Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Varun Beverages Limited earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Anoop Poojari from CDR India. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Varun Beverages Q4 and FY 2021 earnings conference call. We have with us Mr. Ravi Jaipuria, Chairman of the company, Mr. Varun Jaipuria, Whole-t ime Director, Mr. Raj Gandhi, Group CFO and Whole-t ime Director, and Mr. Kapil Agarwal, CEO and Whole-t ime Director of the company. We'll initiate the call with opening remarks from the management, following which we'll have the forum open for a question and answer session. Before we begin, I would like to state that some statements made on today's call may be forward-looking in nature, and a disclaimer to this effect has been included in the results presentation shared with you earlier. I would now like to request Mr. Ravi Jaipuria to make the opening remarks. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our earnings conference call. I hope all of you had the opportunity to go through our results presentation. This provides details of our operational and financial performance for the fourth quarter and year ended 31 December 2021. We delivered a strong and resilient performance in the year 2021, registered a top-line growth of 37% and a PAT growth of 109%. Our performance was driven by a robust volume growth of 34%. While the year started on a healthy note, short-term disruptions due to second COVID wave of the pandemic severely affected our domestic business in the seasonally strong month of May. Given the learnings from the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, our team was able to handle and mitigate the impact due to these disruptions to a large extent in 2021. As restrictions started easing from June onwards, we saw a fast recovery in demand that brought back the growth momentum in which we started the year. Improved offtakes across our international territories further aided growth during the year. We continue to sustain the cost optimization measures that we had undertaken during the pandemic period. Despite decline in our gross margins due to higher freight prices, our cost optimization measures in combination with a higher operational leverage on the back of strong volume growth has translated to enhanced operating profits in 2021. I'm pleased to share that even a seasonally soft quarter, we have reported profits for the first time ever in quarter four on account of these factors, along with the improvements in profitability of international operations and lower financing costs. On the whole, we have delivered an encouraging performance during the year. The third wave of COVID has not had any significant impact on our business, and we will continue to further strengthen our distribution in under-penetrated territories, enhancing volumes and increasing our market share. We are confident of delivering a much stronger performance going forward. I would now invite Mr. Gandhi to provide highlights of the operational and financial performance. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, and a warm welcome to everyone joining us today. Let me provide the overview of the financial performance for the fourth quarter and the year ended December 31, 2021. Revenue from operations adjusted for excise GST grew up by 30.3% year-on-year in quarter four 2021 to the level of INR 17,343.4 million. For calendar year 2021, revenue from operations grew by 36.8% over the calendar year 2020 to INR 88,232.3 million. Consolidated sales volume for quarter four, calendar year 2021 registered a solid growth of 28.5% to 112 million cases. For the calendar year 2021, total sales volume grew up by 32.8% to the level of 569.1 million cases, driven by strong recovery in demand and low base of the calendar year 2020. In the year 2021, CSD constituted 70.3% of the mix, juice 6.4%, and packaged drinking water 23.3% of the total sales volumes. Realization per case for the calendar year 2021 increased by 2.2% year-on-year, driven by improvement in realizations in international operations. On the profitability front, EBITDA increased by 20.5% to the level of INR 2,075.7 million in Q4, calendar year 2021 for the full year. Calendar year 2021 EBITDA grew by 37.7% to the level of INR 16,546.5 million year-on-year. Gross margins in calendar year 2021 declined by 288 basis points and by 476 basis points in the calendar year, in the quarter four of the calendar year 2021, primarily because of the higher resin prices, which increased by almost 18% in the year. Despite the decline in gross margins, the company was able to improve its EBITDA margin to 18.8% year-on-year because of high operating leverage given by strong volume growth and on account of cost optimization measures. Finance cost declined by 39.8% during the quarter four calendar year 2021 and by 34.3% in calendar year 2021, primarily because of the lower cost of borrowing. This