Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the United Spirits Limited third quarter financial year 2026 earnings conference call. 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 this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Shweta Arora, Head of Investor Relations, United Spirits Limited. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am. Thank you, Darwin. Hello everyone, good afternoon, and welcome to United Spirits Limited Q3 FY 2026 earnings call. Wish you all and your loved ones a very happy new year 2026. Before proceeding with today's call, I would like to remind the listeners that during the call, there may be some forward-looking statements. These statements are based on our views and assumptions at this point of time. However, this is not a guarantee of our future performance, and results may materially differ from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. I request all of you to refer to our financial and press releases posted yesterday. Both are available on the stock exchange and company's website under the investors' sections. Today on the call, we have with us our Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Praveen Someshwar, who is joined by our Executive Director and CFO, Mr. Pradeep Jain. Praveen and Pradeep will take you through the financial and business performance for the quarter, followed by the question and answer session. Thank you, and over to you, Praveen. Thank you, Shweta, and very good afternoon to everyone. Wish you all and your loved ones a very happy 2026. As always, it's wonderful to address all of you today. We've closed a resilient growth quarter overall, both on top and bottom line, amidst continued headwinds from Maharashtra. The bright side is the momentum in the top half of the portfolio. Strong growth in luxury, acceleration in the premium segment on the back of primary scotches and Smirnoff, which is through flavor innovation. Signature trademark growing on the high prior base to enhance upper-prestige salience and Royal Challenge pocket pack, driving consumer penetration in mid-prestige. However, launch of MML, Maharashtra-made liquor, at the very attractive price points and their sampling and gradual distribution increase remains a competitive challenge in Maharashtra, especially for the popular and lower-prestige segment. That said, the script is playing out on expected lines, and we are holding up well. Let me peel the onion a bit for our October-December quarter results announced last evening. During the quarter, against the reported P&A volume shrinkage of 2%, we are flat. We are flat, excluding the one-time retail pipeline fill impact of Andhra Pradesh in the prior year base. If we back out AP pipeline, we are actually flat versus the negative. On top of that, if we exclude Maharashtra for the quarter, our P&A volume has grown by 6%. It gives us the rest of India is growing very healthily. On NSV growth, based on the same construct, against the reported P&A growth of 8.2%, eliminating the AP pipeline fill impact, we are circa 10%. Excluding Maharashtra, we are at 14%. It is in this context we say that we are happy with the momentum in the rest of India and feel that it's been a resilient growth quarter. Also important to call out that the adverse volume impact in Maharashtra predominantly is at the lower end of the portfolio. Mathematically, that provides a flip to the national price mix, which stands at 10% for this quarter. We believe a historically stated range of 6-8% very much stands now that we have seen green shoots emerge on the top end of the portfolio. On a YTD nine-month basis, fiscal 2025-2026 basis, P&A growth stands at 9.8%, and we are tracking close to our guidance. This is despite a higher base for Q3 2025 owing to pipeline filling in the newly opened market of Andhra Pradesh, as explained above. Correcting for that, our P&A year-to-date growth would be more like 10%. Pradeep will provide a little more color on the financial metrics in his comments. At a macro level, we are witnessing consumption green shoots. The top end of the portfolio has delivered strongly in the quarter, which is reflective in the P&A price mix, as stated above. Clearly, disposable income available in the hands of the consumer has seemingly improved with GST cuts, income tax slab rationalization done in early 2025, and the good monsoons that always have a positive multiplier. While October to December has fared well for us, we still see uncertainty pertaining to the job market, the geopolitical undercurrents. Therefore, we remain cautiously optimistic for the upcoming wedding season and the next couple of quarters. Overall, our single largest challenge remains MML in Maharashtra, and we are putting our best foot forward to retain the competitiveness of our popular and lower-prestige portfolio. As all of you are aware, the industry association has taken actions to ensure a level playing field in the medium to longer term, and we are tracking the developments closely, that being under sub judice. Quickly coming to our key update on trademarks. Signature trademark continues to lead the way in the upper-prestige segment. Its unique purpose-driven proposition is growing the brand ahead of the category. Signature has registered strong double-digit growth in the festive season and contributed