Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q1 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call of Kalyan Jewellers India 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 touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference has been recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rahul Agarwal. Thank you. Over to you, sir. Thank you. Good evening everyone and thank you for joining us on Kalyan Jewellers India Limited Q1 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Today on the call we have with us Mr. Ramesh Kalyanaraman, Executive Director, Mr. Sanjay Raghuraman, CEO, Mr. Viswanathan Swaminathan, CFO, Mr. Sanjay Mehrotra, Head of Strategy and Corporate Affairs, and Mr. Abraham George, Head of Investor Relations and Treasury. I hope everyone had a chance to view our financial results and investor presentation which were recently posted on company's website and stock exchanges. We will begin the call with opening. Remarks from management followed by an open forum for question and answer session both. Before we begin, I'd like to point out that some of the statements made during today's call may be forward looking as a disclaimer to that effect was included in the earnings presentation. I would now like to invite Mr. Ramesh Kalyanaraman, Executive Director of Kalyan Jewellers India Limited, to give his opening r emarks. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening and let me welcome everyone to the call. I'm extremely satisfied with our performance in the recently concluded quarter. While the consolidated revenue and PAT growth for the quarter have been approximately 31% and 49% respectively, standalone business recorded revenue growth of 31% and PAT growth of 55%. Let me take some time to reflect on the targets that we had set around the key objectives of revenue growth, improvement in cash flow, return on capital, and rewarding shareholders. Over the last three years, we have opened more than 160 Kalyan showrooms in India, predominantly through the Capital FOCO model. Share of FOCO revenue has grown to 43% as on June 30th, 2025. Our revenue CAGR for the last three years has been approximately 37% for India and 35% consolidated. We have also been able to substantially reduce our non-GML working capital loans over the last two years. As you are aware, we also have realized cash via sale of mobile non-core assets. All of these have helped improving the return profile meaningfully. Now the key focus areas going forward will be realize and monetization of real estate. State collaterals presently with the banks. Secondly, creation of retail formats beyond Kalyan Jewellers and Candere and supply side restructuring to drive meaningful improvement in the margin profile of Kalyan Jewellers. We have already done considerable work on some of the areas that I just mentioned. We have started documentation with the banks for the release of collaterals worth INR 200 crore. Given this development, we have decided to put a pause on further debt reduction till we get the lease of the first branch collapse over the last 12- 18 months. We have also been giving shape to our plans to expand distribution fusion network beyond the mainstream. Kalyan Jewellers Candere was identified as a second format with predominant focus on lightweight lifestyle jewellery and as you are aware we added more than 70 Candere showrooms in the last 18 months. We launched the brand campaign for Candere during the current financial year and plan to add 80 Candere showrooms in India this year. Footfalls at the showrooms and conversions have shown more than 75% increase since launch of the brand campaign. Candere should end PAT positive neutral by the end of the current financial year. With Candere stabilizing, we have decided to launch the third format which will essentially be an entity that will house regional brands offering exclusively localized jewellery competing with strong regional brands. We have drawn up plans to launch the first regional brand under this entity during this calendar year. Apart from changes in the merchandising go to market strategy, we have also adopted a key change in the procurement plan for the new format by focusing on a lean credit period ensuring better cost efficiency efficiencies. Even though the strategy w ill be fully. Implemented in the new format from day one, we have already successfully completed a pilot project with this strategy in Candere. We are exploring ways to implement it fully as a lever for significant margin improvement in the main format Kalyan Jewellers in this financial year itself. Now, talking about the ongoing quarter, we have started off well despite continuing volatility in gold prices and we are at higher base. We are a bit about the upcoming festive season across the country and are gearing up for the launch of press collections and campaigns. Thank you and I will hand over it to Sanjay. He will take you through the numbers. Thank you, Ramesh. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm really happy to be talking to you after this great quarter that we had. Our company reported consolidated revenue of INR 7,268 crores in the just concluded quarter, a 31% growth over the corresponding quarter o f the previous year. Consolidated EBITDA came in at INR 508 crores versus INR 368 crores in the corresponding quarter o f the previous year. Consolidated profit after tax came in at INR 264 crores versus INR 178 crores. In the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Moving now to talk about the breakup of the numbers between India and the Middle East. Starting with India, India revenue came in at INR 6,142 crore for the quarter versus INR 4,681 crores in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. India EBITDA for the quarter came in at INR 434 crore. Versus INR 309 crores when compared with the corresponding quarter of the previous year. India profit after tax was INR 256 crores compared to INR 165 crores in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Talking now about the Middle East business. Revenues in the Middle East for the quarter came in at INR 1,026 crores versus INR 809 crores compared to the corresponding quarter in the previous year. EBITDA in the Middle East came in at INR 73 