is the first time the company has ever reported a positive PAT at INR 325.9 million in a seasonally weak quarter such as quarter four. This was primarily led by improvement in profitability of international operations and lower financing costs. For the calendar year 2021, PAT grew by 108.8% to the level of INR 7,460.5 million rupees. As well as India, most of the international territories also reported healthy profitability. On the balance sheet front, the net debt stood at the level of INR 30,053 million as on 31 December 2021, as against INR 30,158 million as on 31 December 2020. The debt reduced marginally despite increase in capital work in progress by INR 4,300 million and incremental stocking of PET chips preforms of INR 2,000 million as on December 31, 2021 for the next season in order to mitigate against logistics and pricing risks. Our debt to equity ratio stood at a healthy level of 0.72x, and the debt to EBITDA ratio stood at 1.82x as of December 31, 2021. Working capital days increased to 35 on December 31, primarily because of high stocking of PET chips preforms. During calendar year 2021, net CapEx stood at INR 3,500 million, out of which INR 1,300 million is primarily towards brownfield expansion in certain parts, plants in India, and INR 2,200 million is primarily towards brownfield expansion in Morocco and Zimbabwe. As on December 31, 2021, capital work in progress stood at an approximate level of INR 5,000 million, primarily for setting up new greenfield production facilities in Bihar and Jammu and brownfield expansion in Sandila, Delhi. In line with the guidelines of dividend policy, the Board of Directors recommended an interim final dividend of INR 2.50 per share during calendar year 2021. Total cash outflow for dividend payout was INR 1,082.6 million. On the whole, the company's financial position remains strong. We have seen a healthy month-on-month trend in sales and consumption, and the outlook remains positive for all our product categories over the medium to long term. Overall, the focus remains on generating strong free cash flows over the ensuing quarters and coming years. On that note, I come to an end to the opening remarks and would like to now ask the moderator to open the forum for any questions or suggestions that you may have. Thank you very much. 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 the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Anyone who would like to ask a question, please press star and one at this time. The first question is from the line of Chirag Shah from CLSA. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking the question. At the outset, congratulations on reporting profit in Q4, a difficult task to achieve. Just very quickly, Mr. Gandhi, you mentioned that the focus going ahead would remain on generating strong free cash flow. Can you just touch upon what would be the key strengths in the next couple of years? What will be the investments in some of the newer geographies that you are planning to enter? And then, finally, you know, what is the plan to improve further on the working capital cycle, please? Thank you, Chirag, for asking the detailed question. First, on the operating free cash flows and the CapEx going forward, as mentioned in that this year, the CapEx planning to assume greenfield and one brownfield at three locations are going. The CapEx breakup, as given in the last call of INR 700 crore is going to be Out of it, about INR 500 crore is already incurred. What is more important than the year-wise breakup is that in the longer term, we always, you know, give the guidance that our CapEx is going to be on a long-term basis, whether we see last five years or on a moving basis. It's somewhere around the depreciation figure, which still holds true on a longer term basis. This CapEx of two plants is coming in the light of last two years that have no expansion. One. Second is new territories, new geographies opening up. This is, as of now, there is nothing, no CapEx plan for new geographies. That inorganic as and when the opportunity comes in, we definitely share with, all, you know, the market bankers, everyone. as and when, I mean, it will come, we will definitely be doing it. I think you had one more question, Chirag. Working capital Working capital. Okay, Good Yeah. Working capital remains always, you know, with every volume going on and every year it's improving and improving. Standard basis, it's about 14 days. 31 days at the year-end, it is 31, the volume in December low month is lower, as it is, it shows 21-22 days. It got accelerated with the conscious decision of de-risking the company by stocking preforms as well as the PET resin to de-risk against the logistics or price issues. Although luckily the third wave is subsiding now fast, but you know, initially it was not possible to predict, but we wanted to protect ourselves, which we did. Yeah. I understand the one-offs that we have on the