The conference is now being recorded. Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q3 Results Investors Conference Call of Dabur India Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Gagan Ahluwalia. Thank you, and over to you, Ms. Ahluwalia. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of the management of Dabur India Limited, I welcome you to this next conference call pertaining to results for the quarter ended 31 December 2023. Present here with me are Mr. Mohit Malhotra, Chief Executive Officer of Dabur India Limited, Mr. Ankush Jain, Chief Finance Officer, Mr. Ashok Jain, EVP, Finance and Company Secretary, and Mr. N. Krishnan, DGM. At the outset, we will have an overview of the company's performance by Mr. Mohit Malhotra, and that will be followed by a Q&A session. I now hand over to Mohit. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today for the results call, Quarter 3, Financial Year 2024. FMCG sector continued to witness year-on-year improvement in volume growth, although there were pockets of stress due to liquidity issues and delayed winters. Impact of pricing decelerated as price increases started to come into the base and growth was largely led by volumes. Dabur's consolidated revenue grew by 9.6% in constant currency terms and 7% in INR terms, to reach to INR 3,255 crore. This was backed by 6% volume growth in India FMCG business, including Badshah. International business grew by 11.7% in constant currency terms. Talking about the categories, HPC portfolio recorded a 7% growth during the quarter. Oral care portfolio grew by 8%, led by volume growth of 5%. Herbal segment in toothpaste category outpaced the non-herbal segment by almost 200 BPS, now reaching 31%. The home care category grew by around 7%, which was led by a double-digit growth in Odomos with a gain of 1,067 BPS in MRC category, taking our market shares up to 65.2%. Odonil brand continued to outperform the category with an increase in market share of 180 BPS. Hair care recorded a mid-single-digit growth, and our market shares in hair oil improved by 140 BPS to reach 17.1%. The healthcare portfolio recorded a 3% growth with a four-year CAGR YTD of 8.3%. We gained market shares across the health supplement portfolio, with Chyawanprash gaining 151 basis points and Dabur Honey recording a 33 basis points improvement during the quarter. The digestive category saw a 15% growth on back of strong performance of Hajmola franchise. Within OTC portfolio, Lal Tail, health juices, and Shilajit performed very well, while Honitus had a neutral performance in the quarter due to delayed winters. Our therapeutic portfolio is performing well and is on track. In FMCG portfolio, beverage business saw a growth of around 7% during the quarter. The newly acquired Badshah business saw a growth of 33%, driven by focused marketing efforts and rejuvenated brand portfolio. We remain committed to exiting the year with a run rate of INR 500 crore from our foods portfolio, including Badshah. We continue to drive our distribution expansion initiatives. Our direct reach stands at 1.42 million outlets and should increase to 1.5 million outlets by the end of the fiscal year. Village coverage is at strong 1.17 lakh villages, being heavily supported by more than 18,700 Yodhas across the country. The ED score, which is the marker of the efficiency of the distribution, continues to see improvement and has been further improved by around 15% in the quarter. I am pleased to inform you that the Board of Directors have approved capital expenditure of INR 135 crores for setting up a greenfield plant in South India for capacity expansion of Red toothpaste, Odonil, and honey. This will enable us to enhance our presence in South and add to our growth in this region. Now, coming to our international business. With moderation in inflation and distribution changes, the international business registered a CC growth of 11.7% during the quarter. This was driven by MENA region, growing at 14.3%, Egypt business growing at 43%, and Turkey business growing at 43.8%. Our focus on innovation and consumer-centric strategies has enabled us to gain market shares across categories and countries. Coming to the consolidated profit during the quarter, our gross margin saw a healthy expansion of 310 BPS as we saw material deflation during the quarter. In line with our stated strategy, we have increased our A&P investments by around 36% in the quarter. We believe these media investments are essential to drive long-term sustainable growth and maintain our market leadership. The consolidated operating profit recorded a growth of 9.5%, with 50 BPS improvement in operating margins, and PAT grew by 8%. Excluding the exceptional legal cost, our operating profit grew by 13% with a 120 BPS expansion in operating margin. On a like-to-like basis, our consolidated PAT increased by 15%. Overall, while the demand scenario is still challenging, we are cautiously optimistic about the future. We will continue to drive profitable growth across our business verticals, backed by investments in our distribution network, brands, manufacturing, digital, and organizational capabilities. With this, I will conclude my address and open the floor for the Q&A. Thank you. 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 withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Mihir Shah from Nomura. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question and congrats on a good set of numbers. So firstly, on the hair oil and oral care portfolio. In hair oils, Dabur's performance seems to be better, while in oral care the value growth now is in line with the market leader. Can you share what is working for us in the hair oil portfolio and can this outperformance continue? While in oral, what steps can be taken to get growth back to a higher trajectory? Is pricing growth, you know, can be under consideration? So that's my first question. Right. So thank you, Mihir, for asking. So in hair oil, we have a strong performance in the hair oil, so we've gained market shares of 140 basis points, and this is a secular growth in all the subsegments of hair oils. Whether you consider coconut oils, perfumed oils, cooling oil, across the board, we've gained market shares and a substantial improvement in our market performance. So if you look at Amla, Amla portfolio in perfumed hair oils has also grown, we've gained market shares. Sarson Amla has also done well. Coconut oils have also registered a 50 basis points gain in the market shares for us. So overall, while the primary sales