Ladies and gentlemen, good day and Welcome to the Hero MotoCorp Limited Q2 FY 2026 post-results conference call hosted by DAM Capital Advisors Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the call over to Mitul Shah from DAM Capital. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you, Sarkar. Good morning, everyone. On behalf of DAM Capital, I Welcome you all to the Q2 FY 2026 post-results conference all of Hero MotoCorp. I also welcome the senior management of Hero MotoCorp to this call. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to host this conference call. Now, I hand over to Mr. Umang Khurana, Head Investor Relations and Risk, to take it forward. Over to you, Umang. Thank you, Mithil. Thank you, Sarkar. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the call. With us on the call today, we have Mr. Vikram Kasbekar our CEO Vivek Anand, the Chief Financial Officer; Ashutosh Varma, who is the India Business Unit Chief Business Officer; and Kausalya Nandakumar, the EV Business Chief Business Officer, as well. We will begin the call with opening comments from Mr. Kasbekar and then Vivek. Thereafter, we'll open up the floor and take your questions. Sarkar, we'll first begin with Mr. Kasbekar and then take it from there. Mr. Kasbekar? Thank you, Umang. Namaskar a nd a very warm Welcome to everyone joining us for Hero MotoCorp's earning call for the second quarter and the first half of FY 2026. Let me start by wishing you and your families a very happy and a prosperous fiscal season. Trust, you all had a safe and joyful Diwali. I hope you all would have seen our strong financial performance in the quarter. At the outset, I would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Honorable Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi and Honorable Finance Minister for announcing the GST reductions ahead of the fiscal season. This timely intervention significantly uplifted the consumer sentiment and revitalized retail momentum across the markets. Riding on this positive sentiment, we concluded the fiscal season this year with nearly one million retailers on VAHAN on October 25. Our VAHAN market share in October expanded by 3.7% year-on-year to 31.6%. Consumer sentiment has continued to remain buoyant, and even after the fiscal season, we expect the retail momentum to sustain. In the key business highlights for the quarter, first, I would like to mention about the gain. We gained market share dispatch across all key segments: entry, deluxe, premium, scooters, EVs, and even our global business. Our entry segment share in the overall two-wheeler industry expanded for the second consecutive quarter. We gained 3% market share in quarter two and 5% in H1 in the segment, led by the launch of aspirational HF Deluxe Pro coupled with a very emotional Customer Connect campaign. I'm sure you'd have seen the Hathi Wala ad. Splendor further strengthened this market leadership, helping us gain market share in the Deluxe 100 category. In the Deluxe 125cc space, our new launch Glamour X has received excellent response, driving sequential market share gains. We expect this momentum to continue as we further scale up our Glamour X. The Xtreme 125R also gets a new upgrade with the dual-channel variant. While in the motorcycles, overall, we continue to maintain our dispatch market share. In scooters, our recent launches of Destini 125, Xoom 125 led to approximately 10% market share in the 125cc segment. Bulk of our market share gains have come primarily from the strong scooter markets like Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. We are confident of building on this with the ramp-up of Destini 110, Metal Body, and the Xoom 160 premium scooter. In the premium segment, our premium network expansion progressed well. We have now reached 100 stores, which covers 50% of the upper premium market. Xpulse retailers grew by 31% in the ongoing festival. The EV business delivered its highest-ever quarterly market share of 11.7%, which is up 6.8% year-on-year, riding on the success of VIDA VX2. Finally, in our global business, dispatches grew by an impressive 77%, which is almost three times the industry growth. Overall, on the back of the macroeconomic tailwind and a robust product portfolio, we are gearing up well for the rest of the year. Lastly, happy to share a significant development for Hero MotoCorp's leadership team and our future trajectory. We are delighted to announce the appointment of Mr. Harshvardhan Chitle, our new Chief Executive Officer, effective January 26. Mr. Chitle is a distinguished leader who brings with him three decades of extensive global and diversified expertise across multiple sectors. His profound experience will be instrumental in shaping and guiding the next exciting chapter of Hero MotoCorp's journey. He has a proven track record of consistently delivering profitable growth and driving large-scale transformations. Mr. Chitle is widely respected for his exceptional strategic vision, execution excellence, and remarkable ability to empower and inspire diverse global teams. We are confident that his leadership will significantly strengthen our capabilities and accelerate our journey to become a global leader in a rapidly evolving mobility landscape. I'll now hand over to Vivek for your commentary on the quarter's performance. Over to you, Vivek. Thank you, Vikram. Namaskar, and thank you all for joining the call, and warm greetings for the festival season to everyone. I'm pleased to report strong financial performance for Hero MotoCorp for the second quarter and first half of financial year 2026. The company recorded its highest-ever quarterly revenue of INR 12,126 crores, reflecting year-on-year growth of 16%, highest-ever EBITDA of INR 1,823 crores, growth of 20%, and highest-ever PAT of INR 1,393 crores, growth of 16%. Moving on to the half-year financial year 2026 results, the revenue amounted to INR 21,705 crores, year-on-year growth of 5.3%, EBITDA INR 3,205 crores, a growth of 7.7%, and PAT of INR 2,519 crores, a year-on-year growth of 8%. The EBITDA margin during the quarter for ICE business improved to 17.7%, up 121 basis points year-on-year, driven by lower material cost, cost efficiencies, and mix improvement, while we continue to invest behind brand-building, new businesses, and new products. During the quarter, after taking into account the investment behind EV business of INR 2.52 crores, the