inventory days, but on a structural basis, you know, as the juices capacity also gets spread across India, is there a scope to reduce the inventory days that we have in the system? The normalized inventory days, I mean. No, I think less than 14 days will be very difficult, Chirag. I think 14 days is very, very optimum, and I think it would not get reduced further. Sure. I'll take it offline. I was just talking about the inventory days, but I'll take it offline. Mr. Jetley, I think we have you here. Can you also talk about dairy expansion plans now? Secondly, the expansion plans on the VC cooler rollout, please. Our dairy expansion, you know, because of the last 2 years of COVID being in the peak season, so we really couldn't do very much with it. This year, hopefully, if the things work out well, we have a large plant in Bokakhat and partly in Arunachal. Not Arunachal, sorry, Arkansol, where we are producing dairy products. Hopefully this year we will our volume growths are expected to be more than double to maybe even triple. Once we reach that, then we would be looking at putting up another unit in Maharashtra. Understand. On the VC coolers? We have added 40,000 VC coolers. VC coolers, we are normally putting about 40,000 VC coolers every year, so which we have done this year also. Sure. Sure. Thank you. I'll join the queue. I have a few more questions, but I'll join the queue. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nihal Jham from Edelweiss. Please go ahead. Yes, sir. Thank you so much, and congratulations to the management for the strong performance. Three questions from my side. Starting off with the quarter, rightly we have been discussing about the out-of-home and in-home split. Considering that you mentioned that this quarter you did not see any impact coming in from COVID, is it safe to assume that the out-of-home and in-home split is similar to what it was pre-COVID? Also if you could highlight, you know, the performance of certain star products like Sting or any of the others you want to. Fundamentally, this last quarter we had practically started coming back to pre-COVID days, the normal system. The split on the go was 65% and 35% home consumption. That is what the split has been on a normal working. That is helpful. Just to understand any specific product categories, would want to know about Sting's performance and if possible to share the contribution for this year now that we've seen, in a recent time period since it has been launched. Sting has done extremely well for us, and it's already close to 5% of our mix, and the volume has been phenomenal. 5% of our mix itself is a large volume and still growing at a huge pace. Absolutely, Mr. Jaipuria. Mr. Jaipuria, the second question was you- Just for your information, the growth has been about 440%. Better off than the share of this last year would have been just less than, say, 1%-2%? Absolutely. You know, with the 400% growth, I don't have the exact number what mix was last year. This has really gone up and it is still doing extremely well. We hope this share will further go up this year. This is very helpful. Mr. Jaipuria, the second question was in terms of, so you didn't mention about the VC cooler. Just in terms of the retail touchpoints, I think we ended last year at around 2 million retail touchpoints. Just to get an update on what that number was at the end of this year? In case that's available. The retail outlets remained more or less the same because of the COVID year and the base population 89,000, out of which was covered by our vast presence in those outlets. Because a lot of outlets temporarily shut down, which have still not opened actually. A lot of restaurants and all are still not back to operation. Right. For the coming year, what are we building in? Would we like to say catch up, given the miss in the COVID year that we would want to add, say 300-400 thousand outlets higher than the past year, or are there any internal targets on this front? Well, we hope to add about at least 10%-12% outlets. Of course, if the outlets which have shut down also open up, it will be much higher. A lot of restaurants especially, we are not sure if they will open up or not. We are still waiting and seeing what is going to happen. Unfortunately, January had a COVID base again, so it's still too early to say. Luckily, it has not impacted us this time because the lockdowns were not severe. As long as we don't have severe lockdown, then it's not a problem for us. Moreover, last three years, COVID, they saw during the peak month and this year COVID wave three was in our thickest month of the year. Absolutely. Just one last question from my side. This quarter towards December, you did mention about entering Congo, which is a bit of a different setup than what you traditionally entered some of the other geographies. If you could just comment on that and could that be a way of entering some of the other African markets? And