to upper-prestige segment's nearly double-digit growth. Coming to mid-prestige, on RC, we've launched Choose Bold 3.0, [foreign language], a new trademark thematic design to build salience and cultural relevance. The film features Rannvijay Singha, cricketer Smriti Mandhana, a gamer model, and rapper Srushti Tawade to embody the brand's bold spirit. The campaign echoes the voice of the new generation and sharpens brand differentiation. Through RC pocket pack, we also reaffirmed our commitment to convenience-led innovation, which is democratizing access for the next generation of consumers. This has contributed meaningfully to the growth of the trademark, which is performing competitively and continues to grow well ahead of the category. On our anchor trademark, McDowell's, we rolled out the pocket pack in Maharashtra, and the same will extend nationally over the next two to three quarters. This trademark has had a high-impact visibility in the India-South Africa cricket series. During the festive season, we also activated experientials and McDowell's did six Yaari Jams with 33,000 attendees across six different cities. This is our culture play to connect with young consumers in their moments of social celebration. Coming to our Indian single malt, Godawan. Godawan's growth momentum continued in the quarter, led by the CSD, the Indian Armed Forces Channel. Brand equity is being built on the back of curated luxury experiences such as Godawan Durbar evenings and impactful collaborations with partners like Conscious Collective and the British Council. Speaking of our global luxury portfolio, during the festive season, Johnnie reignited the iconic Can't Stand Still campaign, delivering a stupendous digital reach among affluent consumers, supported by a premium outdoor presence across airports and high-impact sites in the key cities. The brand amplified its cultural footprint through landmark associations with AP Dhillon's National Tour, the music tour as title sponsor, and debuting at Sunburn, featuring global EDM icons like David Guetta, Axwell, and Above and Beyond. These platforms enabled Johnnie to engage a new generation of culturally curious consumers at scale, reinforcing Keep Walking as a bold, expressive, and future-facing mindset. The quarter also marked the scale-up of Black Label's on-trade visibility through our own IP whiskey experiments, now extended into third-space environments like Sunburn, redefining how whiskey can be discovered and enjoyed in high-energy cultural contexts. Together, these initiatives strengthened Johnny's role at the intersection of music, culture, and modern luxury, driving relevance, trial, and cultural heat while continuing to evolve the category for contemporary India. Coming to the white's portfolio, starting from Flavor of the Year, Smirnoff, which is Minty Jamun, which has emerged as a breakthrough innovation, validating our India-first flavor strategy and becoming the primary growth engine for the trademark and the entire white's portfolio. Momentum on the back of this innovation has made India break into the top five Smirnoff markets in the world of Diageo. The brand tapped into Gen Z through the Smirnoff Experience concert series in Mumbai, Gurgaon, and Bangalore, featuring global music icon DJ Afrojack. These high-energy activations amplified cultural relevance and reinforced Smirnoff's position as the go-to brand for flavor-led experiences. Last but not the least, we are excited to see how Don Julio, our global tequila market leader, is penetrating the overall spirit market in the country. Delighted to share that on a nine-month basis, just in the nine months YTD, Don Julio has crossed INR 100 crore in NSV, making it our fastest INR 100 crore plus innovation brand. As category creators and leaders, we envision that the next decade will belong to Don Julio in India. We are excited to see how our trademark is doubling both on a quarterly and a nine-monthly basis, and this to us is just the beginning. Looking ahead, we remain committed to steer through the emerging competitive and regulatory landscape by staying true to our portfolio strategy. That has helped us over the last few years, and we are confident that it holds us good for the future as well. Our unwavering focus on commercial execution and agility to serve changing consumer needs has held us in good stead. We will continue to invest in the right levers of growth with a focus to create long-term value for all stakeholders. With this, I hand over to Pradeep for an update on the financial performance for the quarter. Thanks, Praveen, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today on the third quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings call. Always a delight to connect in the forum, wishing you and your loved ones a super 2026. As always, we'll request you all to please refer to the financial and press release of last evening. Just a reminder once again that from the previous quarter, that is, July-September quarter onwards, the consolidated accounts are inclusive of Nao Spirits, consequent to the completion of the acquisition in June 2025. All the numbers are insignificant at this stage. As Praveen mentioned earlier, we have delivered an overall resilient quarter and tracking close to our P&A growth guidance. This is despite the policy headwinds in