crores versus INR 62 crores for the same quarter the previous year. The Middle East business posted a profit of INR 22 crores in the quarter compared to INR 19 crore in the corresponding quarter o f the previous year. Last year. Talking about Candere, our e-commerce business, we posted a revenue of INR 66 crores in the quarter versus INR 39 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Candere recorded an INR 10 crore loss in the quarter versus a loss of INR 2 crores in the corresponding quarter of last year. With this, we are done with the summary of the financials and the numbers, and we now open the floor for questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star then one on their touch-tone 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 questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We take the first question from the line of Gaurav Jogani from JM Financial. Please proceed. Yeah. Hi. Thank you for taking my question and congratulations on a strong set of numbers. My first question is with regards to this new pilot that you have mentioned regarding this procurement plan with a leaner credit from the vendors. If you can, sir, elaborate more on this and how much of this benefit during this quarter in the gross margin were because of the pilot project that you did? Yeah, so there has been a margin improvement and predominantly major reason like what you said is because of this pilot project. Tough to quantify. Yes, there has been some improvement because of that and the margin improvement. We should not give full credit only for that pilot project which was implemented. There has been revenue from platinum, silver, etc., where the margins were on a higher side, predominantly because of the metal price movement. Silver and platinum revenue comes approximately to 2.5% of our revenue, wherein the margins were higher. That plus the pilot, which we did, both together actually helped to increase our margins. Of course, EBITDA margins, if you are mentioning, some operating leverage also was at EBITDA level. Let me just, you know, wanted to know that, you know, because you have done this pilot, how are you planning to take this ahead and how is the impact of this would be on the overall working capital cycle? Because if we are planning to pay the vendors bit earlier in lieu of some discounts, how this can have an impact on the overall working capital cycle for us. Yeah, so this pilot was actually done because we wanted to implement this from day one in the regional brand, which we are going to launch shortly, maybe before this calendar year. We want to go in that direction in terms of procurement for the regional brand. The pilot was also done to exactly know the savings, cost efficiencies which can happen if we do a linear credit arrangement with the vendors, which was successfully done now to make it implemented in Kalyan Jewellers fully. It is again a big project and we were just trying to plan how to implement it at Kalyan Jewellers. If that is implemented, yes, there is going to be meaningful increase in the gross margin. That is what we are trying to target. Example, the pilot project that we rean, the ROCE for the capital that we allocated for the project was actually higher than the corporate ROCE as of now. Okay, okay, okay. S hare any timelines you would like to share that by what time this project can be implemented on that at the Kalyan Jewellers level? First, we will do it from day one in the regional brand. The regional brand launch is where we are going to do it from day one fully. That should come before the calendar year. During that time, we will give you an overview about how we are going to do with Kalyan and the timelines, etc. Sorry. The pilot which we did will continue so that you can have some margin improvement because of that for the full year. To expand that pilot project, we will need to give you some more time because we will have to implement that in the regional brand which we are going to launch and then start implementing at Kalyan. It's a big project, so you'll have to give me some more time for us to come back on the timeline. Sure. On second on this regional brand strategy, can you elaborate more? Will this be under the Kalyan Jewellers brand or the brands in each of the regions would be different? How the strategy would be here? The target is to be completely regional. There will be a new company which will be formed, which will be having multiple brands, and each brand will be in a particular state. It will be very regionalized by its name, by its inventory, by its campaigning, positioning, etc. That is how we are going to do it in this new subsidiary where we will have multiple regional brands. The first regional brand we will be launching before this calendar year, and we will launch the other regional brands only once this gets stabilized. For this year, we have plans only to launch one regional brand in a particular state. Post that getting stabilized, then only we will go to the next video. Let me just ask one thing here. Would this brand be purchased or you, I mean you'll be creating this now? We will not. It's not inorganic. We will create the brand. Okay. Okay. Lastly, you also mentioned in your opening remarks about the pause for debt reduction. The debt reduction pause would be largely because of the funds that will be utilized in this pilot project or the project towards the new brand as well as on the cross margin improvement initiative. That is the reason? The reasons are mainly because we were looking at a situation where we want to start the documentation with the banks to bring out the collaterals for the reduced loan which we have already done, which is now on track. Now we want to take a pause so that we can wait for that collateral to come out in between. We will use the cash generated in this financial year predominantly for the pilot project which we have done. We have implemented already. We have used all available resources for this pilot project and future also for the new brand. It will be a multiple of what you call. It will be equity. Also it will be debt. Also we might raise some debt also for that company in the subsidiary. Okay. Okay. I'll come back in the queue for more questions. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jham from HSBC Securities. Please proceed. Yes, sir. Good evening and congratulations. First question on this, just a term that you're speaking. Just to understand, right, we are implementing this first in Kalyan. If it works, right, then we plan to roll it out with the regional brands. Only after it works with the regional brand do we plan to take the entire Kalyan model on this linear credit period. Is that the right understanding of the timelines? The pilot project, it's already implemented at Kalyan. We already started by maybe March last year. This full quarter, April, May, June, we actually did the pilot project at Kalyan. Now we will implement it fully from day one in the new regional brand. Once that is launched, we will take initiatives to launch it fully at Kalyan. In this quarter, I'm guessing approximately, say, a small proportion of our procurement in Kalyan would have been done via the linear credit model. Is that the right understanding? Yeah. Would it be possible to share what was the ballpark proportion of the procurement that was done in this model? Yeah, the capital allocated for this pilot project. The ROCEs were actually higher than our corporate ROCEs. As I said, all the resources available with us actually we utilize for this pilot project. Got that. You said that the implementation of this module will lead to an improvement in the overall ROCE profile. Generally, sometimes you've seen that while margins improve by extending period paying off lean, eventually it seemed to be a rosary drag with some other companies who've implemented this. In our case, we are saying that the ROCE will also improve despite the increase in working capital. Yes. The ROCE actually for the pilot project which we invested was higher than our corporate ROCE. Understood. Because the balance sheet for this quarter is not visible, if we had to implement this across the entire Kalyan network, what would be the increase in working capital or fund that would be required? Lean credit means it's not completely out of credit. There will be a drop in payability w hich would then. Yeah, this might need around INR 1,500crore-INR 2,000 crore. INR 1,500 crore- INR 2,000 crore. Sure. Yeah. Whether it can be done on faces, whether it can be done together, the structure of how to bring in the capital, etc. That's why I wanted to take some time, and we are still working on it from day, but we will adapt this in our new formats. Got that? The second question was on the new subsidiary that we are launching. There also, as you said, the first pilot will be one state this year, and depending on how that progresses, you will move to the next year. Is there any thought on what could be, say, the requirement of capital, how many ballpark stores we are thinking of launching in each state? I just want to understand that along with this in terms of the capital requirement for the next few years. That is where the question is going to. I understand. For that, what we are trying to do is that we will be opening only in one state for the next 12 months and we will open only five showrooms. That is the target for the next 12 months. Initially, we might need INR 300 crore of working capital. After that, expansion for that format is again FOCO. We don't need additional capital there. Understood. It will be the initial model and then you move to the FOCO model like. Exactly. Last question, I'll come back on the queue that we've obviously managed to deliver a strong SSG this quarter despite gold prices being elevated at least for the most part of June. Now for the month of July also we've seen that gold has not seen any sort of cool off. If you could just comment on how the demand trends there have been and is there a case being built that in case there is a reduction in gold prices you feel there is a lot of pent up demand where you can see a strong comeback in growth in the ensuing quarters in case gold corrects. Yeah. Last, even when the gold prices were high, our SSGs were what, 18% in the last quarter. There is no pile up demand wherein because we were at 18% SSG in the last quarter. That's what we have to understand. The revenue moves from week to week or month to month depending upon the volatility in gold price. When the gold price is too high and when it is very volatile, people take a pause and see where it gets settled down and then come back to shop. Marriages cannot be postponed because the price was high. There is no pent up demand which can come because the gold price comes down. If you talk about July, July started up good. First two, three weeks are good. Last week, August first week and July last week, it is not actually comparable to last year because there was a higher base in the last financial year because of the customs duty reduction. Footfalls are still strong like July. First, second week. The only thing is July last week and August first week when compared to last year, the base is very high in the last year. We think that quarter should be okay because this year we should get around, what, nine- 10 days of festive. Divine. Navaratri starts in this quarter itself. Understood, sir. This is very clear. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Harsh Shah from Bandhan AMC. Please proceed. Yeah. Hi sir, thanks for taking my question. I'm sorry I just joined a bit late in the call. With this is, I wanted to understand this pilot, this new pilot a bit more. Are we essentially saying that we are also going into backward integration? I mean, will we also replace the likes of Emerald or so, or how does it work basically in terms of this new localized valley from that point of view? No. Backward integration is actually, if I want to make it very clear, a three-step process. Step number one is to do this linear credit period kind of planning for our vendors. That is step number one. Step number two, what we will ideally do is actually make a hub for all our contract manufacturers, like a jewellery park, for which we have already procured land in our hometown, Thrissur, Kerala, from the Kerala Government. The Kerala Government has allocated land for us where we will actually bring in all our south contract manufacturers. It will not be a margin driver but more of an efficiency