feasibility study on farms, completed a site upgrade at Smeaton Grange, and continued to progress the upgrade. From a business impact perspective, these activities contributed to achieving new highs in top of mind and spontaneous awareness and in trial conversion.
a2 Milk being ranked as the number one dairy brand in FY 2024, achieving 11.5% overall dairy milk share and 13.7% share of the lactose-free segment, maintaining strong household penetration rates at 15.1%, and a2 Milk having the highest consumer loyalty of branded milk players. Turning to slide 51, in terms of net sales revenue, we delivered growth of 3.3% to NZD 190.2 million. In a challenging macroeconomic environment, which saw consumers shift to private label products, our growth in Australia was pleasing, with lactose-free continuing to perform well and core volumes stabilizing in the second half following our brand relaunch. Slide 52 highlights our marketing investment in FY 2024. Our refreshed packaging delivers stronger on-shelf impact.
Our new TVC reinforces our key A1 protein-free difference, and we invested in driving awareness and trial of lactose free, supporting our significant market share gains. And with that, I'll now hand over to Kevin to take you through our US business.
Thank you, Eleanor. A quick update on the U.S. business up to today. It's been a significant year, and I am pleased with the progress we have made on a number of key initiatives. In particular, we launched a2 Platinum IMF in the U.S., trialing a mix of different sales and marketing approaches. We made meaningful progress on our goal to obtain long-term FDA IMF approval. We continued to grow our liquid milk business, supported by innovations such as our grass-fed product. We further optimized our supply chain, including new agreements with our co-manufacturers, and importantly, we significantly improved our landed margins, reducing reported losses. Turning to slide 54, we grew revenue during the year by 8.2% to 113.7 million. This was mainly driven by innovation, supported by lower trade spend on our core liquid milk range.
Our EBITDA loss of NZD 15.5 million was down from a loss of NZD 23.3 million in FY 2023. This was a significant focus for us during the year and will be going forward, and was achieved through reduced promotional activity, improved input costs and distribution rates, reduced SG&A costs, partly offset by higher costs incurred with respect to pursuing long-term FDA approval. Our market share in the premium milk category was slightly down to 2.2%. We commenced distribution of IMF, and we remain on track to submit our new infant formula notification. With this investment in IMF, it is now more likely the USA business will achieve profitability by FY 2027, with the USA liquid milk business achieving breakeven contribution margin in FY 2026. Turning to slide 55, which essentially covers the progress to date with regards to long-term IMF approval.
We have ticked off a number of key milestones over the past twelve months, in particular, the completion of our growth monitoring study, and we remain on track to submit our NZX during the first quarter of 2025, with long-term approval targeted during FY 2026. And with that, I'll hand back to David Bortolussi .
Thanks, Kev. A few quick points on MVM before we move to Q&A. MVM reported net sales revenue of NZD 101 million, down versus FY 2023 due to lower GDT pricing and higher in-source a2 sales, which were eliminated on consolidation. EBITDA losses were reduced from NZD 26.5 million in FY 2023 to NZD 20.5 million, reflecting an improvement in nutritional sales mix, plus continued cost and productivity focus across the site. Importantly, we commenced production of a2 Platinum Stage 4 base powder in FY 2024, as well as supplying A1 protein-free powder for a2 Gentle Gold and other products in the portfolio.
Also, our team continued to work on a range of initiatives to improve, to achieve breakeven, including, at this stage, we're more likely, actually, sorry, for profitability to be achieved by FY 2027, mainly due to the time required to build capability and to develop, trial, and scale new products. I'll pause there, and with that, pass back to David Akers for Q&A.
Thanks, David. I'll ask that when we take questions, they're limited to two questions, and then please rejoin the queue. Darcy, can you please open for questions?
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Tom Kierath from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Could I just check whether the MVM and US losses are expected to reduce in 2025? And if that's kind of included in your outlook statement there.
Yes. Yeah, Tom. Yeah, they are expected to reduce, and that is included in our outlook statement.