looks at 4.5, but our secondary business actually improved further on, and we think the trajectory will continue. At the end of the day, we are only around 16.7% market share, and with huge headroom of roughly around, you know, 80-85% of the business there for the rest. Dabur's got a great equity in hair oils, and we are pivoting. So one thing that we've been slow in hair oils is in terms of premiumization. We are stepping the pedal on the premiumization in hair oils, also trying to plug the gaps wherever we are not present. In the last one year, we plugged the gap with cooling oil, with launch of Cool King, and Cool King has attained a relative market share of around 3%-4%. And in the coming summer, if the summer is great, I think we'll again ramp up our cooling portfolio. Our Ayurvedic hair oil, which we launched in South India, is also showing traction, and we are launching premium variants on e-commerce and modern trade. That's as far as hair oil is concerned. As far as shampoo is concerned, shampoo category is... As far as shampoo is concerned in haircare category is growing by 3%. We are growing by around 11%, thereby substantial market share gains there. Our sachet portfolio is gained substantial ground in rural, driven by our rural distribution, and in modern trade and e-commerce, our large packs are continuing to do well. As far as oral care is concerned, our growth is 8%, backed by volume growth of 5%, as compared to the competitor, where it is only 2%. So therefore, we are substantially increasing our penetration. We are the number 2 brand in the country now after the market leader, and the latter, the number 2 player happens to be a very big player. We plugged the gap in oral care also in terms of gel. Bae Fresh gel is what we launched, you know, a couple of months back, and that's notched up a turnover around INR 17 crores and gained a market share of around 1%-1.5% in the gel category. So we are also looking at plugging the gaps in other parts of our portfolio. That is on, so Dabur Red continues to do well, growing ahead of the curve. So we've gained around 8.8% market share, as far as gel, Dant toothpaste is concerned, and that, we've registered a double-digit growth on back of market share gains. So our herbal portfolio, still a lot of work needs to be done there. There, we test market ourselves in the South of India, and we'll be extending our herbal toothpaste portfolio across India also. So that's as far as the oral care portfolio is concerned. The penetration of the herbal category has actually gone up in the market, and I think on back of that tailwind, we will continue to ramp up our herbal care franchise as well. ... Got it. Understood. Thank you for that. So my second question is on the healthcare portfolio. Can one expect the late onset of winter benefit for flu sales, or will the inventory in the channel be sufficient to take care of the demand? And can you also talk about the progress in the therapeutic initiatives that we had called out earlier? What kind of incremental sales can be expected, and from when can we expect that, sir? Yeah. So there's not much of implication on the weather as far as the healthcare portfolio is concerned. So I think healthcare, winter is muted, so we feel that healthcare trajectory of a double-digit category growth for us will actually continue going forward, and we will continue to surge ahead of the category growth rates and gain market share as far as healthcare is concerned. And there's so much of potential there. Like I told you, 80% market is still there. In shampoos, our market share is only 7%, and around 93% of the market is there for us to take, and double category growth even on the back of that, we continue to gain shares in shampoos and also hair oils. So I hope the summer is good and haircare is more summer-skewed for us. So if the summer is good, I think the business will turn up well, but our strategy doesn't change. I think as far as Dabur is concerned, our strategy is to have flanker brands around our core brand, which is Dabur Amla, and create moats around that and be present in terms of back price architecture on all price points of hair oils. As far as therapeutic portfolio is concerned, we created this division for the Ethicals, which is also selling the product, and it's grown by around 14.8%, around 15% growth of therapeutic portfolio, which is driven by baby care, our branded ethical division, and also our pharmaceutical division by which we go to the dermatologist. So that's trending well and doing well. Sir, I was asking for health supplement, the healthcare, not the haircare, sir. The late onset of winter on hair, health supplement, healthcare portfolio. Oh, my mistake. My mistake. I thought it was haircare. So, yeah, health supplement business definitely got impacted because this time the winters has been little muted, contracted, and also delayed. So all the three factors in the winter impacted our healthcare health supplement portfolio, so we call it. Basically, Chyawanprash and honey we categorize in it. So Chyawanprash business got impacted, and therefore, the growth was very muted. We had a flat growth as far as Chyawanprash is concerned. So that we put in the stock. But one good thing what is happening is that the winter is getting delayed. So whatever stocks that we put out there with the stockist is going to get now lifted in the marketplace, and we've shoved in the STR, and the STR will get liquidated with the winter getting delayed, so optics will happen. While the trade will not take more stock, so the growth will be what the growth is in the quarter three, but the optics will happen going forward in the quarter four for us. So I think flushing out of inventory will happen there. As far as honey is concerned, we've seen an 11% growth as far as honey is concerned in terms of penetration of the category. So honey category is doing well, and we are ahead of the pre-COVID category growth levels also, this have stabilized. We've gained market shares in honey by around 33 basis points, and it's doing extremely well for us. So all the new players who have made an entry into the honey category have been populated by Dabur Honey, and we continue to make good strides on the honey, and the category is also growing well as far as honey is concerned. So we are looking at modernizing of honey. We've launched premium variants in honey called Organic Honey, Forest Honey, Sundarban Honey, et cetera. They are all getting good traction in the marketplace, and also our Squeezy brand with multiple SKUs now in the marketplace, is facilitating a breakfast usage from therapeutic usage to breakfast usage. So honey is also doing well. As far as glucose portfolio is concerned, the winter in the summer is good for us. Our glucose portfolio is also fine. Glucose has also increased its market share, albeit being, Winter not being the right season for glucose consumption for you. That's the health supplement portfolio for you. Got it. Thank you. One last bookkeeping question. Adjusting for the INR 22 crore of one-off of legal cost and other expenses, the costs have still gone up. Is there any additional cost, or will this be the new normal going forward? I think just to add on, maybe excluding this, this is 10%, but if you see it, there's some phasing issue of certain expenses. If you see YTD, excluding legal cost and other expenses, has grown by only 4%. Okay, got it. Thank you, and all the very best. That's all from my side. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Avnish Roy from Nuvama Institutional Equities. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks, and congrats on good recovery. My question is on shampoo business. So it is your star category within your mix. So 11% YOY growth and 15% CAGR over four years. So I wanted to understand, is pricing a big component of this, both on YOY and four-year CAGR basis? And in terms of the naturals within shampoo, how would that move within the last four years? Because the growth seems much stronger than the industry growth rate of 15% CAGR over the last four years. Right, Avnish Roy. So I think we've been sustainably growing, so I'm commenting upon the recovery. I think it's a sustainable, enduring growth that we've shown quarter-on-quarter. There is no recovery here as such, so I'm commenting on your choice of words there first. As far as shampoo is concerned, sorry, that was a pun. As far as shampoo is concerned. On the shampoo business, yes, our growth has been industry-beating growth of around 11%, and this growth is coming on back of both rural as also urban. In rural, our sachet distribution has actually gone up, and because of sachet distribution, I think this growth has come because we put ahead of the curve rural distribution network and infrastructure, and our sachets are actually riding that infrastructure, and that's where this growth is coming. So sachets are price sensitive, to your point, and we are maintaining. There's no price growth here. It is more volume growth. The entire growth is volume growth as far as sachet is concerned. Now, coming to bottle, bottle is more a modern trade and e-commerce phenomenon. We are introducing premium variants in our shampoo, which we think will... It's early days for us to comment, but I think premium portfolio in bottle should be driving pricing growth. As far as our regular bottle is concerned, we are driving bottle, which is very low. It's 20% of our overall portfolio and which is continuously growing and gaining market share in modern trade and e-commerce. So that's as far as that, but there's a huge headroom in shampoos, to your point, because our market share is only 7% here. The herbal category is still very small, so that's all. And herbal category is strong with a higher growth rate as compared to the non-herbal category here also, which is basically mirroring the oral care. Oral care, the herbal category is around 30%, and we feel in shampoo also it has a potential to go up to around 30-31%, the way it is, as well as oral care is concerned, in shampoo. So thanks. My second question is on oral care. So when I compare market leaders' performance in Q3, they claim to have grown double digits in toothpaste with a low single-digit volume growth, which implies almost high single-digit price plus mixed growth. So if you could tell us what kind of price plus mixed growth you would have seen in toothpaste. And second, when I compare your portfolio in toothpaste versus the market leader, clearly in premiumization, you would need much more products. I do understand the gel, red toothpaste, et cetera. If you see consumer in terms of the market leader, the options in terms of sensitive, whitening, and so many products, would you also now need to think beyond the normal way which you are thinking, say, naturals being extended to gel, et cetera? That is good, but is that enough from a three to five years perspective, from a premium kind of a market share? Yeah. So I think, very well alluded, Avnish, you're absolutely right. As far as the first part of your question is concerned, volume and value, we've grown 8% in terms of value, which seems equivalent to the market leader. But our volume growth has been 5%, implying that we have a 3% of price factor as far as, oral care is concerned. And, going forward, we want to drive our volume and increase our penetration levels, which is the part of the core that we do. But premiumization and trying to plug the gaps where market leader is paving the way, I think that is the way, and also identifying more of the gaps in the premiumization is what we would follow, and you will see that change as far as, Dabur's portfolio, re-avatar is concerned. So we are working on the same and, trying to capture those, premiumization, segments, which includes whitening, which includes, tartar control, which includes gum, which includes sensitive, et cetera, et cetera. So our four-year CAGR is around 11% in oral care, and, we've been growing ahead of the category, and we feel natural as a sub-segment is growing 200 basis points ahead of the non-natural. So that tailwind is there. So natural plus scientific benefit is the way to go, in the market. So that's what you will see those changes the next, two to five years. And I think two to five years is a long period. I think in next one year you will see a couple of, initiatives from our side. Sure. Last question is on Badshah. So Q2 YOY growth was 16%, which has jumped now to 33%. That's a sharp acceleration, but there is a sharp inflation also in spices. So this good recovery in terms of growth number, how much is because of pricing? And in terms of exports and going beyond the two states, what is the status on that? So in terms of, Avnish, hi. In terms of, volume, volume is close to 20-23% in this, and balance is pricing, 9%-10%. And, currently, it is primarily in two states. A bit of exports we have started. You know, we are still alignment with certain countries, but most of this growth, I would say 90% of this growth is coming from organic sales, same states only, as of now. But there are plans to expand it to