driver, and again, younger generation to come in, etc., because facilities will be there. It will have more infrastructure facilities where youngsters will also be motivated to come and join their family business, etc. Third step is what you are telling is manufacturing. That will be the third step, which will mean it's not going to be in the near future. Our near future will be lean credit period, cost efficiency, margin increase. In the second step, sir, which you mentioned as in the line which you purchased and the jewellery park which you are intending to set up there, basically you are saying that whatever contract manufacturer guys you work, you would want them to kind of. We will facilitate that. We will facilitate them to come and work at our infrastructure so that the facilities are good. They can also grow more along with us. It will be an inspiration for the younger generation also to join them and it is actually an initiative for them to grow their business again along with us because they don't have to invest on infrastructure, they don't have to invest on it, they don't have to invest on anything else. We will identify such vendors who want to grow with us, and then we will park them in our hub. Okay. Okay. These hubs are big. It has the requirements of one state or the south market initially. We are now planning for a predominantly Kerala but south market. Basically, let's say in 12 months' time, I mean indicatively 24 months' time, you would probably have the entire South market covered by this house. Not the entire, but yeah, yeah. Majority house is what we target because south itself comes with different products like south. Maybe the precious stone vendors might not come to Kerala. It is not fully south but predominantly south. Okay. When you are facilitating them in the infrastructure, etc., would you not kind of even cut down on the margins which you give to them? Let's say if you are at 6%- 8% margins, let's see if you give to them, would you not kind of now come down to 5%? Yeah, there will be an OpEx also there. No. That will not be a major margin driver. Margin driver will be the number one and three. One being the first step which we will take. The primary focus is there, the linear credit period. Then it will be the step three wherein we go to manufacturing. Step two, more than margin efficiency, it will bring more efficiency on the turnaround of the inventory, that will be the focus there. Okay, when would you go to step three, sir, in terms of manufacturing? Because at one side you are calling your partners and asking them to work with you, and then your next step is basically to take their own business, right? No. Step two is for contract manufacturers who are very small today, wherein they will have only five workers, 10 workers, etc. Those products they are making for us in our premise. We already are dealing with them as contract manufacturers only. Got it. Three is for manufacturing products, which we are now procuring from wholesalers or manufacturers. Step three is basically where the likes of Emerald etc. where you kind of work with, we kind of take it in house. I didn't get you there. Can you repeat the question? Step three is basically when you work with vendors like big vendors like Emerald, etc., is what you want to take in house. Yeah, I don't want to name anybody, but there's a step three where we will actually do something where we procure products from manufacturers, slash wholesalers. Okay. Our primary, I repeat, the near future target is not that near future target is linear. Okay. What could you? I just joined a bit late. Could you explain this linear credit period in detail? Can you help me with that? Here at Kalyan, we have two formats today: Kalyan Jewellers and Candere. Correct. We want to enter into the third format wherein it will house regional brands. The brands will be specifically created for that particular region. That is the third format which we want to create. In that basket of brands, the first regional brand we want to launch before this calendar year. Okay. In between that, what we there. The procurement. The procurement pattern also need a leaner credit period in those regional brands for which we wanted to try a pilot in Kalyan Jewellers initially before bringing it to our new regional brand. We started that pilot project by, say, February in the last financial year for Kalyan. Of course, this quarter we got fully at Kalyan. What we. What the, The takeaway is that the capital allocated for this pilot project, the ROCE, were actually higher than our corporate ROCE. Now. [crosstalk] Okay, got it. You're saying the plan is now. Sorry, Mr. Harsh. Yeah. The plan is now to execute it fully. That's it. For which we will give a detailed, it's a big plan. Right. We will come back with a solid plan as to how to implement it. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Before we proceed with the next question, a reminder to the participants that you may press star and one in order to ask a question. Also, again, a reminder to the participants that please limit your questions to two per participant as there are several participants waiting for their turn. The next question is from the line of Ashish Kanodia from Citigroup. Please proceed. Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Ramesh, the first question is on this lean credit period, right. How does it change the sourcing in terms of GML? Will, you know, once you kind of implement it across Kalyan Jewellers, will the GML contribution go down meaningfully from here? No, no, no. There is nothing that does not relate to gold metal loan at all. You would have noticed that our payables are usually in the range of 30- 35 days. Payable days, which we will have to bring down by at least by 1/3. That's what we did as a pilot and we saw a very good margin increase. Cost efficiency was very high that we want to adapt at full in Kalyan Jewellers. This does not relate to gold metal loan. Gold metal loan, in fact, we have already taken it to the September 11th. Got it. Secondly, on the regional brand strategy, within Kalyan you already have been doing the hyperlocal strategy. We can see that in how you have expanded in the non-south region. When you look at the launch of this regional