the more challenging state and launch of MML. Praveen has already deconstructed the quarter growth construct, so I will not be repeating that. Considering the significant noise due to Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, it would be prudent to consider the year-to-date nine months normalized view for the top-line growth. For nine months, our overall volume and NSV growth stands at 4% and 9%, respectively. Within this, the P&A segment volume and NSV growth stands at 4.5% and 9.8%. Lastly, without delving into minutia, if we take out both the headwind of Maharashtra and the tailwind of Andhra Pradesh, our nine-month P&A volume and NSV growth is in the range of 7.1% and 12.3%, respectively. This provides us, to Praveen's point made earlier, the comfort that our rest of India portfolio is working extremely well and our strategy is working. Coming to price mix, you all would have noticed that our P&A price mix is a strong 10.2% for the quarter and 5.3% for nine months. Praveen has already spoken about the buoyant quarter we've had in the top half of the portfolio, and that without doubt augurs well. He also indicated the positive price mix impact nationally driven by the adverse Maharashtra volume impact. We believe our historically stated price mix of 6%-8% is sustainable at the higher end till the Maharashtra volume headwinds continue and at the lower end once the headwinds fall off. On the cost side, the commodities basket is holding. Bulk Scotch is the only structurally inflationary input commodity, and that will be aided by the India-U.K. FTA tailwind as and when it comes into play. The marketing reinvestment rate during the quarter was at 14% of net sales. This normalizes at 10.5%-10.6% of net sales for the nine-month YTD period. This is reflective of the recovery in the top end of the portfolio, both bottled in origin and bottled in India, which are A&P heavy given the nature of the trademarks and the consumer price. Pardon me, sir. You are not audible if you're speaking at this moment. Excuse me, sir. You were not audible just now for the last 15 seconds. Okay. You want me to repeat the last couple of paragraphs? Yes, that would be great, sir. Thank you. Okay. Okay. I am just covering the last bit again. I covered the nine-month overall volume and NSV growth. Let me start with the price mix. You all would have noticed that our P&A price mix is a strong 10.2% for the quarter and 5.3% for nine months. Praveen has already spoken about the buoyant quarter we've had in the top half of the portfolio, and that without doubt augurs well. He also indicated the positive price mix impact nationally driven by the adverse Maharashtra volume impact. We believe our historically stated price mix range of 6%-8% is sustainable at the higher end till the Maharashtra volume headwinds continue and at the lower end once that headwind falls off. On the cost side, the commodities basket is holding. Bulk Scotch is the only structurally inflationary input commodity, and that will be aided by the India-U.K. FTA tailwind as and when it comes into play. The marketing reinvestment rate during the quarter was at 14% of net sales. This normalizes at 10.6% of net sales for nine months, fiscal 2026. This is reflective of the recovery in the top end of the portfolio, both in bottled in origin and bottled in India, which are A&P heavy given the nature of trademarks and the consumer price points that they command. We are also making some conscious A&P investment choices in our portfolio, considering the competitiveness of our brands. All other relevant numbers and information is well contained in our press release of last evening. With this, we can now open the floor for Q&A. 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 and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Lathika Chopra from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Hi, Lathika. Thank you for the opportunity. Hi. The first question was on Maharashtra because you said this is top of the mind issue for you. If you could just elaborate a bit more on what you're noticing on the ground on the MML side, how is the consumer acceptance of these brands? Do you expect the intensity of impact of MML, which came in the last quarter, to intensify in the near term? What kind of initiatives you've undertaken or you plan to undertake to navigate this challenge better? First, Lathika, thanks for the question. Maharashtra is top of mind for everyone. As I said over the last call and over the last six months, I've been to Maharashtra literally every month, Bombay every month, and interacted with our customers and our consumers. MML has come into play roughly end of September, and it took full hog in October and November. Mid-November is when it saw complete distribution and availability across. The number of brands is increasing, but what we have noticed is the first brand to market became the most accepted brand. As fresh brands are coming, they are becoming less and less acceptable. That's the first thing. Second, look, in terms of share product, and I've spoken to a lot of consumers, I think they're making tough choices. They don't believe the product is really as exciting as they would like it to be. Given the pricing difference and the advantage, they are making choices. Therefore, albeit with some level of pain, they