Okay, great. And secondly, can you just elaborate on what the supply constraints are in the first half 2025, note that you're kind of flagging us, I suppose, a bit weaker performance in the first half. Just when is that gonna be resolved, and what are the moving parts there in that issue, please?
Sure. Tom, I'll answer that. So combination of a couple of factors. Firstly, we finished FY 2024 with slightly lower stock than we had planned for, and that was really because of fourth quarter sales and DT shipments. Distributor shipments in China were pretty strong in the fourth quarter. So that mainly in relation to early-stage products, particularly our trial packs and 400-gram tins. And then secondly, after year-end, we've experienced supply constraints in infant. These are being addressed at the moment, but we expect these to be resolved in the first half. But they're likely to constrain our sales in the first half, and we're also likely to incur significant air freight in the first half to catch up ahead of sea freight shipments.
I guess lastly, the harder impact for us to quantify would be in relation to new acquisition. It's always difficult to assess what that impact would be and the rolling impact of that going forward. I hope that gives you sort of some color on the challenges we're facing at the moment. It's not unusual in our industry. We've experienced this before. Last year it was more in relation to English label, this year it's more in relation to China label.
Got it. Great. Thanks, David.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Matt Montgomery from Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead.
Hi, David. Good morning. Just following up on Tom's second question there, I was just wondering if you could please, I guess, attempt to quantify the net drag of, the supply constraints and also what gross margins may have or may well net out at X, the airfreight headwind. I'm just trying to get a sense of, I guess, the materiality of what you're calling out.
Hi, Matt. We're not providing specific guidance on the sales drag. It's hard to be too detailed on that, and maybe we can, I mean, it'll have a significant impact on gross margin. What I could help you with, though, is the air freight is likely to be, you know, quite significant, so it could be, you know, NZD 10 million or more over what we'd ordinarily experience. You know, we do have air freight from time to time, but nothing of this magnitude.
Okay. Maybe we'll take it more offline. Then just on your supply chain, I guess post-Friday, my view at least, was that investors probably had more foresight on the CapEx profile of the business over the next few years, i.e., you're putting-
How much capital do you think you need? And 15%-16% EBITDA margin. I think the term that you used was mo-
From their point of view, but from our point of view, we have an incremental cost of certain of our products, and that's what we have with Synlait. So when I refer to conversion costs, that's that part of it, and the ingredients cost, we work together on to achieve the, you know, the optimum mix of quality and term and service and costs related to those. So that's different. So it's a relatively immaterial impact on our product costs and margins associated with the settlement agreement, like, very small.
Okay, understood. Maybe the second question, mate, this either for yourself or Yohan, but, just in terms of the English label category, like in terms of value share, I think you've noted it sort of, it's gone to sort of 17% or sort of 15%. Like, where do you kinda see that settling in the, in the next couple of years? Like, do you, do you think that the trend is, you know, towards 20%, or like, can you just give us a bit more depth, obviously, being yourself an optimal kind of 65% of that?
Yeah. So, Adrian, just in terms of that split, you're referring to the English label share of the total market, China IMF market, which has improved. I think, you know, if you look back in time, back to pre-pandemic, that rate was a lot higher, obviously, and English label has been impacted by COVID, and hence that ratio has come down. I think the improvement in the ratio is driven by a couple of things. So the first is, of course, no longer having the pandemic and that being a headwind to consumer choice. Second thing is, of course, in the current environment, English label products are considered to be more value for money, and that's influencing consumer choice.
Then lastly, if we look particularly at CBEC & O2O and look at the competitor set, it's not only Chinese label products, it's also products from Hong Kong and also from Europe, and some of the new products from Hong Kong and Europe have ingredients that are particularly attractive. An example of that would be HMO. So those new products that contain some of those new ingredients are having particularly strong growth. So it's a factor of all of those that's driving the English label share. It's hard for me to say exactly where that would end up, but it's good to see that the momentum is back towards English label.
Or was it 23% pre-pandemic or something?
23.
Yeah, it might, yeah. Who knows? I mean, it may increase a couple points towards 20, but I'm not sure at this stage we'd be expecting it to go into the hundreds.
