Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Marico Limited Q3 FY 2025 earnings call. We have with us the Senior Management of Marico, represented by Mr. Saugata Gupta, MD and CEO, and Mr. Pawan Agrawal, CFO. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that the Q&A session is only for institutional investors and analysts, and therefore, if there is anybody else who is not an institutional investor or analyst but would like to ask questions, please directly reach out to Marico's investor relations team. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Saugata Gupta for his opening comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Yeah, hi everyone, and all those who have joined the call, and my best wishes to all of you for a very happy and prosperous 2025. I would like to begin by sharing a perspective on the operating environment during the quarter, followed by our performance and the strategic objectives going forward. The FMCG sector exhibited reasonably steady demand sentiment during the quarter. Retail and food inflation were at elevated levels but showed some signs of easing in December. Urban demand remained stable yet soft on a sequential basis, whereas rural continued to witness improvement, growing at 2X of urban on a year-on-year basis for the third consecutive quarter. Resultantly, HPC categories continued to outperform packaged food on a year-on-year basis. Continued government schemes, rising MSPs, and a favorable crop season bode well for the ongoing rural recovery. In urban, consumption sentiment remained reasonably stable and healthy among the affluent and upper-middle-class segments, while middle and bottom-of-pyramid segments appeared relatively subdued by inflation and slow wage growth. Pricing growth across categories was up sequentially as companies implemented pricing hikes to counter margin pressure from the sharp rise in commodity prices. Moving on to our performance, India business posted a sequential uptick in underlying volume growth and a robust high-teens revenue growth. Offtake growth remained healthy, with over 90% of the business gaining or sustaining market share, about 80% of the business either gaining or sustaining penetration, both on a MAT basis. From a channel perspective, alternate channels continued to drive growth and gain salience. The GT channel has been seeing prolonged sluggishness due to the evolving interchannel dynamics, conflict, and shifting consumer behavior. While the share of alternate channels has been on the rise in tier-one markets, we believe GT will continue to be a relevant and dominant channel, especially in tier-two markets and beyond. We will continue our focus on driving differential growth in our urban-centric and premium portfolios through the organized retail and e-commerce channels. Therefore, we will aim to deliver consistent and competitive growth in the medium term through a sharper and more targeted portfolio and expansion strategy in each channel. Delving into the domestic business, I will now touch upon the key trends in each of our categories. Parachute posted a resilient performance despite steep input and pricing increases, observing a circa 1% volume impact due to mL reduction in one of the price point packs. The brand maintained its stronghold through market share and penetration gains. We have taken another round of price hikes towards the end of Q3, as forecasts suggest copra prices to remain firm in the near term. We'll closely monitor consumption trends with this high pricing and the transient impact of inflation on price point packs in the near term, given the persistently inflationary market conditions which are expected to improve soon. Saffola Edible Oils also demonstrated stability despite significant price hikes over the past few months, driven by the import duty hike. We expect the brand to remain steady unless there is significant volatility in vegetable oil prices. Value-added hair oils, while subdued, recovered sequentially and maintained an upward trajectory in market share. Excluding the bottom-of-pyramid segment, where we are facing unreasonable competition, the portfolio delivered 3% growth, which is in line with overall BPC categories. We'll continue to reinforce our market leadership through strategically increasing ATL spends and focusing on growth in the mid and premium segments while gradually improving rural sentiment, which is likely to support consumption in this category. Food business scaled up to around INR 1,000 crore ARR in Q3, which was underpinned by broad-based growth in the core and the new franchises. We would recall in 2020, we had taken this aspiration of developing a INR 1,000 crore food portfolio when we have finally reached there. Saffola Oats delivered double-digit growth and maintained its position as the number one brand in the oats category. True Elements and Plix plant-based nutrition portfolio also scaled up well. Following the substantial expansion in gross margin last year, we expect gradual improvement in the profitability of the food portfolio as we build scale in the medium term. The premium personal care portfolio performed well in line with expectations. The digital-first portfolio scaled ahead of expectations, reached INR 600 crore in ARR in Q3. Beardo is on track to deliver double-digit EBITDA margins, reinforcing the long-term focus towards driving consistent growth and improvement in profitability in the medium term. We maintain our aspirations to achieve double-digit EBITDA margins with digital-first portfolio by FY 2027. The composite revenue share of foods and premium personal care, including digital-first brands in the domestic business, stood higher at 21% in nine months FY 2025, despite significant pricing growth in the core portfolios. These businesses are now clocking a combined ARR of around INR 1,900 crores and represent a phenomenal shift in the growth trajectory and the potential of the India business in the future. This is a testament to the tremendous