other geographies, and we are aligning our route to market with our current, you know, setup. Yeah. So just to add to what Ankush just said, I think huge vectors of growth possible in Badshah. I think first of all, as you know, spices is very customized to different regions. So today we are only relegated to the western region, and there's a potential of enhancing the portfolio from the western-related palette, product portfolio to more north driven to south driven. This is what we guys are working in terms of portfolio expansion. Then distribution expansion, we are only limited to Gujarat and Maharashtra. I think going forward, we will extend ourselves to adjoining states, which is what the plan is, to extend it to Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan also, and extend distribution there and leverage Dabur distribution and expand our distribution. The third vector is international business. International business, to Ankush's point, hardly contributing to around 5-6% of Badshah sales, which going forward, will go up to, like, Dabur's international business of almost 30%. So the potential is there. So therefore, gradually, slowly, we will be inching up our international business. We are in the process of regulatory conforming our portfolio to go to markets like U.S. and U.K. As the regulatory conformance is in place and we have GMP practices, we will start exporting. Again, the demand is there, but we are not able to export there. Then the fourth vector is our gaps in our pack price architecture. We have gaps in our portfolio in terms of INR 5, INR 10 pack. I think that has to be plugged also. And then the fifth vector is advertising and demand generation. We've barely done advertising on western and regional channels. Nationally, we've not even started advertising the brand. So huge growth potential, and we see in the categories where bigger market shares are in the range of around 2%-3%, so I think there's huge headroom to grow there. Sure, that's all from my side. Thanks a lot. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arnav Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, Mohit. Great to see improving growth rate for you. I read the comment on your release, which talks about rural growing ahead of urban by 200 basis points. This is kind of obviously a bit contrary to what we've heard from other companies. If you could just help us understand, is it specific to you because of initiatives, or there are certain categories where you're seeing rural grow ahead of urban, and how do you see this pan out? So I think, Arnav, this is, I think, specific to us. So our rural growth is in the range of around 6-6.5% as compared to urban, which is around 3.8%, which consolidates around 5% growth. Our rural is growing on back of our initiatives that we've taken on back of building infrastructure in rural. Our reach in terms of villages have moved up from 100,000 villages to 172,000 villages. We've added around 7,000 Yoddhas. In the, you know, past quarter, overall, our Yoddha network goes up to around 18,700 kind of Yoddhas now. So I think the playbook for seeding our infrastructure investment in the rural is well in place. As far as direct reach is concerned, our direct reach has moved up by 200,000, which is the highest in the FMCG sector, and direct as well as indirect as well as mixing is concerned. So around 200,000 overall reach has increased. So that's tremendous. I think a lot of execution has been done. Then now to leverage this infrastructure that we built, we've also curated a rural portfolio, which is our accessible price points in all our Power Brands. So which creates a... Which is like a portfolio for people to carry in the rural, and that has also helped the rural growth to surpass the urban growth for our case. But, you know, it may sound that our urban growth is muted, but both our urban and rural growth is ahead of the category growth. Even in urban, we've actually increased market shares, and our growths are higher than the FMCG growth in urban in our respective category. There it is up by 100 basis point, in rural it is up by 400 basis point from our subscribed category growth rates. You know, so that's where we are. Just to follow up on that, so this rural expansion that you have done, do you see this as a continuum where you continue to expand over the next few years? Or with this expansion, you now take a pause and try to get more throughput and use this infrastructure better? So not really. I think we are on a path to only expand the rural distribution. There's a huge headroom, and a lot of FMCG big boys are actually paving the way and showing us the best-in-class examples, and we have to just follow those examples. And not much brainwork happens here. So there are 6 lakh villages. We are barely reaching out to 1.17 lakh villages. We've targeted ourselves to go up to around 1.2 lakh villages going forward. Next year, it will be 1.3. So we'll keep adding the number of villages here, and the Yoda network and the playbook, like I was saying, is already in place for us. Portfolio has been curated, so we will be adding the price points in the portfolio to leverage, because, you know, INR 5, now INR 10 rupee, INR 10 rupees, now INR 20 rupees. So the pricing ladder has to be perfect for the rural, and that is what we are looking at, which helps us increase the penetration. So this journey will continue, I think, the rural growth. And there's no question of taking a pause and consolidating rural. I think expansion will be the name of the game in India and across geographies, whether west, south, east, west, I think there's a huge potential to grow. Yeah, that... Thanks for that. And my last question is on margins. So, you know, in the last two years, we have seen the fourth quarter margin suddenly be much lower than the first nine months because of probably some phasing in other expenses. So just wanted to understand, as the, like, your first nine months, EBITDA margin has been 20%, despite the legal costs being there. Is there any reason to believe this margin would be much lower in the fourth quarter because of phasing or the last two years were aberrations? Because this change wasn't there in the previous pre-COVID period, as we have seen. Yeah, so, Arnav, I think, first of all, you know, you can't see sequentially our margins. The margins are, in our business, pretty seasonal. So last quarter is heavy on certain product mix, and hence it is lower. So it can't be 20% even in Q4. And if you see our 3-4 years trajectory, that has been the trend. So