overall EBITDA margin improved 54 bps to 15% for the quarter. The average selling price increased 4.2% year-on-year and 2.4% quarter-on-quarter, driven by mix and pricing. The company reported quarterly revenue from parts, accessories, and merchandise business at INR 15.33 crores, which is a growth of 5% +. Our continued focus on cash management resulted in delivering strong cash from operation, strengthening our financial performance. Operating cash generated in the first half is INR 41.11 crores. During the quarter, we had 12 new models and variants seeing the festive for the first time, our highest ever for a season. This strong product portfolio expansion and GST reforms led to record sales of nearly one million units on VAHAN and a market share gain of 370 basis points year-on-year to 31.6% in October. During this year's festive season, starting from Unum, that is, from 23rd August 2025 until yesterday, November 13th, 2025, the growth in ICE VAHAN registration stood at 16.2%, ahead of industry growth of 14.7% over the comparable period in the previous year, leading with a 40 basis point market share gain. This was supported by strong traction in the entry, deluxe, and scooter segments. Our market share gain has continued into November, supported by sustained post-festive demand and the strength of our refreshed product portfolio. This buoyancy was clearly visible in our operations. Post the festive period, we now have the lowest inventory and lowest receivables in the recent years. Based on these encouraging trends, we expect the two-wheeler industry to grow 8%-10% in the second half of financial year 2026, with Hero poised to outperform the overall market and continue to gain market share. Moving on to VIDA, Hero MotoCorp Emerging Mobility Business continued its robust growth trajectory with highest-ever EV business market share of 11.7%, led by VIDA VX2 e-scooter. We now hold over 20% share in 48 towns and are among the top two players in 56 towns, a clear testament to the growing strength of our EV brand. The company's global business continued its upward growth trajectory during the quarter, with dispatch growth of 77%, which is three times the industry growth, led by Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Colombia. The company marked its entry into Europe and the U.K. markets, bringing our presence to 52 countries. Dow Jones Sustainability Index score further improved to 75 in financial year 2025 from 69 in financial year 2024, reflecting HMCL's leadership towards sustainable business growth. We expect the momentum in growth to continue, supported by benefits flowing in from the GST reforms, healthy macroeconomic parameters, and a robust product portfolio. Moving forward, our journey of investment behind growth will continue. We remain consistent in our commitment towards investing in premium scooters, EV portfolio, brand-building, and to improve customer service in-store with Hero 2.0 and Prema. Thank you, and I'll hand it back to Umang now for him to really open it for questions. Sarkar, we can take questions now. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and zero, star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question is from the line of Gunjan Prithyani from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on good first speed. This question was more on the first speed trend. You did speak about the 17% growth. Can you give us a bit more color on what we are seeing, particularly post-GST in terms of segment color, whether you can split the 16%, 17% as to what came from entry, what came from scooters, etc.? A bit more color around that and rural-urban sort of research as well. Hi, Gunjan, Ashutosh here. I hope you can hear me well. The festive 17% growth that we've had so far, in fact, since Vivek said 16.2%, it's improved in one day to 17% now. It's getting better with every passing day. We've seen a very strong recovery in 100 cc. There were a lot of fence-sitters who joined the mobility space, so that has really helped us to grow ahead of the industry in the festive. We are seeing very strong traction around Splendor, even HF. That has helped. Scooters has been also a very good story of growth. Again, you would see quarter two numbers. We have grown ahead of the industry, doing well, almost 39% growth that you saw in the quarter festive. Also, I mean, good double-digit growth that came in. Our new models have been really accepted well, and that has helped us gain acceptance across markets, across geographies. I mean, as Mr. Kasbekar said in his opening remarks, we have been doing well in markets like the south and west, where scooters are predominantly stronger, and we've done well there. Rural was a little slow to start with, primarily because of certain rain disruptions, and festive also came in early this time. As we have progressed late into festive towards the end of the year, and then early part of November, we are seeing all these crop harvesting proceeds reaching the market, and markets are now responding really well. That's why November continues to be very strong, and we expect that to continue going forward. Of course, GST reductions have been a huge shot in the arm. Our festive closing stock has been the lowest ever, as Vivek said. Our November demand continues to be one of the highest that we've seen in the previous year. Confident going forward. That's really good. Yeah, Gunjan just said what Ashutosh said. I think we've also seen the highest-ever collections during the festive period, thereby bringing our receivables in the Indian business to close to 12 days compared to what it was 30 days in the previous years. Right? That itself really shows the kind of mood and the demand we are seeing during the festive period. Sure. No, that's actually quite good to hear. Ashutosh, actually, just a little bit zooming into what you said on the growth, I'm just trying to understand, post-GST, is it that we've seen entry surge back, or for now, it is more around everything being very broad-based? For you, it's a combination of a little bit of scooter and products adding in. If you can give us some sense on how is entry responding to post-GST rates? Is this far outsized growth coming from entry when you look at the retail that you are in? Yes, Gunjan. As I said, I mean, the fence-sitters who joined the mobility space, that has really helped. I mean, numerical indicator, first-time buyers generally