Okay, no, that's good. Can I just sneak in one last one? Just, just when you like, say, if you take Immune and Move, when you launch those products, like, how long does it sort of take, for you to be sort of net positive at the contribution margin? Like, how much marketing support is required upfront for those kind of products?
Yeah. So there is a little bit of marketing support. I think what helped first is that Immune and Move build upon a portfolio, an existing portfolio. So we had the tub, the plain label, plain milk tub, launched first, and then you have Immune and Move building on top. So it leverages a little bit of the marketing support already put towards the plain milk tub. But we invest in a little bit ahead, so probably about, say, six months ahead of, you know, overall, you know, payback. But ultimately, once it hits a steady state, we try to make sure that it's all the marketing investment is in line with the revenue generated.
The fortified, you know, faster-growing and higher-margin product.
Correct.
In the second half, there would be a little bit of a drag from those new products and the actual margin contribution more in marketing costs, I suppose.
Yes. So some of that marketing cost happened in FY 2024, and then, and a little bit will continue into FY 2025, and then we'll continue to, to expand the portfolio as well.
But they should, they should have a positive contribution in FY 2025.
... Okay, thank you, for the answers.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Richard Barwick from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. So I've just got a question about the NZD 2 billion revenue target and where Mataura Valley Milk fits into that. So am I right in saying you're assuming that MVM would be, by the time we get to an FY 2027, that MVM would be close to zero revenue contribution? And as, I guess, part of that, how should we be thinking about that transit or the progress at Mataura Valley Milk in the context of the dispute resolution with Synlait and the potential shifting of English label into Mataura Valley Milk?
Hi, Richard, it's David. So, I mean, MVM will help enable and develop our nutritional manufacturing supply capability in time. It'll help us with innovation in English label, but it won't help us in that timeframe through to 2027 from a China label market access and growth point of view, which I noted before. So whilst it might help us incrementally with growth, the bigger opportunity is to build capabilities for the future and also to, you know, work on reducing those losses over time, which we've said that we'll do that by FY 2027. So it's more of a... financially, it's more of a loss mitigation, earnings contribution in a way, going forward.
When you think about it, whilst the internalization of those sales for a2 will reduce the external reported sales revenue over time from MVM, it's unlikely to be zero at that point. The reason why I say that, like, say, for example, even and this is not... I'm not saying these are our plans, but if you took even our total English label portfolio, and if we were to fully in-source that over time, I mean, you're talking about half the capacity of MVM. It's not all of the capacity, so we might be producing some other powdered and fortified products, but we're still likely to still be producing some ingredient products on the commodity market, particularly at the, you know, the peak of the milk curve when we can't produce everything, the nutritional product.
It's likely the in-sourcing or innovation will reduce external sales, but it's unlikely to eliminate it.
Okay. Well, I just think that's important for us to understand, because in the context of the, you know, the group targets, the NZD 2 billion revenue at your, you know, your teens and, and rising margin, then I imagine Mataura Valley Milk can actually have quite an impact, because you'll end up with lower revenue. So I take it, it's not going to be zero.
Yeah.
But, presumably a positive EBITDA by then, so it from a, it would have quite a material impact on margin.
Agreed. It's a strain on the top line and hopefully an opportunity on the bottom line.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And the second question is just on birth rate. I know you've mentioned that you're still expecting positive this calendar year. And I think your wording is, you know, sort of back into decline after that or words to that effect. Is there anything you can add in terms of what you're seeing or hearing in market as to how positive the birth rate's looking for coming through calendar 2024?
It's difficult to be specific. We look at lots of different data points, and they still all suggest that, well, mostly suggest that, if what-- sorry, the calendar year 2024 number will be higher than what was reported in the prior year, which is the nine million. So somewhere, hopefully, you know, somewhere between, say, nine and 10 million, and hopefully sort of towards the higher end of that. Who knows? We'll wait and see how that develops. Our statement about the longer term is that just, you know, when you think about the socio-demographic trends in the market, there's probably, you know, I think we'd all agree that there's downward pressure on the birth rate over time. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's, you know, calendar year 2025 will be down. We're not saying that. That's uncertain at the moment.