have made some choices to try and explore these new MML brands. That's the second. Third is, what we've done very, very clearly, I think we have doubled down on McDowell's and RC overall. We've improved our pack price play. We've launched the pocket pack in McDowell's also. It was only in RC to begin with, and now in McDowell's also. We have activated at the ground level. We're seeing great, if you look at it within the category we play in, we're seeing huge momentum. Unfortunately for us, we don't play in that center space, and that is hurting us. It is not a question of what the product, the brand, or the execution. I think all of that is very, very exciting. We just need to start playing the right price point so that we get the significant unlock. What we have done is not only done the market work, we've also overall, as an industry association, taken appropriate actions to ensure a level playing field in the medium term. That matter is sub judice, Lathika. We will await developments on that front. Sure. No, thank you for the detailed answer. Appreciate it. The second bit, Pradeep, on margin front for you, just wanted to check. We've seen good levels of gross margins two quarters in a row. How much of this year-over-year increase or over 200 basis points that you saw in Q3 is on account of benefits on benign raw materials, except for bulk Scotch. I think the other input costs, as you mentioned, are benign. Just trying to see what part is more state mix-led versus what is RM inflation-led and, of course, your own cost efficiencies to just understand how that outlook looks in coming quarters once the state mix kind of normalizes. The second part of the margins is A&P spend. Do you still stand by 9.5%-10% of revenue guidance for the full year? Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Lathika, let me take it in pieces. Right? See, look, there are multiple drivers of the gross margin. Right? I mean, I can just give you a directional response. Right? Commodities are holding, as I mentioned in my opening comments. Right? Probably excluding bulk Scotch, they will continue to hold. Our assessment is probably for the next couple of quarters. Right? That is one. That obviously helps. Right? Because our productivity continues to be in the same vein. Right? Therefore, that always helps. I'd also mentioned in the last quarter call that the bulk Scotch inflation has started hitting somewhere from November onwards. Right? A little bit of a lag effect of that will hit us now in the subsequent quarters. Overall, like I said, we are pretty much comfortable on the COGS basket. Right? Now, as all of you are aware, in the October, November, December quarter, our top-end portfolio salience is the highest. Right? That obviously reflects in this quarter. That will wear off relatively in the January to June period. Right? That is something all of you need to be conscious of. Right? Coming back to your last question of A&P, I referred to that in my opening comments. Look, part of it is driven by the mix element itself. Right? As the top end of the portfolio starts firing, there is a mix element itself that takes us to a higher number. Right? My sense is that we will probably, I would not say we will probably be around the higher end of the range, marginally higher than that on a full-year basis, probably. That is the way we are looking at it. We're also having to make some tactical investments to protect the competitiveness of our portfolio. Understood. Very clear. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Avi Mehta from Macquarie. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, team. Just had a few questions. First, wanted to kind of just understand the strategic review of the IPL team. If you could give us a sense on how it will pan out, the likely timelines for the same. Look, as we said, when we put out our guidance on strategic review, we said by March 31, we'll come back. And that holds good as we stay here right now. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing more to add to that. Absolutely. Right? In case there's a discriminator, we come back to you. Perfect. If you could give us some sense on how, because we have limited idea on how the free trade agreement benefits would flow through, just would love to kind of get some thoughts on what is the current expectation on when that benefit in bulk Scotch kind of comes in. Yeah. We believe that the treaties have been signed. Praveen, will correct me if I'm wrong, it needs to be endorsed by the British Parliament, right? That has still not happened, right? Once that happens and everything kind of comes into play, we believe somewhere in the July to September quarter, right? Praveen, sorry. That's the implication of July. Yeah. That's the implication. Yeah. Our belief is that the FTA will be brought into the British Parliament sometime in March to April. The moment that gets signed off by the Parliament there, for us, India doesn't need to take it to the Parliament. It's a cabinet approval, and it will automatically get approval. We are hoping that between March to May, we will see the sign-off. What Pradeep was talking about is the implication of that will be more like July to September quarter because we have stocks and the pipeline and all of that. You'll start seeing that play out in the July-September. The