brand, what is the rationale? You already have something which is doing a hyperlocal strategy. How should we also think about the brand pool? When you do marketing branding, it's under one umbrella, one brand. How do you create the brand pool specifically when you are competing against a regional brand in most of this micro market? This regional brand has a very strong brand pool. Third question related to the regional brand strategies, how should we think about the margins here? A lot of this regional brand basically caters to the staple product, which is anyways much lower gross margin product. These three on the regional brand strategy. Yeah, so three things. One is yes, we are a hyperlocal brand where Kalyan, you know that 30% inventory we keep hyperlocal products. That is actually a way to drive what you call business to Kalyan, right? We actually target customers who are today with regional brands, but they are a bit aspirational. It is an enabler. The 30% hyperlocal inventory is an enabler to target aspirational regional brands, regional customers. Now, coming to regional, the 100% regional brand, it is only, it will be only having those regional products. It will talk to regional customers who are not aspirational. They are very happy with the regional player today. They don't have any immediate aspirations to move up the ladder. You know that even today we have 60% revenue from the unorganized segment who are ramping up to organized players. The first step will be to go to a regional player and then to people like Kalyan. We wanted to be there. That is about the strategy. We see a huge vacuum also there. That is about the brand strategy. If you look at the margin, yes, you are right, the gross margins are lower. It will be almost what Kalyan was in, say, 2010, wherein we were actually a regional brand at that point in time. The stock turns are higher. ROCE for that business, I think what will be in the range of 18%- 20%. That's how the model is created. Got it. Just last bit is on the EBITDA margin this quarter, right? I mean given the FOCO model, normally we should have seen a EBITDA margin contraction, but while gross margin has contracted, there's a decent bit of EBITDA margin expansion which we have seen this quarter. When you talk about the operating leverage part, if growth continues to remain broadly similar to what we have seen in this quarter, plus minus here and there, is it fair to say that we should continue to see operating leverage given that the base is already becoming strong? Even if I look at the share of franchisee revenue, it's almost very similar to what it was last quarter. From a EBITDA, I understand gross margin may still remain kind of continue to go down, but on a EBITDA margin level, how should we think about on a full year basis? Yeah. Operating leverage will surely continue and the margins have come down again like you said year-over-year, that is largely because of the higher share of franchise revenue. Yes, the impact has been partially negated this quarter by margin gains from the pilot procurement project that I mentioned now, then higher gross margins in platinum jewellery and silver jewellery are also there over and above the operating leverage when it comes to EBITDA level. It should continue. The pilot will continue, operating leverage will continue, but the revenue or the gross margin increase from platinum jewellery and silver jewellery we are not sure, wherein it depends upon where the price is. Sure, that's helpful. Just, last question was on the collateral part. Mr. Ashish, I would request you to go back to the queue, as there are several participants waiting for their turn. Sure, thank you. Thank you so much, sir. Before I proceed with the next question, a reminder to the participants: I would request you to please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from the line of [Subhanu from Three Eight Capital]. Please proceed. Hello sir, am I audible? Yes, yes, I can hear you. My first question is what is your demand tax return from upcoming festival? Can we expect a better performance than last year? Demand expectation, I told you that July was good, first two, three weeks, and now it's not comparable over the last two weeks because the base was very high. We also have the first few days of 89; last year it was, there was no 50 days because October 2nd only Shradh got ended. I think partially the customs duty impact should be negated by that, so we are very upbeat and fully prepared. Okay. Understood. My second question is are you seeing any type of footfall slowdown in tier three and positive. Nothing. Nothing. Okay. Understood. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dhiraj Mistry from ICICI Securities. Please proceed. Yeah. Hi. Good evening, sir. Very good set of. One thing I wanted to know is that when I compare Titan margin versus our margin and when we see the studded ratio, despite having higher studded ratio, our EBITDA margin is quite low compared to the Titan's. What are the reasons for that? This has two meanings. If you look at Kalyan Jewellers India Limited, split it into two, own store revenue, approximately 35% revenue only comes from the non-South markets. 65% comes from South. All of us know that the margins are only in the range of 13%. Non-South, the margins are in the range of 20%+, which might not be the case for the competitor which you mentioned. In terms of South and non-South mix, which I don't know, what we think is that it might not be that ratio, right, because we were born from the South. Now, come to franchisee revenue. Franchisee comes with almost half the margin, because we have only 8% margin in franchise. The last three years we have been entirely growing through the FOCO model. Now, the FOCO model revenue share is around 43% as of June. These are the major two reasons for you to have a lesser gross margin or EBITDA margin when compared to the player whom you mentioned. Got it. Got it, sir. Last time when you highlighted there was like a peak GML interest rate was there. Where are we right now? Is it back to the normal GML rate or again with the margin improvement trajectory? Is there any backward integration apart from what you mentioned you are trying to achieve to improve your EBITDA margin going ahead? That would be my last question. Yeah. GML levels are back to what September levels. Interest rates have come down to 4%. That's also almost back. What did you ask about backward integration? I just explained. Backward integration, I would actually do it in three steps. If you mean that backward integration is manufacturing, manufacturing will not be there in the near term. Our primary focus for the near term will be to do a linear credit for vendors, which will have a huge cost benefit. Already the pilot is done and successfully over. Two will be the jewellery park, which I've mentioned. That will not be a margin driver. Sir? That will be an efficiency driver. The third will be the manufacturing, but that's not there in the near term. Got it. Got it. Thank you. That's it from my side. Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Pallavi Deshpande from Sameeksha. Please proceed. Yes, thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to understand on this jewellery park and related to that, what percentage of our sourcing right now would be from non-corporate vendors? That would be my first question. Yes. For now, we deal with contract manufacturers. Okay. Predominantly what are studded, for example diamond, uncut, precious, Polki. Those are all coming from what you call organized manufacturers. Even within gold we have certain products which come from only organized manufacturers. Now our focus is on bringing the south based small vendors who are ready to work exclusively with us and grow along with us. We want to move them to the park, the manufacturing park which we are trying to create in Thrissur, our hometown. They would work on even the studded and the non-studded, that's right. Predominantly plain gold, yes, some of the studded. My second question would be on that advertising, marketing spend, what was it for this quarter, and was it similar last year, s ame quarter? There have been some leverage there because of the revenue growth. Right. Lastly, in terms of this vendor strategy for the south, that would not impact any of your current contract or organized contract manufacturers, as we could see an impact on those. Even within the contract manufacturer, the pilot, what we did was we, on a particular SKU, reduced the number of contract manufacturers and gave them more work. Okay. We asked them for a better pricing. That was what we did for our regionalized contract manufacturer. The pilot project is a mix of all those. Thank you, sir. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ali asgar Shakir from Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund. Please proceed. Yeah, thanks a lot for the opportunity. Hi Ramesh. I just wanted to follow up on this question. Sorry, this point you made regarding the vendor, you know, credit lines. Can you just elaborate and what exactly we're doing there and what kind of margin improvement that can bring? As I told you, wherein we did the pilot, we could use the available resources which we have to implement that. The pilot project, the amount invested, if you look at the return on capital, it was more than our corporate EBITDA in India. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, more than that I think it is too early for me to share. Got it. What you're saying is that this pilot will now be expanded to a larger vendor base, basically. Yeah. Now it is ready to surely start in the regional brand from day one because the pilot is done and we know exactly the working, how it works, etc. To do it across Kalyan Jewellers, it needs a lot of planning because it needs INR 1,500 crore-INR 2,000 crore. We have to make the funds ready, partial or full or how, etc. Whether it is debt, whether it is funding, whether it is equity, whether it is partial, whether it is full. There is no clarity as we speak now. We will decide over the next quarter or next couple of quarters and we will come back with a clear plan as to what we intend to do. The only takeaway is that the additional capital which we invested for this pilot fetched good, ROCE. Understood. Basically, you are reducing the credit lines that the vendors are providing, which is kind of a margin as well as ROCE accretive. That's the point you're seeing. Yeah, yeah. ROCE, accretive for sure. If ROCE is accretive, then margin is going to surely go up because meaning that's going to come to the bottom line. Understood, got it. Can you just tell me right now what is the credit we take from vendors? It depends upon. It's not a very vanilla easy question wherein gold comes with separate terms. Within gold, certain products in gold come with separate terms. Precious stone comes with separate terms. Diamond again comes with separate terms. On average, the period of credit is around 30- 33 days. 30- 33 days. Got it, got it. Understood. I mean from 30- 33 days, whatever we are taking credit lines, generally what is the markup increase that happens because of that? Any broad idea? Again, it depends upon product to product. Standard comes with a higher markup, gold comes with a lesser markup. Tough to explain on a call. The only limited point I want to again reassure is that if capital is invested in that region, what we did in the pilot, the returns, the ROCEs are higher than our company, ROCE, India. Understood, got it. This is very clear. Thank you, thank you so much for that elaborate experience. Thank you. The next question is from the line of [Darshil Zaveri] from Crown Capital. Please proceed. Hello. Good evening, sir. Thank you so much for taking my question. Firstly, congratulations on a great set of results. A lot of my questions have been already answered. I just wanted to know, we had a fantastic Q1. Will we be able to continue this momentum in terms of growth of over 30% and a PBT of around 5% in the coming quarters as well? What's our overall guidance for PBT this year? As of cloud demand looks robust. I told you the last couple of weeks cannot be compared because it had a larger base, meaning heavier base in the last financial year. We don't see anything which can change when compared to Q1. We are actually very positive on this quarter as well. PBT should be upper side of 5%. India. Okay, yeah, fair, yeah. India, India, India only. I just wanted to know in terms