Q4 margins are the least, while Q3 are the highest because we have healthcare portfolio and so on. So and, and also, some bit of expense phasing might happen, but, I would see we will, you know, I would summarize by saying that the expansion in margins will continue, albeit at a slightly faster pace in Q4. Yeah, and one of the reasons what Ankush alluded to is what, because of seasonality, I think our food business becomes more salient there in the summer because summer loading happens, so the consumption of food really happens there. So that's why there's a little bit of margin. But upside on margins will continue the way you've seen in quarter three, because the raw material packaging prices continue to be benign. So that continue. We've already given you a guidance of around 19.5 margin, and any upside in gross margin will be deployed into media. We will continue to do the same, make all our efforts to reach to 9.5% margin, despite the legal cost hitting us of around $10 billion is what the legal cost that has been to this. It might go up to around INR 10-12 billion tax free. Despite the legal cost, we are making all our attempts to reach to around INR 19.5 billion. Understood. Thanks so much. All the best. Yeah, closer to that. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead. Good evening. I just have two questions. You know, I just wanted to get your sense on, on, on, you know, what's your prognosis in rural? Given, you know, almost 46% of the India portfolio is there. You yourself are doing well, but the market, as a whole, has continued to be challenging. In the last one year, most of the comments of FMCG companies have suggested that, you know, a recovery is likely in maybe near to medium term, but it hasn't really come about. You know, where do you think are the maybe top two or three key indicators, you know, there, that can turn to, you know, to make this, you know, slightly more full-fledged recovery in the rural market? Just wanted to get your thought on that. That's my first question. So Harit, your voice wasn't really clear. We couldn't decide on what... pertaining to rural recovery? Yeah, my question was on rural. My, it was really- I think- Over the last... Yeah, just a second, please. Yeah, we can- Right. So I'll try to answer this to develop the question. So please interrupt me in case I don't, I haven't answered your question. I think rural, if you look at rural, is got impacted. And if you look at FMCG growth, granular, urban and rural, rural actually has gone down in the past two quarters now. And I think my hypothesis or my prognosis is that this has gone up because food inflation has started once again and has not abated. So if you look at fruits, vegetables, spices, cereals, et cetera, we have seen inflation pick up in the range of around double digit now. And when it's rural, where per capita incomes are lower, the incomes are skewed towards consumption of essentials, and therefore discretionaries get impacted, and that's why this is got impacted. We have given a very contrarian sort of results because of the initiatives that I spoke to, to Anish's question, because of village expansion, our outlet expansion, our portfolio creation. That's why we could beat what the market is saying. But that said, there is a year-on-year growth as well as rural is concerned. That's, I think, a positive sign. If you look at the sentiment, consumer sentiment in the market, where rural plays a very big part, that is improving. That's in the range of around 90%. And elections are approaching, so I think there'll be a lot of government investment, which will happen on infrastructure, which will help rural, and also some rollouts should be given by the government to the rural, which will only increase the disposable income for the rural pickup to happen. But the gap, one very positive sign that I see, which is my, again, prognosis, is the gap between urban and rural is reducing for past 3 quarters. We saw a gap between urban and rural of 800 basis points, which got reduced to 600 to 400, so now it's only 200 basis points, if you see. That's the difference. So as the gap narrows between urban and rural, with price going off, I think rural recovery is imminent to happen in the country. So I think but for 1 or 2 quarters, we will see, I think the rural recovery is on way, and election, I think, will only help the rural recovery and also will help urban. Very helpful. One short question, you know, you've dealt with this legal issue for the last few quarter, last two quarters, at least a few months now. Just wanted to get your sense on, you know, where we are here and any visibility on, you know, how long we may have to kind of deal with this, you know, three quarters, six quarters, eight quarters? Any sense on that? So maybe, Harit, yeah, I think there has been a, you know, over last two, three quarters, while our teams have been engaged, have been in engagement with the lawyers, there have been certain bit of discovery phases, you know, discussions with the patents, et cetera. But one or two positive news, I can share, you know, the, the, courts have decided, on the corporate separateness, which means that, the case is now restricted only to products sold in U.S. by Namaste legal entity. So any of the Dabur affiliate or Dabur products are out of the scope, of this case, which means, it impacts one very insignificant, you know, less than 1% of our turnover any which way, and it is only restricted to U.S., as of now, and not for products sold anywhere else. Even Namaste products sold outside of U.S. are outside the purview of the legal case. That's a positive development while, you know, we are still in discussion and there's some bit of discovery phase going on. And the matter will be settled this. Got it. Got it. That's it from me. Thanks, and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, you may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Sheila Rathi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. ...Thanks for taking my question. Just extending to the previous question on the litigation-related issue. Just want to be sure that, with respect to the legal cost, is there any change in terms of, you know, how we should see the impact on the PNL, at least for the next three, four quarters? We have in the recent past changed our lawyers. Earlier, we have the one of the lawyers, which fees were much higher than the present lawyers. Whereas in the effectiveness of the new lawyer, they are as competitive as the earlier ones. And the cost effective from, say, October