conviction, capability-building effort, and strategic investments made over the past four years. Further, a notable improvement in profitability of these businesses over the last couple of years reinforces our focus on driving sustainable diversification in the medium term. The international business sustained its double-digit constant currency growth momentum. The businesses continued to chart a resilient top line and profitability performance despite the impact of currency headwinds in key markets. Currency headwinds had a 2% impact on consolidated EBITDA this quarter. The Bangladesh business delivered a robust growth and continued to demonstrate its competitive moat even amidst the challenging macro environment. MENA delivered strong growth and aggressive market share gains across both the Gulf and Egypt markets. South Africa has been a consistent performer as well. Southeast Asia was muted due to a tepid consumption environment in Vietnam and geopolitical issues in Myanmar. The new country development or exports market has been scaling up healthily as well. We are confident of maintaining the strong double-digit constant currency growth trajectory in international markets and gradually unlocking the margin upside through scale benefits in the medium term. To sum up, both domestic and consolidated revenue growth, along with the underlying India volume growth, reached a 13-quarter high amidst the challenging inflationary environment. The international business has also sustained its double-digit constant currency growth momentum. We are on track to achieve double-digit consolidated revenue growth for the full year. As a result, we are well-positioned to meet our aspiration across most key performance metrics set at the start of the year, alongside our strategic diversification goals in both India and international markets. While input inflation has been higher than expected, this has put some transient pressure on profitability. As far as copra is concerned, it follows an 18-24-month cycle, and we are nearing the end of the inflationary cycle. Prices are expected to cool down once the flush season resumes from early Q1 FY 2026. However, the gains will come to us with some lag since we maintain some level of position at current levels as well. That being said, our ability to take pricing and Parachute ongoing cost management initiatives and the scale-up of foods and digital-first businesses in India, as well as MENA and South African international business, enables us to contain the impact. We remain committed to achieving top-quartile volume growth in the India business and double-digit consolidated revenue growth in the near and medium term, as well as double-digit constant currency growth in the international business. One of the things we have managed to do reasonably well is our ability to anticipate an opportunity or a threat and be ahead of the curve. You will recall, first, we called out and addressed the interchannel conflict in India as early as 2019-2020, as well as the GT stress and the need to support the distributor ROI four to five quarters ago. Recognizing the early signs of stress in GT, we chose to proactively invest and adopt a measured and structural approach to address the issues. It included actions such as segregating SKUs across channels, implementing a minimum operating price, and alleviating our strain on our partners by reducing working capital pressure. In addition, Project Setu has extended into 11 states now. We expect the results of the initiatives to revive GT growth, to reflect in our performance over the coming quarters while the improving consumption trends persist. Secondly, we are one of the very few companies that continue to invest in brand building across input cost cycles, given our strategic intent to continually strengthen the long-term equity of our franchises and accelerate diversification, and we have resisted temptation to manage short-term margins by cutting A&P in a quarter. Thirdly, we anticipated the threat of D2C brands eating into incumbent players' growth as early as 2020, which has happened in some of the developed markets, including the U.S. Similarly, we identified the higher growth potential of foods versus BPC, and we strongly believe that packaged foods over our next medium-term cycle have a higher runway to grow than some of the BPC categories. We therefore initiated an ambitious diversification agenda through aggressive organic and inorganic investments, which has been delivering impactful outcomes. We have also exhibited resilience and grip, which has led to our ability to tackle this slowdown by largely delivering what we have promised, and finally, our vision of being one of the few legacy FMCG companies across the globe to successfully transform itself into a profitable consumer digital company is progressing reasonably well. This has been made possible by our unique M&A strategy, which is a win-win for both of us and the founders, and our learning agility, and our ability to learn from them with humility and seed founder's mentality within our leadership in the process over a three-year period where they earn out. Last but not least, sustainability remains a top priority and integral to our business operations. Our Sustainability 2.0 framework is yielding positive progress across all key focus areas. We are confident that our dedication to creating shared value for all will drive long-term sustainable and differentiated growth. With that, I will now close my comments. Thank you for patiently listening, and we'll now take all your questions. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have the first question from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead. Yeah, congrats on a good set of numbers. My first question is on Plix and True Elements. So if you could tell us in terms of distribution scale-up with respect to these two specific products, how is the scale-up, and in the next one year, how much more can happen? In True Elements, competitive intensity, I think, is quite high. There are a lot of similar kind of companies in both legacy and startups also. So if you could discuss how things are on competitive intensity. And in terms of profitability, how are things spanning versus internal expectations? Okay. So if you ask me, first, let me ask you the last question. I think the cash burn in the business of Plix is profitable, and the burn rate in True Elements is extremely low. Now, coming to the growth expectations, see, one of the things we believe in digital businesses is to have a sustainable, profitable growth trajectory. Given a choice between 60% growth and high cash burn and 25%-30% growth, and having responsibility towards both capital utilization and managing profitable scale-up is the second choice we have taken. And therefore, as long as we deliver that kind of a growth, we would be happy. Now, I think as far as GT is concerned, one of our learnings has been that a lot of so-called D2C or digital brands end up taking costly displays, beauty advisors, putting in all the 200, 300 SKUs, and perhaps after some time offtake doesn't happen, and they have to take the stock back. So we have been, I think, doing a little more focused. For example, in Beardo, we learned that you should only do the hero SKUs, which are six or seven SKUs. Now, in food, obviously, the opportunity for GT is far higher. In the case of Plix, what we are doing also is that we have got some specialty SKUs, like we have a smaller ACV. We have got a coconut powder, which can be added to. So we are creating a portfolio for GT rather than having the same set of products. And also, one other thing that happens is that if you are running in e-com or your own D2C, significant discounts, and then you are not passing on in GT because GT is sold at MRP, those stocks don't sell. So therefore, we have now realized that you need to have a significantly differentiated portfolio. I think you came to. I think you talked about True Elements competition. I think there is enough. I think opportunity and headroom for growth in the markets. The way we look at it is that between Saffola and True Elements, we will occupy different market categories and work together and grow. And there is enough opportunity, and there is enough time in the categories because I think healthy eating or better-for-you products is something which will actually grow in India. Plix, of course, has a huge headroom for growth in some of the formats or some of the places where it can move into. So therefore, we are very excited. We are extremely confident that Plix will hit a 500 crore number very soon. And I think having said that, we are not pushing the digital businesses to do obscene 70%-80% growth and do a cash burn. That is something which we don't want to do. We believe in build-to-last and build businesses which are healthy and sustainable over the long term. One follow-up on Plix. So INR 500 crores very soon. That very soon is FY 2026 or 2027. And second, when you had acquired Plix, clearly very differentiated portfolio and innovative company. Now, what are the SKUs or formats which are working? And in terms of pricing, have you made it more affordable? Because pricing at that time was definitely on the higher side. But with your scale and expansion and overall ability to price it lower, has the pricing become more affordable for the customers? So I think we in GT, we are prototyping certain packs which have a lower MRP because we believe that, I think, lower outlay is important. I think, see, pricing and at the end of the day, in a nutraceutical product, I think we are pretty okay. The question is, of course, that we don't want to. We are not into this one of doing too much discounting because that finally dilutes the equity. It drives commoditization of the category, and ultimately, I think AOV, and we make sure that we have a healthy CM1, which is very, very important for our sustainability of digital businesses. My last question is on the Parachute business. So double-digit price hike. Have the other listed players who are also much smaller in coconut, have they also taken similar pricing? Because I do see them being a bit more aggressive on promotions. And second, coming to the 3% volume growth, two sub-questions here. One is if you could elaborate if that 1% adverse impact on volume, will that continue in Q4 in terms of that pack size change? In terms of the volume growth against 3%, again, rural is it 2x of urban in this category for you? I talked about rural being 2x of urban for the FMCG category, not specifically this one. For us, it's been a little more rural than urban. Now, the second question you asked on the shrinkflation, yes, it will continue because universalization will only happen in Q2, Q3, because Q2, Q3, sometimes in Q2 and Q3. And so that will continue for a couple of quarters. But one of the things that could happen is that, as we said, that we are perhaps on the end of the inflation cycle, and when the deflation comes, we might want to neutralize those shrinkflation but adding volumes back as and when the opportunities arise between Q2 and Q3 this year. One follow-up, Saugata, last one from my side. You did say that in FY 2026, copra could correct. And that's a very fair observation given agri-commodities behave like that normally. After sharp inflation, sharp deflation can happen. My question here is, would you be worried on that because one, price cuts could happen in FY 2027, say, starting FY 2026, say, starting Q2, which means operating deleverage can happen in that part of business? Second is local players also come back. So on these two aspects, what is your thought? I understand currently no one can say kitna deflation hoga. But from a theoretical perspective, how would you fight the deflation issue on the operating deleverage issue and the local players coming back? How will you be able to fight those two? I think two things. One is, as you know, given the MSPs of copra, the downside is not very high. Okay? Secondly, having