But when you look into calendar 2026, 2027, beyond, like, it's likely to have that pressure. And absent sort of changes in that or more substantive policy intervention or other factors, that's likely to occur. But having said that, yeah, it's still a massive market for us, and we're still relatively small share and got a big opportunity ahead of us, and also we're looking at growth opportunities outside of infant as well. And other nutritionals is a great example of that, up 37%, now a NZD 110 million business.
Yep. Okay. That's great. Thanks, David.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Phil Kimber, from AMP Capital. Please go ahead.
Right. First question was just around early-stage infant milk formula. I was looking at one of your slides, and in Slide 41, your market share improvements in that early stage product is, you know, significantly better than the other stages. And I think you're alluding to, effectively, that you had too low an early-stage inventory because of sales in the fourth quarter were so strong. Is that correct? And I guess what's driving such particularly strong numbers in the early stage product, which, you know, if you're gonna have one of your stages strong, that's the best one to be strong, because you got another, you know, two or three years of strong sales in theory, as a result. But if you can get a bit more color around that, it'd be great.
Yeah. So Phil, your summary of that is correct. So in terms of inventory, I'll let Sha talk to the drivers of early stage growth. But yes, we did, as I said at the outset, we did have lower- we finished the year with lower early-stage inventory.
... both in English label and China label, particularly China label. And I mentioned that sort of the starter pack, the trial pack that we use, the 400g tins, we're short on as well. It's not that we didn't have any inventory, it's just lower. And then when you couple that together with supply constraints, it creates a problem for us that we're managing at the moment. But Xiao, do you wanna comment on the drivers of early stage growth in China label?
Yes. Hi, this is Li Xiao. So I mean, early stage is always, I mean, a focus of the China business because we know it decides your future growth, yeah? So it's always about your discipline and balance, allocation of your budget, where you are spending on driving your-- I mean, the, I mean, this year growth versus the future growth. Yeah. Saying that, I mean, coming to this fiscal year, it's what we call the Dragon Baby Boom Year. And then there's even more focus, deliberate effort from the team. Like, I mean, there's both a new user early stage new user recruitment, across online, offline, and also the medical channel. Plus, I mean, it's across EL and the CL.
So you can see there are a lot of good initiative, like, we share in the half year review about the, what we call the Baby Swimming Center, which is for the early stage. There's a increased, mama class on the maternity center, and also we kind of, I mean, mobilize our resources on the, medical, I mean, platform. I mean, recruit more user with, endorsement and support of the doctor. And also you can see on the online, I mean, the focus is also to get, more user, new user on the, I mean, we launched, what we call the, a maternity pack, which is basically is a package for the pregnant woman.
I mean, when they have a baby, I mean, they have the whole package solution, plus, I mean, some smaller trial pack for the baby trial usage. So there was quite a lot of initiative and effort, as well as budget allocated to this new user recruitment, leverage the Dragon Baby Year, so that we have a, I mean, more new user in the pipeline for the future growth.
Awesome. Thank you. And then a question, just, corporate costs, and I think I've got this right, were up quite significantly. They were down in the first half and then up about NZD 10 million at the EBITDA level in the second half. I couldn't see any commentary on that. I might have missed it, but what was specifically driving that? Is it just sort of switching between halves, or was there something unusual in the second half that isn't gonna carry on next year?
Hey, Phil, hey, Philip, Dave. So I think we may have said this at the half, that our corporate costs would be weighted towards the second half. So it's mainly timing of certain, I'll call them project costs or, you know, more related to, you know, science, so research, sustainability, et cetera. They're not necessarily one-off, so they're likely to recur from an annual perspective, but they were more phased to the second half. And I think our FX losses, which sits in, a lot of it sits in corporate, was skewed to the second half as well. So it's a combination of FX and just the timing of certain corporate costs.