of the Middle East, how is the market, you know, moving out there, sir? Is there a possibility of exporting more from the Middle East or how does it work out there, sir? If you look at the demand side, very strong. You look at Q1, the growth was around 27% predominantly SSG and the jewelry is also very strong and we had actually achieved this 27% predominantly because of renovating certain stores, relocating certain stores, around 78 showrooms in the last 6-12 months and even in July the demand is very strong. Now coming to export. No, we don't export as we speak. We don't have export at all. We don't even export to our own stores as we speak, even from India or from at least. Okay, fair enough sir. I just wanted to know, like our third, you know, format launch. What kind of investment are we going to be making in that in this current year, and how would that scale up? The initial investment for that regional brand will be in the range of INR 300 crore. We will open around five showrooms in the next 12 months for that regional brand. After that, it will be a FOCO model. It will be completely because we now sit with a lot of franchisees who want to come on board with Kalyan, and if they, that model should really work because stock turns are higher even though the margins are lesser. The ROCEs are good, 18%, 20% in our model. I think the franchisee expansion will be the way forward for that regional brand. We wanted to do our own store, at least four or five with that regional brand before we gave it to franchisees. We already have indicated to some of our existing franchise, and we are getting positive feedback, but we don't want to test out with them because it's a new brand. We will launch the first five and then maybe even convert so that with that money we can open the next digital brand. Okay. For five stores, INR 300 crore CapEx. INR 300 crore CapEx will be on par or is it a bit higher side? I just wanted to get an idea, like what does the INR 300 crore CapEx also include? Predominantly it is inventory only. You know that jewelry showroom, the initial one, first of all will be flagship for the brand. We cannot go for a small format, and investments are predominantly in inventory. Fair enough, sir. In terms of payback, like whatever kind of something that we are modeling, the first, I'm assuming the first year would be similar to Candere and it will take time to, you know, grow its profitability. What is our expectations from this branch? Here it is unlike Candere because Candere, you should understand that we were meaning it. It was an evolving segment. It was not an evolved segment where Candere was entering. This segment we are entering is already evolved over here. Kalyan as a brand was also same 15 years before; we actually came out from that positioning to a pan India to more standard, higher margin, etc. This is not going to take time like Candere because Candere was an online platform where we had to pump in a lot of money on technology, manpower, etc., which was not our usual cup of cake. Here, the first year itself, it will be path positive. Okay. That's really helpful to know, sir. Yeah, that's it from my side. Thank you. Thank you so much. All the best. Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Naveen Trivedi from Motilal Oswal. Please proceed. Just one question from my side. How should we look at the India business ad spend? Considering first quarter we have seen more slightish kind of span, how should we look at it for the full year? The ad you are asking? Y eah. India? Correct, sir. Yeah. It should be in the range of Q1. Yeah, 1.5% meaning 1.5% range. Okay. Last year we spent close to 1.8%. We are saying this year we should take it more like 1.4%. 1.2%. Yeah. Yeah. Operating leverage will also step in for ad also. No. It will be in the range of what? 1.5%. Okay. Does it mean that as an absolute number, which last year we spent close to INR 400 crore, it looks to us that given the size of the business, absolute number already has reached to a level where we can keep capitalizing on the business growth. I think absolute number. There can be a bit of a growth, but it will not grow with revenue to add some amount because inflation, you know, is there in all the sectors. Perfect. That's all for myself. Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Aditya Sharma from Shikara Investment. Please proceed. Hi sir, thanks for the opportunity. Two questions from my end. One, how is the pickup in the non South geography? The question is stemming from the SSG. The non South geography is doing 16% while SSG for South is 20%. I'm kind of surprised how matured region is doing better SSG than non mature stores, as the last part of the store expansion was happening in non South. Could you just highlight on that? Yeah. If you look at the last three or four quarters, it has been like that. Some quarters south will grow more than non-south. Certain quarters non-south will grow more than south. Even in matured stores, SSDs are strong because you know that the shift from unorganized to organized is increasing every year. Once a customer comes into Kalyan, then it's like a lifetime. They keep on coming to Kalyan. The brand is also getting popular day by day because we are expanding. These are all the reasons. Okay. Second question would be can you throw some light on Candere? How the brand acceptance is taking place? How the unit you are exploring, the store shaping up? What are the plans for the brand? Basically, so Candere, the only the. Because we had increased our footprint and then we started our campaign. Campaign acceptance is good. We see huge traction at the store level. The revenue uptick for June July has been in the range of 75%+ at the store level. Of course, the base was low because Candere was low revenue arm for us. We see high positivity at the store level, and Candere will end PAT positive neutral by the end of the financial year. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Bhavya Gandhi from Dalal & Broacha Stock Broking. Please proceed. Yeah. Hi. Congratulations on a very good set of numbers. First question is regarding the leaner payable day. What would be the payable days? You mentioned it's currently around 30 to 33 days. With the leaner structure, what would b e number like? One third of which maybe 10 days. That's what we are. That's what we did for a pilot. Right. For an incremental 10 days, with the size that we operate, do we really require incremental 20 days also? Yes, 23 days. Is it not possible to, sorry to use this word, but squeeze our vendors? With the size that we operate, we can even do that, right? I mean, we can extend the payable. We believe every vendor wants to work with us, right? Everyone has a cost of capital, right? Everyone has to make money and we are here for the long run. More than all that, we have to go and talk about the reality. We did the pilot, the credit period, we brought it down to 1/3. We got a huge cost efficiency there. It's a win-win solution. Why go to that direction? Okay. Okay. Is this pilot project and the regional branch strategy two different strategies or are they a part of one strategy? I slightly got confused on that front. If you can show somebody, it is actually two strategies. For the regional brand, we have to have this linear because regional brands usually go with more price-oriented, what you call customer base, wherein we will have to get the inventory at the maximum cost efficiency possible. We wanted to do that for the regional brand from day one, for which we wanted to do a pilot because we want to start it at the new brand. When we did the pilot, we could again reassure that the cost efficiency is very high, that we have to adapt it in Kalyan and we see high returns. If we do it in Kalyan fully, we thought we should work it better in Kalyan. Sir, in a friend, what would be the in-house versus third-party procurement at this point in time, or everything is third-party procurement? Yeah, mostly because we work with contract manufacturers. No, we don't have own manufacturing at all. In India. Right. What would be the total debt figure that one should work out with for 2026, 2027, and 2028? I will give you clarity, because now I told you we are taking a pause on the debt, and we are waiting for the collateral to come out. If the collateral comes out, say next month, we might again start the next set of repayment. Give us some more time because there are multiple projects going on. We might need some capital for our new project, wherein we are trying to get exposure in the new project itself. Worst case scenario, if the new project is we are not able to get exposure, we might have used the buffer which is there in Kalyan to open the regional brand there. When we meet again, I will have a better answer is what I believe. Fair enough, sir. One last question if I can squeeze in, sir, very broad level question, sir. Organized has already reached 40% of the market share. How? Even in the mature markets, I mean penetrating beyond 50%, 60% is difficult even for organized players. There will always be a certain component of unorganized. On a maybe five year view, do you still believe that there is shift that will continue or largely the shift has already been taken place? We believe that it will be a 100% organized segment in the next five years. Oh, okay. It does not mean that today's all unorganized people will close their stores and everyone will come to customers will come to people like Kalyan. When I say 100% is because we still believe that the unorganized segment will convert to organized themselves. There are shopkeepers who were very unorganized maybe five, seven years before. Now they are a semi organized business today. People in India will do business, they cannot go out of their vision. Even if it becomes fully organized that way, unfair practices will not be there. Unfair advantages will not be there, which is good for brands like Kalyan. Fair enough. Got it. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Yeah, that's it from my end. Thank you. Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Pallavi Deshpande from Sameeksha. Please proceed. Yes, you mentioned about the platinum and silver. I wanted to know what would be the share of non 22 K gold in the revenue mix and what was it larger? Oh, non 22 K is a bit of a meaning because the diamond completely almost comes non 22K. Uncut, precious, etc. comes with 22K. Now, some states in India, especially Bihar, UP, etc., the 18 K revenues are almost maybe 40% of the total gold revenue. We as a brand are also trying to push 18 K in other states because it will be easier for us to play in the ticket size, etc., because of the high gold price inflation over the last one or two years. Very tough to tell you exactly about 18 K revenue share. Correct. My second question would be just on the previous one, when you mentioned about organized share. Right. Going to 100. If I want to look at organized as players who have a chain in more than one state, if I do that kind of a classification, then what would be the share of organized in the next five years? Yeah, so. That calculation is a bit weird. No. You can even have a single shopkeeper be an organized player. That should be the reality. Right. You cannot expect everybody to have multiple showrooms and bucket. That has organized. Organized. I'm bucketing it because the organized guys get an advantage of shifting inventory from one place to one state if it doesn't work here to that state. That's an advantage, r ight? That's not an advantage. It's not. Meaning you cannot simply product from showroom to showroom, because that means that there's some issue with the planning. That is not going to be the major driving factor for jewelry showroom success. Even now, as we speak, we have seen single jewelry showrooms. I don't want to name the brand who competes more than other regional players in particular towns, because if they do things right in their particular town, it is very tough to compete then. Right. What would be the share of old gold in exchange in your total r evenue? We will, y ou should look at B2C. It's [2025]. Right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we take that as the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Ramesh Kalyanaraman, sir, for closing comments. Over to you, sir. Thank you very much, and hope to see you soon again. Thank you very much. On behalf of Kalyan Jewellers India Limited. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your line.