withstood multiple cycles, I think we have refined our strategy, and we are not particularly concerned about that. I think if I look at the last cycle, we corrected ourselves within one quarter of the volume growth. So I don't think, as I said, that I think after continuing these cycles, we will not be in the past. Yes, I think in 2018 or something, I don't remember, two cycles, we have made some mistakes in terms of not taking proactive price hikes, proactive price drops. We also know how not to keep in terms of the stock covers and all that when the deflation occurs. So I think we are far more refined in this one. And as you know that in terms of the smaller players, broadly, I don't think even during the we are not seeing significant lack of activity or this one even in the inflationary cycle because some of the so-called organized players are also not making money, and you refer to some promotions that some people are giving. But so I don't think the behavior has changed during inflation or deflation of some of the branded competition. Also, just to clarify, earlier we were more conservative about copra prices in terms of taking the pricing correction because the dependence on profitability was far higher. Now, given the structural levers that we have pulled in the last couple of years where we have improved profitability on various fronts, here we'll be more proactive in terms of passing on the benefits to protect the volume and consumer franchise. And therefore, we are not too worried about if the deflation sets in and sets in rapidly, whether it will impact the volume. So we are far more confident at this point in time that we would be able to pass on the benefit to the consumers proactively and still deliver decent volume growth. Actually, just to add to that, I think what we can promise in the next three to five years will not discuss Copra pricing in our analyst calls. Sure. I'm done. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Avneesh. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead. Hi, Saugata. Congrats on a good set of numbers. I just wanted to understand your food business a little better now that it has gained some kind of scale. So could you just very roughly break up the total business in terms of percentage contribution of different segments, be it oats, honey, or whatever else? And secondly, if you could give some idea on what kind of EBITDA margins this entire food business as a whole is generating and what kind of margins you would target over a three- to five-year kind of a period. I'll give you a broad macro flavor, Percy. I think if you look at it, obviously, the largest is the oats, and the oats at a scale is delivers an EBITDA almost near the company average. So I think as you get scale, we get that. Okay? And as you would recall, last year, we improved the gross margin by 800 basis points, and we are working towards capability building. Are we there fully? We are not there, but still we are seven or eight, I mean, seven or ten today. I think we believe that the crux to it is to crack the GT in foods and towards that, Setu, one of the drivers of Setu also is to expand food outlets, of course, besides getting into chemist and cosmetic and urban. We think that while oats and the good thing is that even in the so-called food slowdown, our core, which is oats and masala oats, continue to give double-digit growth. So which means we have been able to expand the, I mean, expand penetration. And that's a penetration drive to expansion which we are doing. And as the country becomes trying to get healthier options, as you know, that I think one of the things in India, there is a huge thirst to have better for you foods. We believe that whether it's Masala Oats and a variant which we have launched in Masala Millets, this will drive the core. As far as the other things are concerned, which we believe can get scale, I think honey and soya have got some scale. Honey, we have done very well in OT. We need to do a better job in distribution as I said that once we get the Setu thing right over the next six, seven, nine months, we will get the next level of growth in food. We think between muesli and snacking, these are another opportunities, and snacking is a big, again, we are prototyping snacking, and muesli is something which we are also prototyping, and it's also doing well, so these are the way to look at it is that which are my next 100 crore opportunities and 200 crore opportunities. At INR 200 crore, we start doing, we're making good profit. And the way to look at foods is that I would rather grow the next doubling of foods by doing three, four things big rather than getting into eight things small. The moment I do three, four things big and each one getting into INR 300, INR 400 crores, then we will get into that EBITDA. And the other thing about this is that the way to look at it, yes, foods make slightly lower margin than personal care part of the business or the Parachute part of the business. Okay? Having said that, it makes much better margin than Saffola part of the business. So if I look at it, another two, three years, it will be a 50/50, and then it will move to foods will dominate Saffola. Second thing is, as long as the blended gross margin of our new portfolio, which is digital plus premium personal care and foods, our objective is that the blended margin of the NPD or not the NPD, the diversified portfolio has to be higher than the margin of our core. And that is what we use as a metric every time. And just to answer your question with respect to the breakup, in our own portfolio, oats continue to be the largest part, and we believe it will continue to remain larger at least for the next one or two years because the penetration is still low and there's significant headroom for growth. And we have been continuously delivering double-digit growth in oats. Then it is followed by True Elements, Plix, and then honey and soya is scaling up fast. Understood. Understood. Saugata, when you