Great. But so that full year number and growth rate is sort of sensible, but don't fixate on the half year timing. Is that fair?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, think about the full year. I mean, we're increasing capability during the year, so you know, there might be some of that sort of run rate to come through next year. And then you probably just need to pull out the FX and to give you what the FX will do next year or take it out completely. Yeah. Hopefully that helps.
Thank you. Yeah, perfect. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Lisa Deng, from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, I've got two questions. The first is around the starter packs that were quite strong in the fourth quarter. So if I look on also that page 41, we were up 26% for DOL, and then, you know, 14% for MBS. I'm surprised that doesn't translate, or is that that doesn't translate into higher potential sales into FY 2025. So are we saying that 5% revenue growth is mainly due to a supply gap as opposed to, you know, a conversion, you know, issues? And then I think also on 400g tins, I saw a lot of, like, gift with purchase, especially if we sign up with, like, new member. Is that part of the reason for that margin drag in the second half as well? That's the first question.
Lisa, it's David. I'll let Dave comment on margin at the moment, but the starter packs, just bear in mind that those numbers on page 41 are share numbers. So you've got the total China market going backwards by over 10% during the year. But yes, generally, obviously, if we acquire new users in stage one and two, that we have, you know, good loyalty with our brand, that it follows through into stage three. So it is, you know, it is impacted in part by that in the near term, and we'll hopefully get another opportunity to acquire some of those users. But it does have an impact on sales, and, you know, our growth is not solely driven by that, but it does temper the opportunity that we have in FY 2025.
You know, to David's question earlier, we would have hoped to be guiding potentially to a higher sales result, but at the moment, I think mid-single digits is a fair assumption at the moment, but that's also, again, bearing in mind, we do expect the FY 2025, the total market to decline in China as well, but it's still representing pretty significant share gains.
... And was the 400 starter packs like a lower margin?
Yes, they're lower margin.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah.
Okay, the second question-
And so, Lisa-
Yeah.
Sorry, Lisa, so you referred to the margin drag in the second half, just to be clear, and we've pointed it out in the presentation that we'd appreciated an additional NZD 10 million.
Yeah.
That's gone through cost of sales. So that's impacting our margin in the second half.
Yeah. So then, like, if I actually reverse back that 10 million in the second half, the margin, the GP margin for the group is actually up year- on- year. So that's why I'm confused, right? Like, we've actually spent more on starter packs, which are a lower margin, but the margin ex the 10 million is up. And then also it's a great move if we can convert it to demand into 25, but then we've spent so much on this 400 g starter pack, we've actually then stocked out in the first half, and we can't catch it. So it's a... Like, I'm just-
Uh, yeah.
Is that kind of what happened?
Sorry, Lisa. We're probably trying to give a little bit of color on what's happening with our inventory and the constraints we're facing-
Yeah
... at the moment. So we don't spend an enormous amount of money on the starter packs, on the 400g
Okay
... tins. They are lower margin. They're used as, and they're sold online and in-store, but also used as part of a starter pack and gift with purchase and things like that. So, so-
Okay
... don't think that that is the kind of key driver of that. I was just trying to give a little bit of color-
Got it. Got it
... around how our inventory levels have been impacted by this, and I just said, look, it's more in, you know, I guess it's more in China label, it's more in early stage. And, you know, I just gave an example, particularly in the 400 g tin.
Got it.
So, but the gross margin movements, you know, that's not driving a big impact on that.
I see. I see.
Yeah.
Okay, cool. The second question, if I may, is then why do we want extra three sets of China label registration? Because I see that there's a big overlap in terms of price points, and then also with the English label doing super premium soon as well, like, there's a very large overlap in price points. So capability or formula-wise, what would be the differentiation?
Yeah, so that chart that we shared was conceptual. We're just indicating that we'd like to expand our China label range over time, and they'll be at similar or different price points to our current Zhi Chu range, and they'll have different benefit propositions and formulations for our consumers going forward. But we're not going to talk about that explicitly because that's obviously commercially sensitive. But when we look at the China label market overall, if you look at the top ten players that we've listed, top ten brands, their China label portfolio ranges from, you know, three to, I think, 27 brands that they have registered slots. And so that enables them to, those competitors, to appeal to more consumer needs as you segment the market, and also to manage the trade more effectively over time.