onwards, has already reduced, and we do not see the same cost will be there in the financial year 2024-25. It will be lower than what have been in this current financial year 2023-24. If you could just give us some idea as to how much that would be? Yeah. So Sheila, roughly we are spending roughly around INR 20 crore is the cost that we people are incurring. So that cost will remain for the time the case actually is lasting. But we already have product liability insurance in place. This cost is pertaining that we are incurring is pertaining to the lawyer fees, which is what we are incurring from our pocket. But any cost that comes in as outcome of the final judgment of the case, just in case it comes, that will be covered by the insurance, and we have a product liability insurance in place for that. And even on that, I will add to what Mr. Malhotra said. The legal costs are also covered under the insurance policy. Currently, to be on the conservative side, we have provided the full legal cost, and whatever recovery we will have from the insurance company, that will be at a profit plus. Understood. My second question, again, is a repeat on rural trends. But Mohit, just want to understand, are there specific markets for us, you know, I believe particularly North India, which have been doing well for us? Is there any particular insight you could give us for us to believe that this trend will continue even going ahead? I understand the distribution expansion, which we are talking about and a rural portfolio which we have created. But is there anything more detailed which you can help us to understand that, you know, this quarter we have seen 6% growth, and this is the gap we should continue to believe that it will continue even going into the ongoing quarter as well as the next? Yeah, as far as the geographical mix, Sheila, is concerned, I think, our stronghold remains North India and East India. So in East India and North India, which is also rural salient, kind of geographies. There, we have made substantial progress in terms of our tentacles expanded and our footprint expanding in the rural, and that has actually given us a good growth. That said, even on back of Badshah distribution and now Badshah and Dabur is going into rural West, I think on back of that, we are saying rural actually reached up even in West. South was a little not so great for Dabur because we don't have that kind of a brand equity and a strength in South. So that apart, but the major part of the business, South only contributes to approximately 20% of our business. 80% of the business comes from the other parts, where our rural distribution, coupled with our brand equity and coupled with our portfolio creation, has really worked well for us. And also advertising, that we have increased by around 30% in India, help, you know, the optics to happen in the pan India Hindi belt, so we say. So I think it's more UP, MP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra. I think that entire belt is pretty salient for us now there. I hope I've been able to address this, yeah. Absolutely, Mohit. And just the third question and the final one is, with respect to us, you know, gaining very strong market share, with respect to the Odomos and Odonil portfolio, and if you could also touch upon Fem, would be very helpful. Sorry, Odomos, Odonil, and then last half of the question I couldn't gather. Mohit, I saw that brand name on the presentation. I think that's your LVP, liquid vaporizer. LVP. Okay, okay, I get you. Okay. So, you know, the earlier strategy for the business was to keep ourselves restricted to Odomos's personal application product cream, which was the product, the application, dermatology application cream. We have changed our strategy from not just restricting to a small market of pack creams, which is personal application, to increasing the addressable market to the larger market. That's where we've extended Odomos from a personal application cream to oils now, to gels now, to also now LVPs now. So as far as Odomos is concerned, it's a mosquito repellent for us, and that's the market that we are addressing. So it is like a high market for us that we are expanding itself to. On back of that strategy, I think premiumization is working on Odomos for us, and also format extensions have worked. On back of that, there's been a huge growth and 1,000 basis points gained in the personal application category because all these extensions are adding back to the mother brand, and the mother brand is adding back to the extensions also. So it's working very virtuously for us. As far as Odonil is concerned, we are again doing the same thing in air freshener category, extending ourselves to all the formats. Earlier, Dabur was only restricted to PDCB blocks, which is what we know, which are basically toilet air fresheners. Now, we've extended ourselves to air fresheners for rooms, we've extended ourselves to gels. We very recently added a gel pocket in it, which has done exceedingly well. Zipper pouches have done well. So all our innovations are actually firing. We are looking at driving solutions also here. So on back of all that, I think the business is really trending well. Our NPD in overall home care would be in the range of around 3%-4%, but under the power brand architecture, which doesn't require additional investment. So when we advertise a new variant like LVP, we've just taken Kajol on the brand, and I will request the investor team to share the creative of Kajol with you on LVP also to the entire company. That is really adding back to our Odomos. It's just been around the 3 months that we've launched it, and we've generated a business of around INR 7.5 crore-INR 8 crore on LVP. And that's our strategy, which is firing in the home care for us. Yeah. In Odonil, by the way, for premiumization to happen, we've also introduced diffusers. If you can go to Amazon, you will find Odonil diffusers now. They've got listed on Amazon, and that's the news that we got today. That will be very premium and adding to gross margin. Likewise, all our key power brands will have premiumization as we speak, by value-added products being introduced in them. Very interesting, Mohit. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shirish Pardeshi from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, good evening, Mohit and team. Thanks for the opportunity. On slide nine, your comment is, "Newly set up therapeutic division has reported double-digit growth." So I think last time when we met, it was a lot of excitement we have seen around. So maybe if you can give more color, what is the depth, what is the distribution, what are the products which are firing? And maybe more color that what is more needed to do in that newly carved out division. Yeah. Okay. So, Shirish, there's still a lot of excitement around it. As you know, Philippe has joined us, who is the Chief Executive of the therapeutic division. I think the news becomes old, but, the excitement still remains. So I think there's no lack of excitement in here. So Philippe is still driving the business, very well. So we've created this advocacy vertical, in which we are actually creating a bridge from Dabur to the allopathic doctor. Till now, our connect used to be the Ayurvedic doctor. The change of strategy is that we will now do advocacy to allopathic doctor. It's going to be a slow burn, but it's assuredly a good return business in long term. In one or two, three years, we will be able to bridge, the gap that we had between the doctor and Dabur. Dabur not to be considered only as Ayurvedic, but as a scientific Ayurvedic organization, selling and doing advocacy and providing science of efficacy to the allopathic doctor, which is one of the reasons why they don't prescribe to complementary or supplementary medications to allopathy medicines. That was the whole logic of the strategy of building this advocacy vertical. We merged our Fem Pharma division with our branded ethical business and also our baby care business. All the three have been clubbed together. We are selling therapeutic dermatology products here, we are selling baby care products, and we are selling our branded ethical products in addition to single herbs and nutraceuticals through this portfolio. This portfolio is doing very well. We've got a growth of around 14%-15% on thus, where the division has just come in place, and we are looking at incremental turnover coming from this huge. Yeah. So I think, Shirish, almost, almost 95 crore we have done so far in nine months. So 30-35 crore on average, and YTD growth is almost 21%, while Q3 is 14%, but YTD growth is 21%. Wonderful. Ankush, on the margin front, though, Mohit said that we will maintain between 19.5 and 20%, but at this point of time, if, if I need to check, which are the raw materials looking inflationary? Or maybe if you can say that, how much is the deflation which you are seeing? Yeah. So in the current quarter in India, we are almost four-odd% deflation, while global level, we had 2% deflation. Going forward, while you know, certain the mix of inflation is changing, it's moving inflationary trend is more there in foods and imported, you know, concentrates, et cetera, or, and spices. While we see that this should remain broadly in this range, at least in this quarter, and you know, the gross margins expansion, which was around 200 basis in India, consequently should also remain slightly in this range, though it may moderate, given that price increases overlaps have broadly happened. Deflation will start coming in the base. Deflation will start coming in the base. Yeah. Most of the HPC categories, you know, like mustard oil, oils, et cetera, LLP, most of the deflationary benefits have come so far, and, and some bit of it will remain in Q4 as well. Well, next year's budget, we are still in the process of making. So we'll be too early to comment. Yeah, that's helpful, Ankush, but I was just trying to understand, if this is the stability which you are seeing, is there any room for price inflation, next year we have budgeted? Price inflation, price increase? Price increase. Again, as I said, you know, too early. Sorry? Price increase. Yeah, it's way too early to comment on this point. Price increases definitely will come. We continuously benchmark our products with the competition. Also, wherever we are market leaders, we increase our prices. Plus, as Mr. Mohit said, there will be a lot of premiumization opportunities as well. So a combination of that will lead to some price increases. But it will moderate. We have also taken roughly in this quarter, you know, including the overlap, around 2.5% of MRP-led price increases. Part of it will also flow in next year, in next quarter. Yeah, so, Shirish, this is like, the... So what Ankush mentioned, in addition to that, we've just taken a price increase on our, foods portfolio, which is inflationary. So in juice portfolio, we've just taken a price increase, a fresh price increase. Further price increases going forward in the year will depend upon how the inflations are trending. If the inflation goes up in the food business, then that portfolio will, have a price increase. But as of now, apart for foods portfolio and spices portfolio, the rest of the raw material, packing material is benign for us. Yes. We will see expansion of gross margins on back of the benign RMPM prices. Okay. Thank you, Mohit, and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. you. The next question is from the line of Vishal Punmia from Yes Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Just, two small questions. Firstly, on the e-commerce business, what has been the growth in percentage, for the business, and what is the contribution? Yeah. So e-commerce business in the current quarter, the contribution was around 8.5%, and the growth is around 20%, in e-commerce. And YTD- Sorry, 20%? Sorry, 20%, 20%. This was a muted quarter as far as e-commerce is concerned, but otherwise, YTD, you'll see a growth, contribution of around 9%-9.5% coming from e-commerce, for us, and the growth will be higher in the range of around 30%. Understood. Understood. And secondly, there have been a lot of media news regarding FMCG companies becoming slightly aggressive in terms of activations in the region of Ayodhya. And we have also launched a special edition packs. But apart from a Q4 benefit, do you see a sustainable, sustainable benefit in FY 25 in this region? Yeah, you know, Hindi Heartland is the core for Dabur, and this is like we invest behind power brands. These are our power markets. So we will continue to invest behind our power markets, and they give us the maximum bang for the buck in these markets. And entire UP belt, the East UP and West UP, and East UP more, East UP and Bihar more, have a very high salience of Dabur. So we will continue to invest in our core markets. They are absolutely a core for us, and we feel that these activations will only give us a long-term enduring gain going forward. This would be across the portfolio, or is there any particular portfolio which is slightly more biased in this