said that the food portfolio is having a better margin than the Saffola portfolio, two sub-questions within that. Did you mean that at current level, or do you mean once it scales up over a few years? At current level, Saffola. Do you mean it at current level or at EBITDA margin level? Let me just clarify. First of all, at a gross margin level, my foods portfolio is definitely far higher as compared to edible oil portfolio. Now, as and when we get scale, as Saugata mentioned, for example, masala oats, it is now making almost company-level operating margin. Overall, foods operating margin will also be better than edible oil operating margin. But as we keep getting scale, it will only get better and better. Understood. Understood. Secondly, just wanted to understand the interplay between your input cost, inflation, and pricing. So just sort of trying to wrap my head around or trying to work my own estimates for FY 2026. So supposing if there is some amount of deflation in copra and you have to drop your price, that will affect the sales negatively, but it should affect the margins positively and vice versa. So if there is still an inflation, maybe your top line will continue to be good and the margins might be under pressure. But in either of these two cases, are you confident of delivering double-digit EBITDA growth YOY? So as you rightly mentioned, Percy, that there are multiple or numerous dynamics at play. So it is very difficult at this stage to share a margin percentage, but still we will aim to hold the margin steady while we will focus on delivering double-digit revenue growth backed up by top quartile volume growth and deliver healthy profit growth. Now, as the year progresses and probably, let's say when we come up after the Q4 earnings call, we'll be in a better position to give you a better guidance for FY 2026. But we are definitely committed for double-digit revenue growth, which definitely will have a good volume growth and a healthy profit growth. Okay. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Avi from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, team. I just wanted to clarify on the foods profitability build. So at the EBITDA level, the existing foods plus premium portfolio, which is 21% of our business, should be equal to company average right now or slightly less? I'm sorry. I just wanted to kind of understand that. And where do we see it in FY 2027, or how do we see kind of progressing towards FY 2027? So currently, at the weighted average level, what Saugata mentioned is that we try and manage that the weighted average gross margin portfolio of the weighted average gross margin of this foods plus digital portfolio has to be higher than the company gross margin. So that's one. That we definitely ensure. As far as foods margin is concerned, masala oats has definitely reached EBITDA of company. However, if you look at smaller foods, which is honey, soya, etc., currently these are in built-up stage. So as in when they reach about 150-200 crores, they'll start making very healthy margin. So that is what it is. And the digital will hit, again, double-digit. So yes, I mean, over the next three to five years, the aim is to merge with the company margin. But that's just to give you a color on the digital business EBITDA, it has now moved to a very, very low burn all digital business put together. It will be low single digit. In fact, Beardo is likely to deliver double-digit EBITDA growth. And next year, as a total digital business as a cohort, we definitely believe that we'll move to positive EBITDA margin. And in FY 2027, we would strive for delivering double-digit EBITDA margin. Okay. Perfectly clear. Perfectly clear. Thanks a lot for this. Sorry, a short-term question, just this transient profitability impact from higher copra and retailers, what would it mean for, as we see this year, margins? Does it mean like 70 to 90 basis points contraction in EBITDA or even higher? Is there a number that you could share? See, while we're hoping to deliver 20.5% margin for the full year, but there has been higher than anticipated cost push in copra. And we have not passed on the entire hit to the consumers to protect the consumer franchise volume and prioritize market share gains. And as you know, during these times, we lap up market share gains. Additionally, the top line growth also has been higher. We have moved to mid-teens, and hopefully, we will be targeting high-teens growth in coming quarters, which mathematically also impacts the gross margin due to denominator effect. So as a result and mix of all this, we believe we should be able to hold about 20% operating margin for the year. Perfectly clear. Thanks a lot for this. That's all from my side. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arnab Mitra from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, Saugata and Pawan. Congratulations on a good performance in this tough environment. My first question actually was on foods and personal digital buffer brands. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems Plix has been a big positive surprise on both sides. So on the foods part, my question was, is it still very ACV-driven, or how has been the progress in diversifying the portfolio outside ACV, which was, I think, the original thought also that the company had? On the personal care side, that space seems extremely crowded, serums and that space. How is Plix managing to grow there? Is it at a big loss? Any separate strategy there that is working for you? I think two things which are differentiated from Plix. If you look at it, Plix is essentially far more a D2C-driven brand, and therefore, given the higher AOVs, it's reasonably profitable and low cash burn. The diversification from ACV has started, and obviously, as you know, that in any nutraceutical brand, you have five platforms, which is basically weight management, heart care, diabetes, gut health, bone health, and sleep. We have gone into one or two of these, and we will obviously