And we're not saying that we need anywhere near 20 registrations, but a handful of registrations would be very helpful for us to manage the trade more effectively. English label, we are free to innovate and bring new products to market. Our range is expanding from one to three, and it may do so more in the future, but we're just providing an indication to the market of what to expect in the coming years. We talked about this originally back in 2021 when we outlined our strategy refresh, but we just thought because of us bringing new English label products to market last year and this year currently, and also, having the opportunity to gain an extra slot with Synlait over time, we just wanted to provide a little bit of context around that.
And then in terms of the NZD 1 billion potentially looking for M&A, would we consider a sizable outside of IMF acquisition, such as in, call it, whatever, nutritionals, vitamins, that type?
That's not currently part of our priority. Our main focus is on investing and building nutritional manufacturing capability and market access to China in infants. We're open to acquisitions in adjacent, you know, near and adjacent pieces of us to develop our business. It's not obvious at the moment what that would be, and you know, we'll look at that over time, but we've got a great opportunity with the wonderful brand that's been developed over many years and invested in to expand our product portfolio around that, our penetration in our existing markets, and also to take that to new markets over time, and Vietnam's a great example of that, and hopefully we'll get the opportunity in the US with infants in the future as well.
So we think we've got, you know, terrific organic growth opportunities. We're not gonna take NZD 1 billion and invest that in, you know, acquisitions in, for other brands and categories to expand our business significantly because it's got so much of an organic growth opportunity. It's mainly focused on supply chain.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Stephen Ridgewell, from Craigs IP. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. First one for Li Xiao on competition. a2's continued to gain share of the overall market in FY 2024, but it also looks like it's lost a bit of share of the a2-only category, as we've seen for a number of years now. Just interested in which other brands gain share of the a2-only category over the year, and does the guidance assume these market share trends, you know, within the a2-only category continue into FY 2025, please?
Yeah. So we see that in the new China label registration, I mean, almost all the major, all the top ten competitors launched their a2 product. I mean, from a basic a2 to an a2 organic or a2 +.
You probably noticed that ED is probably the most ambitious and determined player. I mean, that almost upgrades most of their SKU to a2, a2 organic, and trying to, I mean, have a bigger presence in the a2 segment. So based on our consumer tracking, I think because of everybody, I mean, a lot of players are launching their new a2 product or upgrade their existing product with a a2-based powder. So we see this segment is growing more than 50% in volume, and 40% in the value. Yeah. So I think that's both a good news and bad news.
Bad news is, there's a much more competition, especially when you have a, I mean, ambitious, I mean, a player like ED, yeah. The good news is, I mean, with this collective market effort, I mean, there's a much more education penetration in the A two segment. And also you see that, you know, brand health tracking, our A two pioneer and the leadership brand equity is still ranking at 62- 63, which is a very high level, and with a previous obvious gap with our competition. So it means that probably we are going to have a less share, but we are going to keep on, I mean, growing, riding on the A two good momentum, while we are also strengthening, I mean, while the category grow fast.
So now our focus shift more on the, our a2 brand superiority as a pioneer and a leader. I mean, partially the efforts go to the how to grow the pie bigger, educate the consumer. Yeah. Does that answer the question?
Yeah. Well, yeah, that's great. Thanks. And you know, great execution over a number of years and English label. Maybe just switching to the U.S., just interested, David, in your view of the early consumer reception to the launch of US label infant formula this year, and you know, is it sufficiently encouraging to warrant a broader market launch over time? And the costs obviously being incurred to secure long-term FDA approval. And then kind of second part is, you know, what revenue does US label infant formula need to achieve for the US business to break even in line with the revised targets, David, for 27, please.