region? We are basically taking our power brands only. Within power brands, our Red Paste and Dabur Amla are the most salient because Chyawanprash, Honey becomes seasonal for us. In the power brand, this is more salient, and juice saliency is also low in this region. It's basically the HPC portfolio which is more salient here. Understood. Understood. Lastly, just one clarification on the margins comment that you made earlier. Last year base obviously was a very low base quarter in terms of EBITDA margin in the region of around 15%. While I do understand that seasonally it's a lower margin quarter, but there would be a sharp increase in margin for Q1, even if you build 19.5% margin in FY 2024. Vishal, if your question is on Q4, as I said earlier, you know, you can't see sharp margins sequentially. Q4 obviously is a different market product profile, and hence it is slightly lower than the overall first nine months margins. Having said that, our assessment at this point of time is that the expansion in margins would definitely be higher than what it has been in the past nine months. So if our expansion in margins, including the legal cost, is 50 basis points as of now, so in quarter four, it will be higher than that. Understood. Understood. Thank you, and best of luck for the coming quarters. Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Priyank Chedda from Vallum Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. So my question is on the Ayurvedic, or, sorry, the therapeutic strategy that we had discussed while we met in the investor annual meet. And I just want you to, you know, touch base upon the incremental sales that we were targeting. So from INR 2,500 crores to INR 5,000 crores, this is an incremental sales of INR 2,500 crores over five years. How will this be divided across the existing categories and also the new categories, like baby care, tea, and the other therapeutic, allopathic side? If you can help me on that, what has been the progress in terms of any numeric data that you would like to share that you would want us to track? Right. So I think NPD contribution, which is innovation contribution, rest of the growth will actually come from the power brands that are there. We've already listed out the 4, 5 power brands that you already have in the healthcare portfolio, which you have, like Honitus will drive the cough and cold, Pudin Hara drive the digestive, Hajmola is there, Chyawanprash is there, Honey is there. These are the power brands, and most of the growth will be centered around these power brands. NPD contribution will be in the range of around 3%-4% will coming in, which will be driven by more baby care. Baby care, we've already notched up a turnover of INR 27 odd crores, which is almost double of what we've done last year this time. So that's done well for us. Then Branded Ethical division, which should contribute to the growth, so this is there. Then we have introduced Chai tea. Tea has a registered turnover of around Vedic Tea has introduced a turnover of around ten odd crores, and that is doing well and showing good traction in the marketplace. MFT is what we've introduced that should also come in and help us in the growth. The nutraceutical vertical that we rolled out with the ethical division is selling that, and that should notch up in terms of sales. And pretty much, so I think around 3.5%-4% should come in from the NPD, and rest will be the power brands in the healthcare portfolio should contribute to that growth in healthcare. Got it. And if I heard correctly, the therapeutic division is right now contributing INR 95 crore over last nine months, which means that we are at a run rate of INR 25-30 crore per quarter. Am I correct? Around 30, 35- 35 crore per quarter, correct. INR 35 crore per quarter. We had a team, which was working with Philippe Haydon, and the team, which was going to target the doctors. What is the count, if you can help me with that? We had 500 people recruited for that. And inc... and, what has been the increase in the doctor coverage? Any numbers on that if you want to highlight? I think, we are, you know, that the numbers not have changed significantly right now, but we are on the track of slowly increasing our coverage. We are right now consolidating the processes and the system, and by end of the year, we'll be able to give you a better update on where we stand in terms of the coverage. Got it. Does this mean that FY25 will have a significant developments done on this whole of the therapeutic segment linked to the power brands? Should we see more developments happening and more action happening in FY25? Yeah, certainly, there will be a new product launches. There will be ramp up of the therapeutics portfolio division, and of course, a lot of investment behind Power Brands, which will help us, you know, move towards our objectives for healthcare. Just a clarification again on the INR 35 crore per quarter run rate or INR 100 crore sales via therapeutic segment is something which was not there in the previous years before we activated this new category or new segment, correct? No, no, Priyank. It was the base as well, but because of the enhanced focus, the growth has been around 20-21%. Accelerated. Yeah, it has accelerated our growth. So it was in the base, and the growth has accelerated. Sorry, the voice was not clear. If the sales were there in the base, but because it's growing at 30%, so we should consider that it was earlier INR 70-80 crores, which is now INR 100 crores? Yeah, correct. So it was in that, yeah. Got it. Got it. Thank you. In the world of labor, we are reaching out to pediatricians, GPs, dermatologists, and gynecologists. In the quarter, the number, if you want to know, 22,000 pediatricians we reach to, and around 12,000 dermats, and around 22,000 gynecologists that we reach out to. That's what, so around 60,000, around- Seventy. 70-75,000 doctors broadly total is what we are reaching out to. The universe is obviously very huge, so we're just scratching the surface. This, we are reaching out with some additional recruitment and with the existing team. We'll keep adding personnel as the portfolio keeps expanding, and regionally, we keep expanding this. That's broadly. Exact numbers, I think, as we are preparing the budget, we can share with you in the next phone call also. Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Gagan Ahluwalia for closing comments. Over to you, ma'am. Thanks, thank you, everyone, for your participation in today's earnings call. Webcast, audio recording, and transcript will be-