benefit in the numbers is what I meant, Avi, which will start coming probably in the July to September quarter. Right? The trigger Praveen mentioned is the signing off by the British Parliament. Got it. Just the last clarification bit, just on the question asked by the last participant, Lathika, I just wanted to understand that since November when MML was introduced, could you kind of give us a sense on how the industry performance has been? I mean, has the decline kind of stabilized? It has not been impacted by MML. Has it kind of deteriorated? Just some idea of how the consumer is behaving because you did cite towards adoption, but also realization that the brand is not or the quality may not be as they were hoping it to be. Would love any thoughts or any help over there on how it is behaving on the ground. That's all from my side. Interesting question. If you remember July to September, I take you back to the July-September call. What I said was we've seen consumer spend growth of anywhere between 18%-22%. That's what the growth was. We had taken pricing of 33%-34%, and therefore, there was an 8%-10% volume decline. Obviously, when MML came in and it started coming in in mid-September, it bridged that gap, and it's actually starting to see growth in the consumer spend. I don't see that being an issue. Overall, the industry, which is including MML, the industry including MML is continuing to see growth both on volume and on value. Now, if I look at our P&A plus industry, it is certainly declining. It's declining at roughly overall, it's just about a double-digit decline is what I would just say. Value. Value. Value decline is what we are seeing effectively. Praveen, this is double-digit decline, meaning it's really similar for the quarter versus post-MML introduction. Right? Would that be right? No. Actually, before July-September was a little different, and October-December is a little different. They're marginally different. They're not significantly different. What you can see is on a value basis on nine months, if I remember rightly, this is more like around the mid-teens to high-teens, roughly is what it is. For the nine months during the October-December, we're just about a double-digit decline. Okay. Okay. Sorry. I'm not clear. Maybe I'll kind of come take this offline, but I wasn't clear on this. My specific point was since MML introduction versus pre-MML introduction, is there a change in trajectory? That's what I was trying to. Yeah. There is a change. Very clearly. That's how I started. There is a change. That is effectively, there is a little in fact, because we have also stabilized, our pricing also stabilized, we've had a couple of points of incremental negative value. Okay. Just a couple of points. That's exactly what I was. Yeah. So it's marginal. It's not really significant, if I may say so. The difference between July-September and October-December. Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. Our next question. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Jay Doshi from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I've got three questions today. The first one, your comments on the top half of the portfolio, especially BII, BIO, was very encouraging. And I believe it's after several quarters that you sound so confident. Can you give us some more color on which markets you're seeing that growth? Is there a function of competitor losing market share, or overall, the market is growing very well for upper-prestige BII, BIO? What, in your assessment, is driving this? Because we have not heard positive commentary on consumption from any company except so far in the last. That is question number one. I will wait for your answer on this. Okay. Jay, thanks for joining in. Thanks for the question. Okay. Look, it is green shoots, early green shoots again in the top end of the category, if I may say so. I believe the category is starting to see momentum. I believe, as I said, as we are seeing consumer spend come back because of various reasons. It could be GST cuts. It could be disposable income. It could be good monsoons. All of that is playing a role. You are starting to see buoyancy in that. Early green shoots. Festive season usually sees a certain lift. We are delighted with the lift we have seen across the top tier. We are obviously a strong performance of all our brands. We are seeing each of our top-end brands grow faster than the market. Therefore, we are seeing the category grow, and we grow faster as we are building momentum and equity in the top end. It is looking good. We are hoping that this stays and it consistently. All indications suggest that we are in a good place. Yeah, it is across the country, right? By and large, across the country. Obviously, the top end is far more salient in the northern part of the country, but it is across the country that we are seeing this statement, right? To your question, there is no specific market definition. It is fairly broad-based. Thank you. Second question. Now, there was an article in Financial Times earlier this week that top five Spirit players, Diageo included, globally are sitting on highest level of inventory that we have seen in the past decade. Now, when I read that article versus your commentary of inflation in bulk Scotch, there is a little bit of disconnect. Could you help