I'll start, and Kevin may chime in as well. So on the market reception, look, it's been modest to date because partly we haven't really pushed it that hard during this period of having enforcement discretion approval, but not longer-term FDA market access. So we've actually invested more and focused more on getting long-term access, and we shared in the presentation that we've completed our growth study, and it's hard to tell, but I think we're one of the first to complete the growth study, and we hope to be submitting our long-term application shortly. So hopefully during the course of next year, we'll get that long-term application.
And then from a retail partner point of view, that will open up, I guess, on the back of more confidence and certainty in our presence in the market. That should open up more opportunities for us. In the meantime, we've been just experimenting with different propositions and trialing in Amazon. And to a lesser extent, we're also online with Walmart. They're very small businesses at the moment in terms of their distribution and sales. But the reviews have been okay. I don't know, Kevin, do you want to comment?
Yeah, I think what is encouraging for us is the success of international brands that have come into the marketplace in the last year and a half, two years. That's given us great encouragement. We have, as David said, we've been particularly focused on ensuring we get long-term approval. So that's been where most of our efforts have been, and as we said, we we're due to submit our NIFIN submission in the next quarter. And we have been trialing various methods and you know, it's been the premium segment specifically, and imported brands are performing quite well. So we've been very encouraged with the early signs.
There's a long way to go, but there's some international brands that have got, you know, good sizable portfolios in the last two years. So, you know, we certainly have ambitions on those sort of numbers.
In terms of the sales required to break even, the profitability of our liquid milk business has improved a lot in recent times, and as Kevin said in his presentation, we expect to get to break even in 2026 on that. The real question for us is in relation to infant. We've got great supply out of Synlait, and cost structures associated with that. It's a question of how much in marketing do we need to invest to realize that opportunity going forward. That's why I said we need to sort of get a better understanding of the opportunity and investment levels required to deliver that. Liquid milk, break even in the not too distant future.
I hope that we can manage that and without investing a lot in the PNL, but it'll depend on our conviction at the time. If we think there's a significant opportunity for us, we're not afraid of leaning into that and investing behind that. But at the moment, we don't have that conviction at the time, particularly while we're waiting for FDA approval, and that may change over time. But otherwise, at the moment, our intention is hopefully to just, you know, invest the margin that will derive from the product into marketing investment, maybe a bit more than that, to see how we can gain traction over time and hopefully get some support from some of the major retailers. So it's a bit early to tell, Stephen, in relation to that.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. We do only have five minutes remaining on this call. Your next question comes from Sam Teeger from Citi. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, David and team. Good morning. Just for the mid-single digit revenue guidance for FY 2025, can you talk us through what's assumed in there, if anything, for the two new infant milk formula products and new markets such as Vietnam? Just thinking about potential upside scenarios and also on the downside risk, you know, what's the level of confidence that this supply chain disruption is gonna be resolved and won't get any worse?
We're not... Sam, hi. We're not really in a position to provide specific guidance on those new products being introduced, but perhaps to give you some shape around the business and where we're thinking the growth will come from. So overall, in terms of our mid-single digit revenue guidance, we're thinking that at the moment, our total IMF sales would be broadly consistent with that. And probably English label ahead of China label this year, which is different. With China label more constrained by supply than English label, but we'll see how that develops. And for our milk businesses, you know, U.S. and Australia, probably low single digits on average across those, maybe different by region.
Other nutritionals should grow, should grow well, probably not at the same rates that we did this year, because some of that was, you know, innovation coming to market, plus some supply issues in the previous year. But that should grow, you know, you know, maybe, you know, certainly double digits, but, but not, perhaps at 37%. And then MVM's a bit difficult to tell, that, that could go either way, but, and you might wanna assume that's flat or maybe, we're bringing in more milk supplies. That might be up a little bit, but it's a bit hard to tell in relation to MVM at the moment. So hopefully that gives you some shape around that.
Yeah.
The supply constraints-
Yeah, that's very helpful. But-
We do expect... Yeah, keep going. You go.
No, no, you go.
Oh, so just on the supply constraints, I mean, we do expect those to be resolved during this half. You know, Synlait is ramping up production, so we don't expect those to get worse at this point. So, and if it did, we'd certainly let the market know if it was material.