go into this one. There is a diversification agenda. Having said that, I think it's very important to have a hero product and get scale on a hero product because that drives also profitability. What we are going to do also, as I said, unlike some of the other companies, we are going to only take fewer SKUs and go into GT, and we are actually experiencing a reasonably successful GT model, as far as Plix is concerned, in very early days. Now, coming to personal care, I think one, as I said, one is the business model, which is different. We do much more than this one. The second thing is, if you look at it, it is all about hair and skin food. So Plix positions its personal care as hair and skin food as opposed to just, say, a basic something on beauty. So therefore, there is a distinctive positioning as far as Plix is concerned. And I think we are, and also the products, we obviously, one of the things which any of the digital brands have as an advantage as a part of the strategic this one has strategic partners with Marico as a strategic partner is access to Marico supply chain capability, access to Marico deep R&D capability, which also adds to the development of product and cost structure, which maybe a standalone founder brand doesn't have. Just one follow-up, Saugata, on this. So when you look at FY 2026 further scaling up Plix, would online and ACV itself have a lot of headroom for growth, or would you need the new platforms to work, GT to work for growing again maybe 30%-40% on whatever you will do in FY 2025? No, it will be a mixture of both. But I think there's enough opportunity, as I said, that as far as I see, if I look at it in India, the biggest two consumer needs is looking good, staying healthy, and young, and I think Plix participates in both of them, and therefore, there's extreme tailwind, and I think there's significant capability. I think if you look at it, I believe that in terms of innovation, in terms of high-velocity innovation and digital marketing capability, Plix will be best in class, one of the best in class in India, and even, I think, will comparatively globally. The other thing we have started in Plix is that we have started the international business, and we are starting to sell in the Middle East and U.S., and it's stacking well. Got it. My second and last question was on VAHO, where you mentioned slight sequential improvement, though the year-over-year number is still negative. But your confidence on this improving further, is it largely because of the base effect that you have a decline now in the base? Or are you actually seeing some traction in the initiatives you have taken you've done above the line and other initiatives here? So any sense of how you think the recovery happens here in terms of the confidence on your side? I know it's a combination of both. And if you look at it, I think last time, we were very embarrassed about reporting a minus 9, and we said, "That is it." I mean, we can't move beyond that in terms of decline. I think we have moved up. I think what we have done is two things. One is the part of the business where there is unreasonable competition. We said that let's not try to keep on doing BTL. We don't believe in BTL driving growth. We believe in AP driving growth because we believe brand equity drives growth. And we are doing it independent of competitive action. And therefore, we have started investing behind mid and the premium part of the business. And therefore, as I said, that business grew 2%-3%. We will continue to invest because otherwise, what happens is if I just track SOV and be very happy that I maintained SOV by reducing 40% ad spend, we are doing long-term harm to the category, which I don't want to do as a market leader. Got it. Thanks. Thanks. That's it from my side. All the best. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Karthik Chellappa from Indus Capital Advisors Hong Kong Limited. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. I have two questions. The first one is on channel. So you have commented in your information updates that modern trade and e-commerce, including quick commerce, has been growing at high double-digit volume growth. Could you give us some context or perspective on what those volume growths are and how divergent they are between the two channels? So I think quick commerce obviously is the biggest driver of growth, and what we have realized is that we need to have a differentiated portfolio in quick commerce so that it and interestingly, even some of the digital brands are also doing well in quick commerce. Now, coming to modern trade, there is, yes, in the organized modern trade business, there has been a little bit of a slowdown in modern trade. Having said that, I think we are still growing double-digit in both marketplace, e-com, and modern trade. The growth in quick commerce is being 50% +. Got it. And over how many quarters do you think your GT growth will start to catch up with your company average growth at the domestic level? Because right now, it's flattish, and you are implementing a lot more initiatives. But once that starts to bear fruit, how many quarters in your estimate will it take for the growth to converge with the company average? Well, I think if you ask me over the next three, four years, obviously, OT is going to grow higher than GT. I think what we are trying to do is to get GT back on track and also get the GT, what I call the infrastructure stability, which is basically ensuring that our partners' ROI. One of the interesting things about the inflation is that if we are delivering double-digit revenue growth, it is actually positively improving the ROI of the partners because we had faced deflation in the last two years. And so I would say that GT, we are expecting GT growth to marginally improve. Converging into this one growth is unlikely to happen. I mean, because that is a case for all the, I mean, in the entire sector. Having said that, I think if we can crack premium personal care, chemist