hover around 70%-72% on average. In the festive, it went up to 81%. That has really added new customers into our portfolio. Entry has been, I mean, 100 cc, I would say, largely overall. Of course, this continues to be very aspirational for a large part of the country, and that has drawn new customers in, which augurs well. That said, I guess, I mean, we had products across categories this time and 12 new products, as Vivek mentioned. We have had all products responding very well, and some of them were urban-centric, some of them were rural-focused, and we have had that response all across. Sure. Thank you. Second question, Vivek, is more around the margins. Of course, you have just consistently delivered on the margins. I am just trying to understand, as we see the growth coming from, let's say, ICE scooters and exports, a bit more power than the rest of the businesses, is there something from a mix perspective we should bear in mind, like are exports expected to be accretive, dilutive, similarly with scooters, a bit more color around that? Gunjan, I think I have answered this in the past, and I'll just repeat that we will, as a business, continue to invest behind brand-building. We invest behind product across businesses, which includes EV and global business. We will continue with our investments there. While we are making the investments, we are very, very conscious that we continue to expand our margins. Therefore, the mix is something which we will continuously drive in terms of really improving on an ongoing basis. We will continue to drive volumes, which will help us deliver operating margins, operating efficiencies. Therefore, the guidance, what we've given, we will continue to really be within EBITDA margins of 14%-16%. Right? There has not been any change in that guidance. Even if you really look at this quarter, although we are at 15% EBITDA margin for the quarter, in the first half, we are at around 14.8%. Okay. Got it. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address questions from all the participants in the conference, kindly limit your questions to two per participant. Should you have follow-up questions, kindly rejoin the question queue. Our next question comes from the line of Amyn Pirani from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity, and congrats for a great festive season. I had a question. I do not know if you can answer that because something that is on the mind of investors and us is that, obviously, when the GST was announced, there was a period of postponement, and then the festive was strong. At the same time, there was some buying, which was pending for the month before. At the same time, now, post-festive, given the trend that we are seeing, it looks like there could be some preponement also because of the whole communication by the government, as well as every company around GST cuts. Just trying to understand, if you can help us, how should we think about the momentum as we go into, say, the next three to four months? Clearly, the post-festive momentum has also surprised us. How should we think about this as we go into year-end and probably early next year, whatever sense you're getting from the ground? Amyn, hi. Good to hear you again. The number of 17% that you mentioned is accounting for the time since Ganesh Chaturthi, and that was the time when the GST cut was announced, of course, not implemented, implemented on 22nd of September. I mean, if you look at the growth from 22nd onwards, it's actually, I mean, far, far higher. Right? This actually balances out, and you would see that 17% manifesting from a little earlier than Ganesh Chaturthi till so far. The good thing is that, as I was explaining to Gunjan also in the earlier question, I mean, we hadn't seen the rural market respond very well in the early part of the festive. Festive actually comes early for four years and then actually resets itself. This time, festive came in the earliest in the four years. This is the time when the crop harvesting almost is not very synced with some of the key festive dates. That, of course, towards the later part of the festive, has started manifesting a lot more. We had good marriage season. I mean, quarter, we had marriage season throughout marriages throughout November. Again, we have a good quarter four in terms of marriages. We see again a good quarter one in terms of marriages. These are good positive indicators as to how we see the year manifesting. Overall, from the monsoon, almost two consecutive years of good monsoon, reservoirs are full. I mean, overall, and also, if you would see everything, I think we continue to spend in November in terms of our actions, both APL, on-ground, classic early cycle recovery pattern that you would see leaders increasing spend, smaller players cutting back. I think it augurs well overall. Okay. That's great. Amyn, hi. Vivek here. Just finally, really just. Hi. Yeah. Also, in addition to what Ashutosh said, if you really look at the income tax cuts, right, the low inflation is really also supplementing. I just want to also just bring it to you what happened in the past when we had excise rate cuts in the past, right? We had three rounds of excise rate cuts in 2003, 2008, and 2014, where the price cuts were 5%-8%. We have seen double-digit growth in the two-wheeler industry for the next couple of years. This time, the price cuts are the highest ever of 10%. In our product, it ranges from INR 5,500 to as high as INR 15,000, right? Therefore, I think if I really look at the long-term trend, right, and also what we've been able to achieve in the 85 days of the long festive period, I think we strongly believe that this trend is likely to stay. Great. That's good to know. My second question was actually on exports. It's still a relatively small part of the overall company, but consistently, we've been seeing very strong double-digit growth here. Any color, if you can give, are there any new geographies that are helping you, or are there existing geographies where you've been gaining some market share? What's the kind of response, and what's the kind of numbers that we should look forward to going forward? Yeah. Amin, Vivek here once again. I think, one, of course, this quarter, we've grown three times the market, and that has been our performance now for the last couple of quarters. I think what is really driving this performance is your question. Clearly, our 80/20 strategy of focus on top 10 markets is really playing out very well for us. In the top 10 markets, we already have 12% market share. In some of the markets, we are number one. In the top seven markets, actually, we are gaining market share. Our new product launches, which we've had across our markets in Asia, Latin, have continued to really do well. I'm also happy to share that our premium product contribution is 40% + in the global markets. Right? The premium portfolio, therefore, continues to really outgrow the markets. We've actually been designing and developing products now, which is very, very specific to the markets. I think that strategy is also really helping us gain market share. We've also been investing in improving customer service across the markets. I think this is a combination of all what we are doing is really helping us sustain our performance in the global markets. Great. That's good to know. I'll come back in the queue. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jay Kale from Elara Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. And congrats on a good festive and strong margin. My first question is on the scooter and the motorcycle mix. We've seen that including EVs is now close to around 41%. How are you seeing that? Because clearly, in the last one, one and a half years, the scooter ICE segment has positively surprised. With this GST cut, I'm hearing you mentioning about the rural and first-time buyers' expectations of coming back. How do you see this scooterization trend settling down? Have we hit a plateau, or do you see further scope of this moving up? Hi, Jay. Thank you for the question. You're right. I think overall, ICE plus EVs put together, the scooter contribution has been pretty robust. In fact, ICE alone also has done really well. I think the good part that has happened in the scooter segment is today, there is sub-segmentation and new, I mean, products that are serving different needs of customers have evolved. I mean, you today have a sporty segment, a large-wheel cruising segment, a typical metal body, lower 100 cc commuter segment. There are quite a lot that has emerged, and everything is carving a niche out of itself, suits larger needs. This is why we feel that overall, from a scooter category growth perspective, the momentum will sustain. I mean, we are also seeing that in our portfolio. I mean, now we have a complete portfolio catering all these subcategories, and we are seeing growth across markets. Overall, from a scooter perspective, in fact, ICE coupled with EV today is, I mean, driving a new set of customers to our showrooms. That is also giving us a lot of confidence. We think that this is going to sustain going forward. Hi. Namaskar. This is Kausalya. Just to add on to what Ashutosh talked about, I think the scooterization trend is, of course, now contributing a significant share of the overall two-wheeler market. We also see electrification really catching imagination in the scooter segment with product launches. I think in the last quarter, we ended close to participation of 25% of the scooter sales was actually in the EV category. Again, here with VIDA, we continue to outperform and outgrow that market and contribute with new product launches as well as segment share. Overall, we see a very positive trend on the adoption of EVs in the scooter space. Now, with VIDA's portfolio, we also see a positive contribution from Hero MotoCorp in that space. Thanks. Thanks. That's lovely to hear. My second question is on, you mentioned about first-time buyers now contributing in the festive from 70% - 80%, 82%, which also means that as we have more first-time buyers, the penetration of two-wheelers has also started further inching up. How do you see this over the next two to three years given that already two-wheeler penetration is relatively on the higher side? Of course, there is still opportunity, but how do you see this first-time buyer contribution settling? Because eventually, it will hit a level where further penetration increase will kind of plateau out. How do you see it from our next two to three-year growth perspective? Jay, I mean, as Vivek said, every time an intervention like this has happened, we've seen the growth momentum sustain for a few years, which is why we think that this momentum is going to continue. That said, two-wheeler volumes have not crossed the pre-COVID levels yet. Right? We've seen higher numbers. We feel that the replacement demand should come back even more. We had seen in the last three, four years, customers holding onto their products much longer. We've seen that in our workshops, four-year-old customers, actually the percentage increasing. We feel that as now markets are opening up, the overall sentiment is looking far more positive. The new product introductions that are happening, all that will also help bring the old customers, replacement cycles being faster. Yeah, I hope that answers your question. Sure. Yeah. I mean, looking forward for the replacement cycle also to come back because, frankly, after the price increases, a lot of postponement of the replacement cycle would have been seen. Yeah, hoping for that to drive the industry. We think it should. Thank you. All the best. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pramod Kumar from UBS Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks a lot for the opportunities, and congratulations on a very good set of numbers. I think credit especially to Ashutosh and the team for really turning on the market share. My first question is on the market outlook, Ashutosh. Did I hear it right that you talked about a 10% kind of a growth in the opening remarks? I just want to clarify, that's for the full year or for the second half year? Yeah, Vivek said that 8%-10% growth in the second half of the year, Pramod. Good to hear you again. Yeah. Great. I just had one follow-up on that. Basically, if you look at the growth of what you're clocking in October and what we have slated to do as an industry in November, if you work with the 10% number for the second half, that practically implies a decline for the remainder of the period. I'm talking about VAHAN Retails, by the way. I'm talking entirely on VAHAN Retails. Just trying to understand, is that expectation low or could there be a side to this particular number? YTD September, the industry was growing at 2%. Last couple of months, whether October, November