Okay, but just to... That's really helpful, David. Thank you. Just trying to understand, all the new innovation, have you assumed anything in the revenue guidance or if that's successful, is that further upside?
No, it's in the revenue guidance. Sorry, I thought you were asking me to quantify it, but we do have, you know, for example-
No.
Gentle Gold starting to ramp up, plus the new products that we're gonna bring in the English label portfolio in the second half, that, that's in there as well. So they're all part of that, including stuff that we already have in market and the other nutritionals products as well.
Perfect. Thanks. And then, yeah, great to see all this new development coming out of the company, and hopefully it does help you accelerate revenue growth over the medium to longer term. But is there any way you can help us understand the magnitude of any margin drag in the short term in FY 2025 as you launch these new products, given you won't be doing large size commercial batches until you get comfort that the demand is there for them?
Yeah. It's a great point. Like, particularly on infant, I mean, sounds like you understand the manufacturing process well. The cost of producing smaller base powder runs and blending and canning is quite significantly more at smaller volumes. So at an individual product level, for Gentle Gold and the next product that we bring to market, yes, they'll be significantly lower margins until they get to scale. And those, you know, when a product starts to get, you know, in the order of one to 2 million tins, that's when you get back to closer to normal manufacturing economics, but certainly less than a million tins, it's a drain.
But in terms of overall impact, it's not likely to be that material, just simply because of the relative size of those products relative to the total size of our portfolio.
Got it. That's it. Thank you, David.
Welcome.
Thank you. Your final question comes from Marcus Curley from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. David, I just wonder if you could quantify, you know, the market headwinds you're expecting to face in 2025? Specifically, I suppose, how it relates to China label and maybe, you know, your aspirations to grow store count.
Store count. So I mean, overall in the market, you know, I think, Marcus, the total market's probably likely. It's hard to be specific. It's probably still likely to decline mid-single digits, in value. In terms of China label, China label has been underperforming as a category versus English label, so down, you know, 12.5%. And in a way, we and particularly in the MBS channel, in key and A cities as well, where we, obviously over-index too. So that is a headwind to us.
Against that, we have great opportunity in BCD cities to expand our distribution, which we have been doing, and actually didn't include it in the chart here, but, you know, we've grown, I think it's in our, in our results, commentary, and outlook, you'll see that we grew our store count to 29,000, so that's up about 3,000 from the half. Which is primarily related to expansion of distribution in BCD cities. So we have a great opportunity to increase our distribution in BCD cities going forward, and we, you know, we have much lower share there at 3%. That's a big opportunity for us. But there's definitely market headwinds in terms of total growth and China label, and we over-index towards where that is impacting.
But we're at a great opportunity in BCD cities and also in online, where we under-index as well. And the online channel, like many categories, is growing ahead of offline at the moment.
And then just quickly, within English label, are you anticipating any share losses, you know, in that guidance number of 5%? It feels like, you know, what English label already in growth, English label next year, yep, you have a 5% or slightly above 5% guidance. I did note that to lower CBEC share, I just wondered if there's something happening in your share position in English label that's worth calling out?
No, we'd, I mean, we'd hope to maintain our share in English label, and I think over time, we've got opportunity to increase our share. So hopefully, the market for English label will continue to grow, and we will maintain or hopefully, I mean, you would expect us to plan to improve that over time as well. So we are, I mean, we're growing, so in CBEC, while when you look at SmartPath Data, it's up a little bit, but that's the SmartPath Data that we report, which is basically the Tmall platform plus flagship stores. But we're progressively working on our more direct engagement with CVS and pop stores, which is improving. You know, Douyin, which is a great opportunity for us, which is outside our reported numbers there.
Our O2O partnership with Yuou is being, you know, really positive as well. So there's lots of opportunities for us to continue to grow in English label, and, you know, a measured view on that is included within our guidance.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Bortolussi for closing remarks.
That's it for us. Thank you very much for joining the call today. I look forward to continuing our discussions with our analyst investors over the next couple of weeks. Thank you very much.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.