and beauty outlets, and also food, I think this will have an accelerated growth, especially in GT urban. Setu should deliver a higher growth in GT rural along with this. And the last thing is that we are also, which is a different thing, which is for the digital brand, we should be in the next two years also having we should be able to crack a reasonable amount of GT. But we will not be, as I said, that we are not going to be super ambitious on GT there because we believe that we need to double up and be specialists on one or two channels. Got it. Last question from my side, sir. As far as value-added hair oil is concerned, although it's declining in 2% in value terms, is there any geographical disparity in that growth? Are there certain geographies which have started showing positive growth, and if so, which ones would they be? See, it's mostly on Shanti and rural. As I said, that we are facing unreasonable competition with disproportionately unsustainable BTLs, which we don't want to compete with because we believe in long-term equity building and ATL. In terms of ATL, it works far more better in long-term equity creation than BTL. Got it. Okay. Thank you very much, Saugata, sir, and wish you and the team all the very best in the following quarter. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bhavdeep Vora from Franklin Templeton. Before you go ahead with your question, I'd like to remind participants that they may press star and one if they wish to ask questions. Please go ahead, Bhavdeep. Sure. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. So my question was on the different channels. If you could describe the salience of different channels, GT, MT, and e-commerce in the domestic India business, and if you could comment a bit in terms of the profitability of various channels and working capital intensity, how would that be between the channels? Basically, alternate channels contribute about 30%. Then there is a CSD, which is for the defense personnel. That is about 6%-7%, and balance is GT. Now, we haven't really gone public with respect to channel-wise profitability. But yes, the profitability in GT is better than alternate channels. Having said that, we have taken a lot of measures to improve profitability on alternate channels, and it's not very, very significantly different from GT. Now, in terms of working capital intensity, of course, the receivables stretch is higher for alternate channels, and that is why you would have seen that debtor days would have slightly increased. But over there also, we are having a very tight control, and we believe that this will remain at this level where we have reported. Just wanted to add that we believe that the role of alternate channels is to drive premiumization, upsizing, and diversification. And therefore, one of the things we have been doing is that clearly identifying one is having different packs, especially in our core, like Parachute, and also identifying GT advantage SKUs and MT OT advantage SKUs. Okay. Okay. Thanks. The second question was on Bangladesh. We have seen an acceleration in the constant currency revenue growth. So if you could comment on what's really happening in that market and how do you see kind of the next year, next financial year in terms of the expectations for revenue growth and profitability in that market. Yeah. Just to give you a perspective, I think, as we have mentioned, it is on a slightly lower base because last year, quarter three was tough. But the way to look at it is that we should be hitting a double-digit constant currency growth this year also, and next year also will aspire to deliver a double-digit constant currency growth. Okay. Okay. Thanks. That's it from my side. Thank you. All the best. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sheela Rathi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Thanks for taking my question. Saugata, my first question was on VAHO portfolio. I mean, you gave very detailed explanation on how we are shaping up the food business and what the trends are. But with respect to VAHO portfolio, and the competitive landscape seems to be very challenging for the last many quarters or so. Is there a reset or a rethinking around rebuilding a portfolio here, or is there any part of the portfolio which we can modify to bring back the growth trends in this particular portfolio? Okay. So I will give you a broad construct, which we did the reset last quarter, but this takes at least a couple of quarters to do this one. We have said that ultimately, we will do a reallocation of resources towards investing in the mid and the premium part of the portfolio. We are not going to get into a dogfight at the bottom of pyramid by doing too much of BTL because that doesn't help. Because that can give you growth, which is unsustainable and unprofitable. And we don't want, as an organization, to do unprofitable and unsustainable growth because otherwise, I will get into tomato rice pulses and other kinds of things, which we don't want to do in food. So that's why we are having a far more value-added food, and we want to follow that. So you will see that reset happening. It takes three or four quarters. And as I said, the other thing is that if, as a market leader, I don't invest behind growth as a category, the category will not do well. Having said that, I think the category, if I look at VAHO, it is performing as any other BPC category. All the BPC categories are growing low single digits. VAHO has been also growing low single digits. This negative value was coming because of the commoditization of the category, which happened in the bottom of pyramid, which we don't want to do, and that is the reset. Now, that reset takes time, but by the end of 2026, you will see 2025, 2026, that reset happening, which will lead to higher value growth, higher value share gain, and obviously ensuring that we continue to invest behind long-term growth, and I think we need to invest behind hair fall and some of the other things and