put together, YTD numbers have gone up to almost 12%. Right? It will taper down for sure because this festive spike is a festive spike. We anticipate that overall, for a full-year perspective, we'll be not far away from the growth estimate that we had given at the beginning of the year, which was close to around 5%-6%. Okay. No, but because Ashutosh effectively implies a decline for the December to March period. I'm trying to understand why would that be the case given that inventory levels for you, who are the largest player, is a multi-year low? We understand even other companies had reasonably sharp reduction in inventory levels post-season. I'm just trying to understand what is you are seeing on the ground which is making you or the entire industry sound a bit more conservative on the guidance side. I'm just trying to understand here, Ashutosh, what's holding you back from giving a more optimistic outlook? We don't see a decline for sure, Pramod. I mean, if the current trend's anything to go by and historical data gives us that confidence that this momentum is going to sustain. It probably might not sustain at the festive levels that you've seen in the last because there was possibly a lot of these customers who are holding back who came in this festive. Clearly, the fundamentals seem strong. I mean, you see rural markets recovering, rainfalls, as I said, being good, two surplus years, reservoirs being full. I mean, government is supportive in terms of what they're trying to do for rural economy. GST, I mean, a huge shot in the arm. Right? All this doesn't point towards any decline that you would see. Right? It could possibly not sustain at the October-November period that you have seen in the streets, at least 30 Lakhs in October. Right? From there on, you might possibly see a decline. I mean, clearly, we expect a much better H2 and overall full year. I mean, that better that overall full year will turn into positive and close the year not far away from what the expectations we had set in the beginning of the year. No worries. Ashutosh, on the Hero-specific performance, because clearly, you are doing much better than the underlying market. I think now, after a long time, VIDA portfolio is firing in terms of scooters, premium, EV as well. How would you kind of look at the next six months or one year in terms of milestones for market share come back? If you can, anything you can help us understand here because that will help us kind of quantify the kind of outperformance what we can expect from Hero next year because a lot of these launches happened in the recent time, so you haven't had the full-year benefit. There's no inventory. If you can just help us understand how you think about market share incrementally from here on. Sure, Pramod. Thank you. Our goal is to grow ahead of the market, and that's what you would have seen manifesting as we have made our portfolio more robust. Our focus going forward is going to be scooters where we have had some really good excitement around the new products that we have launched. The 125cc motorcycles, the intervention that we have done with the Glamour X and the Xtreme 125R, I mean, really very well accepted. As we step up our campaigns and capacities, we are expecting a very strong H2 around the 125cc as well. So overall, of course, from a year-end outlook, I mean, our goal is to grow ahead of the market and end up gaining significant share. Yeah. Sounds great. Just to. Thank you. Yeah. So yeah, Vivek, please. Hi, Pramod. Just to also. Hi, sir. Talk very briefly about global business. I think this quarter, we had an 8.6% share, which is an improvement of almost 250 basis points compared to previous quarter. I think clearly, the way the demand trends are, we are confident we'll continue to gain share quarter on quarter from now onwards. Hi, Pramod. Yes, ma'am. EV trend again here. We see ourselves outperforming. We have grown both in quarter two as well as overall H1, far outpacing the market growth and continuing to gain market share. Overall, the outlook for from the EV combined portfolio will also be extremely positive, and we estimate that we will do extremely well as a combined portfolio as well. Great show, and I wish you guys all the best. Thank you. Thank you, Pramod. Thanks. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kapil Singh from Nomura. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good morning, sir, and congratulations on a good performance for the quarter. I just wanted to understand our growth expectations in terms of the segments when we are looking at 10% growth in the second half or the period beyond that as well. The 100cc, 125cc premium, and scooters, how would you rank the growth rates or range of growth rates for these segments? Any thoughts you have? Hi, Kapil. Yeah, the growth percentage that we spoke about was aggregate. We feel the festive trends, anything to go by, are very strong bounce back on the 100cc category. That's where we have seen, I mean, very strong demand across HF, Splendor, and Passion portfolio that we have. We have the strongest portfolio there. We see that segment doing well. As I said, new customers coming into the space. Subsequently, we also expect the replacement cycles to pick up. Overall, rural coming back sharply towards the later part of the festive. We expect this segment to, I mean, has been subdued for a while, and I think it has its due. I mean, it should come back, which is what we see, the early signs in the festive. Scooters, we expect that they will continue to do well across markets. They have been doing well for the last few years as well and should continue to do well. If you ask me, I mean, these two segments should largely lead the growth, followed by the others. Okay. Sir, on the ABS cost impact, how much it is, by when are we expecting, and can it impact the industry growth in your view? I'll take that, Vikram. We are definitely very much for the safety of the customers, and we continue to drive our technology for the vehicle engineering to see that we come up with the most optimum cost-effective solution. We are in talks with the government, and I think shortly we should come to a very positive conclusion, which will be far more effective technological intervention. One last question I had on the EV profitability. Can you just talk about where are we in terms of EBITDA margin and what are the milestones that we are