us understand how the pricing of bulk Scotch is decided between United Spirits and Diageo? When there is a big demand globally, why should you see inflation in bulk Scotch? That's question number two. No. That's yeah. For Jay, I mean, I don't want to kind of address the latter part. Right? You will be able to draw the conclusions. Look, it's a related-party transaction. We go to the shareholders every year. Right? We very transparently kind of do that. It's a cost-plus model. As simple as that. Right? It is a cost-plus model. The cost that Diageo Scotland incurs in making of Scotch and plus their arm's-length margin. Right? If you want to get into the nitty-gritties of that, my request will be you can go to our website. Every year before around the annual general meeting, we actually put out a complete benchmarking study. I think Ernst & Young does it for us. It is available to all public and all shareholders. That will provide you the exact construct. The simple principle is it's cost plus an arm's-length margin. If I just add one line to that, Jay, do remember this is also reasonably a competitive purchase price also. It basically tells you that the average cost-plus Scotch price is reasonably consistent. Yeah. It's consistent. Jay, having said that, that's the construct. Right? Separately, we obviously keep doing benchmarking of this, etc., that if Diageo Scotland is competitive enough. Right? That is a separate thing. And we absolutely have the comfort that they are absolutely competitive. They control 40% of the global Scotch. Right? Hopefully, they are competitive, which pretty much plays out in our benchmarking also. Perfect. No, that is helpful. Thank you. Last question is, could you give us some idea of how Maharashtra State excise collection was for the December quarter on a YOI basis? And what, in your assessment, it would be versus their own internal estimate when they increased excise duty and when they introduced MML? Wrong people to ask this question. As investors, you are always right in asking these questions. That is how I would say it. Look, I do not know the October-December number. Okay? As yet, we will know it very shortly. Okay? I think the first quarter after they did, there was a lot of pain. Yeah. Okay? That was media. It was a lot of pain. It was in public space. Okay? And very, very clearly, it was not something which was adding up for them. Let's see. I don't think I want to speculate about it. I'd love to see. It'll be in the public space very shortly. I think end of the month, you'll see it in public space. We all. Yeah. Thank you so much. That's it from me. Thank you so much. That's it from my side. Thank you. Thanks, Harith. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Harith Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead. Hi, Harith. Hi, good evening. Hi. Hi, good evening. Most of my questions are answered. I just had a couple. One was the way you mentioned Maharashtra, it seems like incrementally from the pain in Q3, it should not be too incrementally painful in Q4. I just wanted to get your sense that if I should we look at the going forward as the 200 basis point of primary kind of which is so impact in AP, that kind of comes back in the going forward quarters. Everything else remaining constant, at least that adds to the overall volume number. Is that the way to think about at least going forward? I'm assuming everything remaining constant, which itself is a fairly large assumption in this industry. Just your thought on that. I think you said it. Built on what we said. Right? Built on what we said. Sounds very, very logical. As I said, that's what I would say given the present scenario. Please be aware that the industry association has taken other actions to ensure a level playing field. That is the only add to that discussion. Otherwise, I would just stay with that podcast. On a status quo basis, absolutely. We should recoup the two points of volume growth, which is largely due to the AP retail pipeline bit. Right? Everything else should by and large remain the same, barring for the one thing that Praveen has called out. Right? Now, if there is success on that front, obviously, things could look very different. Got it. Just a follow-up on that, is there a—I know it is subject based, but is there a written expectation there in terms of when the order comes over the next month, two months, three months? I just say if you're following the case closely, I think that it is subject based, so I don't want to say anything around it. We will wait for it. Very shortly, we should see how it progresses ahead. Got it. The second part was in the initial remarks, and I think you've covered a lot in the initial remarks, was that you were expecting the 6-8% on price mix to continue. Adjusting for whatever Scotch inventory impact you have, the bulk Scotch impact you have because you start buying in November, so full quarter impact comes in Q4. Adjusting for that, is it fair to assume that these gross margins, which have been at about 47% over the last two quarters, should broadly not be very different adjusting for this? Because you're mentioning that the price mix will continue to be very, very healthy going forward. Is that the right way to think about this? Yeah. Broadly, I would say the price mix, I mean, there are quarter-on-quarter impacts. Right? Obviously, like I said, the top end of the portfolio is very, very salient in the October, November, December quarter. There will be some correction on account of that. Right? The bulk Scotch bit is more on the COGS inflation side, whereas the price mix is more on the portfolio sales side, Harith. Right? I just want to be clear. I hope you're not comparing apples to apples there. Of course. No, no. I was just looking at the—I was just looking at the complete gross margin impact because that's a function of COGS inflation as well as product mix. Just wanted to marry both. Just apples to apples. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. By and large, it should remain in the same range. Right? Inflation will go up a little. Again, hopefully, the price mix will continue. That should neutralize it. Got it. Those are my two questions. Wish you all the best. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Harith. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Avneesh Roy from Nuvama. Please go ahead. Thanks. My first question is on export Maharashtra. Your volume growth export Maharashtra has been resilient. My question is, which are the states driving this? Is it UP, some parts of Eastern India, and Karnataka, if you could clarify? Second part of the question is, Andhra, what is your expectation on full year given this is the first quarter of the second year? How do you see the full year panning out? I understand first quarter maybe the base was on the higher side. But full year, how do you see Andhra for you? That is the first question. Yeah. So Avneesh, the first question, look, I think that's why we have kind of deconstructed it. Praveen and his opening comments had deconstructed the volume growth and the value growth, right, nationally. Rest of India, excluding Maharashtra, let's look at it as one bucket. We are by and large doing well across. Right? That's the 6% volume growth that we spoke of. That 6% is as high as some of our best years over the last four, five years. That's the growth part. And 14% in value. Okay. And 14% in value. Right? Therefore, that's 6% volume, high end of our historical range, price mix of 8%, high end of our historical range, and therefore total of 14%-15% P&A, high end of our historical range. Right? That should provide you the comfort that we are by and large doing well. Now, in a portfolio of 29-30 states, there will always be some that are taking up the numbers and some that are bringing down the numbers. Overall, I wouldn't worry. You could say it's broad-based. It's broad-based. It's not any state significantly. Or index. Or significantly. We are seeing consistent performance. That's right. That's one. Then on Andhra, as I had mentioned, as we had mentioned in the last quarter, the brands are doing very well. We are growing on after having beginning to lap up Andhra, we are continuing to grow very healthy on those numbers. Andhra is pretty much in line with our national growth numbers, maybe a little higher than that because we are a high-share market there. We pretty much drive the category. Sure. Second question is on Delhi. We have had many quarters where new policy still, I think the industry is waiting for it to be implemented, full clarifications, and all that. It's a reasonably good market. It's a premium market. When I combine smuggling, say, from Gurgaon and, say, parts of UP, how do you see this market when it opens up? First, just be careful about I think Gurgaon is Gurgaon, and I wouldn't say that it moves anywhere else. I think Delhi is a big market. It is a hyper-capita income market. As and when the new policy comes into play, it's around this time of the year, over the next couple of months, that you will see a whole lot of new policy discussions. I believe it is going to open up fresh opportunity for all of us. Our brands are very, very well resilient there. As I see it, in terms of top of mind, they are doing exceedingly well consistently across the northern bulk, especially the top end of our brands. As and when it opens up, we believe we are waiting to unlock. Yeah. I mean, Avneesh, also, we've said this in the last couple of quarters. I think we have demonstrated enough credentials on that front in terms of our agility. Right? I mean, when Andhra opened up within 30 days, we were in the market. We are confident that if at all that opportunity comes, we will absolutely kind of seize it completely and we'll be in the market. Right? Not if at all. As and when. As and when. As and when. Last question, RCB team, the IPL team, the strategic review. One is in terms of the women's team, now a few seasons have gone. When you see this as a marketing spend, if you could highlight which brands have seen positive rub-off effect because clearly there is ROI calculation which you would be going into all these kind of spends. Second, I understand both men's and women's team, both teams will be part of the strategic review. Right? Because women's team started just a few seasons back. It's a strategic review of the overall asset. Yeah. I think we can divulge it. I think it's a strategic review of the overall asset. The point you're saying on what the WPL present season is doing on our brands, look, if you see across the digital space, we have activated Royal Challenge appropriately. You are seeing our new campaign starting to gain momentum. That's translating back into very strong volume and revenue and share performance on RC. It augurs well. We believe this will be consistent as we go through the season. Sure. Thanks. That's all from my side. Thank you. Thank you, Avneesh. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Ashutosh Jain from Barclays. Please go ahead. Hi, Ashutosh. Hello, team. Hello. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. First would be, you historically stated that your P&A growth algo is double-digit top line with 4%-5% volume mix and 6%-8% price mix. Does this include the U.K. FTA impact which will come from, say, Q1 2027 onwards, or is it independent of the U.K. FTA impact? Look, we stay committed to our double-digit guidance, our P&A guidance. Okay? I do not think anything has changed as we have said it consistently. We believe even this quarter, in spite of all that has happened, demonstrated that other than some accidents here and there, overall, the numbers are consistent. Nine months, very, very clearly, we are delivering that. On FTA, as and when it comes, it will open up new opportunities. These are all some things which we will work on. We are hoping the sooner the FTA comes, we will be able to unveil our plans around that. Okay. Am I reading it correctly? The current guidance, which is for P&A, double-digit top line, this kind of excludes FTA and anything which incremental benefit which comes from U.K. FTA will be on top of that? Look, right now, the way I put it is it is assuming business as usual. Okay? If there is some significant unlock which we do in FTA, that could be very different. Within a certain realistic estimate, it is all part of the discussion. Also, Ashutosh will just add, look, we do not kind of change our guidances based on individual events. Right? Maharashtra happened, but we've still stuck to our double-digit P&A guidance. Right? Let that come up. Right? When that comes up, hopefully, we can discuss at that point of time how it is impacting what we are doing, etc. I would say let's wait for that July-September quarter to come. Okay. Fair enough. My second question is quite far-fetched and it's kind of hypothetical. Your main competitor, which is Pernod Ricard, still does not have a license to sell in Delhi. Assuming if it were to come and has this license to sell in Delhi, how much do you believe your market share is defensible in the region? Delhi, as part of the northern mix, is more skewed towards P&A. I just wanted to assess the risk there in case it comes back online. Yeah. Ashutosh, again, I think we have discussed this earlier. Right? Delhi is a small market right now, right, in its current form, right, where the access to the big players is not complete. Right? So right now, it's not that any major part of our growth is coming. It's a very small market. Right? In case the market opens up, at that point of time, we believe that it will open up for everyone. We will see what we need to do at that point. Right now, to answer your question, it's negligible in the overall national growth algorithm. Okay. Fair enough. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Ashutosh. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Himanshu Shah from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead. Thanks, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Sorry, stretching a bit more on India-U.K. FTA. Can you just call out what could be the benefit on the bulk Scotch front on an annualized basis once the India-U.K. FTA comes into effect? This is a current INR 110 crore-INR 120 crore. Some of your smaller competitors have been putting a higher number. Any more or less similar set of numbers? Is this a bit more conservative, or is this what we expect? I really do not know what others have quoted, right? We have given a range of what we believe will impact this. Sure. Very helpful. Secondly, sir, can you update on the Telangana outstanding situation? What kind of overdues are there? Is that by any way impacting our volumes or, for that matter, industry volumes due to delay in payments? Right now, first of all, Himanshu, as you are aware, it is an industry issue, right? The industry associations are working with the Telangana government to find a solve. Over the months, we've seen progressive improve ment, right? Obviously, not at the pace at which we would want, right? We continue to work with the associations and the Telangana state government. So far, there is no impact on the volume. How much would be overdue, sir, in terms of number of days versus the normal range? We haven't shared that number. I would refrain from sharing that number publicly, right? By and large, the entire industry is in the same range. Fair enough. Thank you. That's it from my side. All the best. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as a last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Shweta Arora for closing comments. Over to you, ma'am. Thanks, Romil. Thanks, everyone, for joining us on the call today. In terms of time, we're closing the call. If you have any unanswered questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly. Thank you. Have a good evening. Thank you, everyone. Thank you all. Bye. Thank you. On behalf of United Spirits Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.