buy back time. We believe the consumption situation also will improve. See, when the consumption situation is not good and people downgrade or titrate, it also encourages bottom-of-pyramid consumption. Understood. So what I understand is we will see more innovations coming here, and we will focus less on the bottom of the pyramid. So today, what would be the share of BTL? I would like to focus less. I will not play on BTL. BTL can be a driver of the growth of an FMCG company. And what would be the share of bottom-of-pyramid for that? I don't want to get into it. No, we don't want to get into details. But obviously, for Shanti, it is huge, the INR 10 and INR 20 rupee pack. Okay. If we look back, say, three years ago, the share has been coming down. Is that a right way to look at it? We have not lost share in VAHO. We have not lost share in VAHO. The share of the small. The share of the bottom-of-pyramid, and what we want to do is we want to let it come down much more rapidly. Understood. Understood. So 2026 is when we can see more trends emerging clearly on the VAHO portfolio. Having said that, it will take time. I mean, a reset requires because we are doing it in the hard way. We are not doing tactically going to the wholesaler on the 30th of the month and selling. We are doing it in the hard way, which is building brand equity, investing behind it. It It will take a couple of quarters, but we are confident this is the best way to do it. That is why the reasons are value share gain has been higher as compared to volume share gain in VAHO. Understood. And my second and final question is with respect to the foods portfolio. You clearly called out oats as a large part outside Saffola. In terms of the other parts of the portfolio, how is the quantitative intensity for us? Because a lot of players, like you also said in your opening remarks, that we started our food journey very early as an opportunity. So how is the competitive landscape for us now? Because everyone wants to do food at this point of time. So I think two things. One is what is important is we have a very strong brand called Saffola, and I think that in terms of the equity of the brand in expanding into better-for-you opportunities, any day a Saffola brand carries far more equity and pull. And okay. The second part of the thing is that if you look at foods, a lot of categories have extremely low penetration compared to some of the personal care categories where penetration is almost saturated in India. Therefore, even if three or four players participate, it is okay because that grows the category, and I believe that the runway for foods in India, and especially for a healthy food brand like Saffola, I think is a five-year, 10-year runway, so we are not I think if we go into the commoditization route and discounting route is something which I think will not give us growth. Having said that, I think, as I said, that one of the challenges we are facing and we must solve for it is how to create and drive expansion of distribution in what I call food-specific outlets. For example, in the south, there are a lot of these bakeries. In Mumbai, you have these dry fruit stores. So these are the kind of outlets we need to now have increased saliency, increased weight, and that is something which we should tackle in the next one year. One follow-up here, Saugata. Fair to say that these categories are still the e-com categories and not yet seen salience in GT per se. MT, maybe there could be some pickup, but with respect to GT, are you seeing trends where these category products are available? Absolutely. I think if you look at oats and masala oats, a significant portion comes from GT. While we don't participate, at least 60%-70%, 60% of Muesli comes from GT. So therefore, GT is definitely a big category. It's just that we have set up the distribution. As you know, that is something which we are there, but I think very much standalone modern trade is something which is a very, very high throughput food. There are a lot of high throughput GT outlets on food. We are present, and we need to do a better job, and we will do it. So therefore, they are not. And if you ask me in foods, if you look at some of the successful brands, look at Epigamia, look at iD, look at other successful brands, or even founder-driven brands or insurgent brands, they have been successful because they've gone into GT. Or look at Veeba. So it's not that food and personal care, I can still say you can create a INR 200 crore, INR 300 crore brand or a INR 500 crore brand using digital. Food, there is no way without getting into GT. Understood. Very clear. Thank you very much, Saugata. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you may please press star and one on your touch-tone telephones. Participants who wish to ask questions may press star and one at this time. As we have no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Over to you, sir. Thanks for listening on the call. To conclude, we have remained steadfast in pursuing our strategic objectives set out at the beginning of the year, both in Indian and international markets, amidst the evolving demand and macroeconomic environment. Sustained investment towards the accelerated scale-up of our foods and premium personal care portfolio in India and ramp-up in MENA and South Africa and international is resulting in a visible shift in the revenue construct of the business, and we have also established an improving trend in profitability of these portfolios. While we are contending with a steeper inflationary commodity cycle than envisaged, which will have some transient impact in the near term, we will judiciously leverage the pricing power of our brands and stay the course on our stated aspirations. So that is it from our side. If you have any further queries, please feel free to reach out to our IR team, and they'll be happy to address. Thank you, and have a great evening. Thank you. On behalf of Marico Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.