looking at to improve the profitability over there? By when can we expect EBITDA break-even for this business? Yeah. Hi, Pramod. Hi, Kapil. Sorry. This is Kausalya. Let me take that first. In terms of the EV business, our continued focus is, of course, to bring in the better products into the market, which can meaningfully grow the market and bring in more consumers to adopt for EV. We also continue as an organization to invest in brands and build the electric vehicle portfolio. Of course, there will be focus and relentless focus, if I may add, on optimizing our costs and bringing in focus across the cost elements. We will continue to leverage benefits like CSI in order to bring the EV business overall into a more positive roadmap. Having said that, the current focus for VIDA and EV continues to be focused on bringing new products into the market as well as building the brand so that we can drive customer adoption in the EV segment. Yeah. Hi, Kapil. Vivek here. I think clearly, as Ashutosh earlier said, our number one priority is to continue to invest behind product and brand building. Yeah. That clearly stays our number one priority. Having said that, you're right. At a product contribution level, we are still in a negative zone. Right? That is the second priority we have in terms of really getting to our product contribution neutral level. A couple of interventions we are doing in terms of relentlessly working on bringing down the bomb cost. We are really making sure that the PLI benefit we've applied for one product, we are in the process of really getting approvals for the others. Third, we've also taken a price increase effective 5th of November. Hopefully, right, as we get into start of next financial year, this will help us really improve our gross margin. Thereafter, it's a matter of really getting your volumes up, right, which will really help overall profitability for the business. Kapil, just to add on here, we're already focusing on scaling our volume and focusing on key markets for that. Just to let you know, we are now number one or number two in 50plus towns and cities, four focus markets. We have gained meaningful market share in more than 48 towns where we are ranking more than 20% of market share. Some of these are large four electric vehicle markets, including the large metro. As we scale our volumes, which is our current focus now, there will be a clearer path to profitability. Sure. That's great to hear. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pramod Amthe from InCred Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions, of which first one is regarding EV engineering. Thanks for the detailed points on EVs and what we are trying to achieve in some of the key markets. What has worked for you in the 50 markets where you are number two? Is it the characteristics of marketplace or product profile? What are you planning to do, taking those successes into new markets? To that extent, what is the ambition of market share in the overall EV space for you? Hi, Pramod. Kausalya again. Thank you for the question. What has worked for us, essentially, if you look at the new product introduction that happened in the month of July of 2025, we launched our new e-scooter, the VX2, in core markets. The focus of bringing this product into a category of consumers who are looking at the versatility of a scooter with the technology and total cost of operation of an EV has actually caught the imagination and preference of customers across these markets. These are focus markets for us in terms of penetration as we continue to focus on newer markets as we will scale up. Fundamentally, what has worked is the product has been a resounding success. We see a lot of pull from consumers for the new VX2, which is now a significant contributor to the overall portfolio. The other element is certain key innovations that we drove around the product positioning, including our battery as a service offering. This was an innovative offering which allowed for consumers who may not have considered an EV in their portfolio earlier to walk into our showrooms with the offering of, "You will pay as you ride." It allows consumers to walk in and understand the benefits of an EV and helped us to drive a large set of our inquiries through innovative offerings. We also continue to focus on elements that allow consumers to be aware of the portfolio. There is a large focus on brand awareness in these markets with dedicated attempts to ensure that more consumers are aware of this offering from VIDA. We continue to focus on these markets. The success of these markets will be replicated as we scale both in terms of volume and aspiration. You mean aspiration market share in EVs? I think, Pramod, you've seen the trajectory of VIDA. We've been doubling market share almost since last year. This aspiration continues, and we will continue to outpace and outgrow the market. We also will have a robust pipeline of products coming in. This will give buoyancy to our aspiration. What's the battery and service penetration now? Is it something significant to follow? Pramod, I assume you're asking for battery and service penetration. Our key metric here was essentially to democratize access of electric vehicles to consumers. We have seen a significant share now of our inquiries coming in from the battery as a service element. We continue to use this communication and this product offering as such to bring in more consumers to our showrooms to talk about what are the benefits of EV overall. Interesting. Let me just ask on the software meeting. Thanks for sharing for the last couple of quarters. We've been dabbling essentially on every category. Can you give some color in terms of how the gross margins have changed for you with the new product versus the old product? If you were to take into account the PLI, where will your gross margins be in the couple of quarters down the line? Our gross margin trajectory has been positive. Quarter on quarter, we are seeing improvement in gross margins, and that's largely driven by, of course, BOM cost reduction that's really helping us. Our new products, which we are going to add, will further help us improve our gross margin trajectory, as I said earlier. The price interventions we are taking will help us really grow our gross margins and the PLI. All a combination of that, right? Quarter on quarter, we will see we've been improving it in the past, and we'll continue to improve it in the subsequent quarters. Any more obstacles in the future will be helpful. Okay. Okay. Yes. We will be really happy to share with you. Sure. The last question, if I can squeeze in. In some of the developed markets here. Pramod sir? Yes. Sorry to interrupt. May I please ask you to rejoin the question queue for a follow-up question? Yes. Thanks. Thank you so much. Our next question comes from the line of Joseph George from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead. Thank you. Two questions. One is a clarification. You mentioned that you're expecting a growth of about 8%-10%. I just want to understand, are you referring to retail growth in the second half, or are you referring to wholesale growth for the industry in the second half? I mean, largely retail, but largely wholesales will also be in the same line. Did you get that? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So you said that so basically, you're expecting 8%-10% for both retail and wholesale in the second half of the year? Yeah. Yeah. Because also, I mean, if you look at H1, largely wholesales and retails will largely be matching. Should match in the second half of the year as well, Joseph. Understood. Thanks. The second question that I had was in relation to commodities. I think in your opening remarks, you mentioned that commodities were a tailwind. You said lower input costs. When I look at commodity prices such as aluminum, precious metals, etc., they have moved up, and I think they have continued to move up in the third quarter. How do you see commodity playing out in the third quarter? Commodity costs during the quarter was largely flat. Yes, you're right. We've seen the aluminum prices come up, but at the same time, the steel prices have actually come down during the quarter. Right? I think our lead program, which is the cost-saving program, is really helping us keep the commodities actually flat. In fact, helping us really improve our margins. A bit on quarter three, yes, aluminum continues to really be seen in the inflationary trend there. There will be quarter three, broadly, the expectation is there will be some level of commodity inflation, but it will be more range-bound within 1%-2%. Understood. Last thing on ABS, the draft notification had said that it will be implemented effective January, but I think we are already in November, and there is no final notification. So any communication from the government on when it's likely to be implemented? Joseph, Vikram here. As I said earlier, we are in talks with the government, and they will definitely consider an appropriate time to bring the implementation in. Okay. Got it. Thank you. That's all. Thanks. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mihir Vora from Equirus. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. Sir, basically, my question was considering the recent elongated monsoon, and there are many agriculture states which have seen some output loss. There are many of the core markets which were impacted up till October. What is your outlook now on the rural income visibility over the next few months? Are there any early indicators of better crop realization or dealer feedback on the financing pattern start? How do you see the demand in the rural, particularly in the segment? Yeah. Hi, Mihir. Yes, you're right. I mean, some of our core markets were impacted because of monsoons. We saw that impact in M P, South Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, parts of Bihar, Bengal. I mean, these are these markets which are largely impacted by rains. The good thing is that, I mean, we have seen this coming back and towards the later part of the festival, as I said, and also in November. I mean, you can see the trends that are visible in November in terms of what's the retail growth that's happening. I mean, we expect a strong month. As I also said in the beginning, that, I mean, two years of good monsoons overall. I mean, while there have been temporary disruptions, but overall, I think from a sentiment perspective, it looks positive. We have a good rubby outlook, and overall, we expect this trend to continue. A good upcoming market season as well. Overall, these markets should come back. We've already seen early signs. Just a follow-up on this, like in the you have been seeing this in the market for the last many years. In your experience, is it like it is more of a necessity-driven demand rather than a bad monsoon or something like that? Sorry, your question. Can you repeat that once? I'm saying whether in the last 10 years, we have been seeing the market. Is it like the rural is more of a necessity-driven demand, that if there's a short-term hiccup also, the demand can come if there's a necessity to buy? It's resilient, for sure. I mean, we've seen that. Unfortunately, the last four years since COVID, we had seen, I mean, disposable incomes getting stressed. I mean, overall, prices went up significantly post-BS6. These were structural, I mean, challenges, which I think GST also solves. That's why we see this coming back. I mean, it has been a resilient economy. It should come back strongly. There is a strong, I mean, this market is driven by a strong need that's there, I mean, as part of livelihood. There's no reason why it shouldn't come back. As I said, we have already seen early signs of it. My second question basically was on the last year. If you see the December to March period was sort of bad for the industry. The industry was down, but we were down around -8% or 10% last year. As we enter the lows, do we expect that we'll see decent kind of a growth during this December to March month? How are the conditions right now in terms of financing penetration and discounting side? The industry has not seen much discounting, for sure. I mean, as a company, we are also focused more on building brands, strengthening our brands a lot more, which will continue to drive aspirations. We have realized that is a key success parameter. You will see more of that happening as we move into H2. I mean, as I answered in the previous question as well, we have some new products, we really have not seen the market in full force. As we increase our capacities and the demand around these stabilizes, we are expecting H2 to be far stronger. I mean, both from a quarter three perspective, we already are 45 days into quarter three and continue to see very strong momentum. Expecting that to continue in quarter four as well. Is the financing stable? Overall, from a full year perspective, financing largely is stable. Of course, we'll see temporary ups and downs. I mean, some cash customers have come out more in the festival. Overall, I guess the fundamental does not change. I mean, it continues to be a key driver for purchase. I mean, companies will continue to innovate around financing products to keep the momentum on. We expect this to be stable around in H2. Okay. That was from my side. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Vipul Agarwal from HSBC. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. My first question is on the discount. Your discounts were relatively lower as compared to last year. Can you give us some idea of what was the decline on discounts on a year-over-year basis? I'm just trying to understand what is the headroom we have to boost the demand just in case it is closed down? I think this is a very specific question, but I'll say that we are not spending any less than what we were spending last year. I think the way we are spending, that has changed. We continue to spend for consumers, and that is bringing in demand. Of course, new discounts is not the only lever to try to define, and you're right. We're spending as much as we are in brand building, in new product introductions. Yeah. You're right. I think we focused more on these rather than discounting, and that has come down. Yeah. Also, Vipul, just to add, Vipul here. As Ashutosh said, we continue to invest behind brand building and new products. Just to give you some numbers, our advertisement spend for the first half, that has grown by 10%. Right? We continue to invest behind across our ICE EV and across our global markets portfolio. Sure. Thank you for that. In fact, the question was more general to the industry, overall industry, because we have just given an idea. We could not see much of a newspaper advertisement of any OEM during this festive season. Like last year, it used to come like every other day, half of the first page of the newspaper will come with a lot of two-way advertisement. This year, it was, I would say, it was almost more than 50%. I was just assuming that the demand was driven largely by the GST cut. Maybe OEMs might have a headroom to spend more in future to keep the demand at current pace. Would that be the correct understanding, or anything you can add on that? Yogesh, I mean, we can speak for Hero, right? I mean, if you look from a post-festive spend perspective, we continue to be the highest spender in terms of share of voice, in terms of print campaigns, in terms of TV, and several other parameters as well. We haven't really cut down in terms of our spends, just that the medium of spending has changed. I mean, if you look at, I mean, post-festive, we've had over 150 odd inserts in the market after the traditional festive period. That continues to be much more than any other competition player in the market. Thank you. My next question would be on the EV market share. In the last five years, EV penetration has necessarily taken away the market share from entry-level motorcycles. How do you see this trend going forward? Which segment, in your opinion, will see the market share for EVs going forward? The fundamental drivers for these two customers are very different. We do not see a correlation between EV purchase and entry segment buying. I mean, they are largely meant for different usage patterns. We do not see a correlation there. Of course, I mean, we have different actions that are planned for expanding the segment share in entry. As we said, getting the replacement demand back. I mean, we are focusing on greater than four-year customers who are coming to our workshops, working with them. We are seeing some great signs, early good responses happening here. EV, of course, is a different strategy altogether. As I said, I mean, we do not see a correlation between the demand drivers of both these segments. Would it be fair to say that entry-level segment will remain strong because given now GST cut, with given GST cut, the new customer addition will now only multiply going forward? The EV penetration might take away share from scooters, ICE scooters, plus 125 cc segment or maybe 110 cc segment. Would that be a fair assumption? Trying to draw too many correlations, friend. I would only say that, I mean, if you look at the entry segment for the last two quarters, the segment has started expanding. I mean, in quarter four, it was as low as 7.9%. It has gone up to almost 9.2% now. That is without the GST impact. With that coming in, this is expected to grow even more. As far as, I mean, we feel that there will be a very robust coexistence between ICE models and EV models across the industry as the drivers continue to be different. Thank you for the answer. Thank you. Just to close, thank you, everyone. In highlights, financial, best ever, you looked at our revenue, you saw our PAT. Strong festive performance looking at a longish period of time, September, October, November. It continues to be strong. Post-festive demand has continued. Dispatch market share gain across entry, deluxe, and premium. Launches of HF Deluxe Pro, Glamour X, Destini, and Xoom 125 should help. The second, and Ashutosh just mentioned, consecutive quarter of segment expansion in entry. Market share gained 3.1% in entry. Deluxe market share with Splendor and Passion continues to be stronger. In 125 Deluxe, there is the launch of Glamour X, and then the Xtreme 125R with the dual channel as well. BAM at INR 15.33 crores. Premium new launches are scaling up well. Scooter, we spoke about at length, grew 53% in retail, which is ahead of industry, especially in urban markets as well. EV, the highest ever market share, Kausalya, I spoke about it, and that continues to grow. Multiple new towns, 20%+ market share. We are between one and two in Delhi. Some months we are one, some months we are two. 20%+ market share, Kausalya was telling me in Mumbai as well. That is fantastic. Strong global business performance and improvement in the DJSI score. Some of the highlights that we wanted to close with. Thank you, everyone, for coming in. On DJSI, we got to 75, and then Pawan was rated in the TIME1 00 climate list as well. Thank you, and speak to you soon. On behalf of DAM Capital, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.