also the setting up of the subsidiary in Dubai, if that has anything you may want to highlight to us, and I'll be done. Thank you. We are just at the finalization stage of entering Congo. Initially for a year and a half at least, we will be distributing product there. We have capacity in our plant in Morocco and our plant in Zambia. We will be supplying two parts of Congo, one from Zambia and one from Morocco. This will help both these countries in utilization of their capacities. As you will notice from our filings, we will just be testing the market and we will be importing and supplying. While importing one territory which is supplied out of Morocco, the off-season of Morocco coincides with the busy season in DRC. We want to leverage our existing facilities without any CapEx initially, and if it turns out to be promising, we will definitely not shy away from considering for the CapEx. The second filing of the office in UAE, which you were mentioning, that is only a coordination because it's, you know, DRC is not going to have any manufacturing facility, and two countries will be supplying. The coordination and that becomes easier from a place like UAE. It's only that objective. Understood. Wish you all the best. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kashyap Javeri from Emkay Investment Managers. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you very much, sir. Two questions from my side. One, if you look at our standalone numbers, you know, there is about 30% revenue growth and barely any, you know, EBITDA growth on year-on-year basis. In standalone, you know, ops, you know, if you could throw some light on the margins as well as the volume growth. In the domestic market, or let's say India operations, how would the growth be split between, you know, the three product lines in this particular quarter? In India, the volume growth was 27.2%. We had PAT growth of 61.9% in India. While in the international market, volume growth was 32% and PAT growth was 17.2%. Sorry. You said, India PAT growth of 61%. 27.2% on the sales volume and 61.9% in PAT. Yes. Okay. International? 32% on the volume and 17.2% in PAT. Okay. In both the businesses, would margins have behaved differently on per unit basis? This is for the quarter, I assume. Yeah, yeah. I'm asking for the quarter. Which is the next question, please? Second question is that in India operations, what would be the volume growth across three categories? India, the volume growth, only I said 27.2%. Right. No, no. Hello? Yes. I'm asking the growth split between, you know, CSD, juices and water. Okay. The split in calendar 2021, CSD is 70.3%, juice 6.4%, water 23.6%. This is on overall basis. If you want a split between India and overseas- Can you repeat those numbers actually, you know? This is the mix, 70.3% mix of CSD. Okay. Juice mix is 60.4%. Water mix is 23.6%. This is on overall basis? This is on overall basis. Would you have that number separately for India and international ops? We do have. I think right now we have a combined number, so. Okay. Yeah. Sure, sir. That's it from my side. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dhruv Jindal from Monarch AIF. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. So my question is that, when I see the standalone and the consolidated numbers, the India P&L for this calendar year is INR 489 crores, correct? Yes, that's right. Last year which was INR 226 crores. That's right. 115% growth. Right. Similarly for international, it has jumped from INR 103 crores to INR 257 crores. That's right. Okay. Thirty point eight to two fifty-six. Okay. How, why do we see this big jump, sir? What has contributed mainly to this jump in international pack for us? see international. The volumes have gone up. The volumes have gone up, and over the last year, pack growth in international is 96%, India is 116%. Both are in line, actually. Okay. Sir, if I see the, you know, realization per case in the international market, last year it was INR 179 per case, and this year is INR 193.7. Again, we're to get a sense of what is the volume mix for us in the international market that we are generating this kind of a realization, which is, you know, better than India. It's because the pricing has been, we have taken some price increases internationally, and that is why you see, because of the PETs and we have passed it on to the consumer. That's why you see it. Okay. Sir, just last question, on the volumes front for the India business, do you have the absolute million cases number for CSD, NCB and water? Uh... Well, the total volume is what? India 316 for the CSD, juice 33.4, water 105. Okay. Fine, sir. Thank you so much. I'll come back again. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sanjaya Sathpathy from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Congratulations on the great set of numbers. I have two questions. One is that for your company, are you gaining market share? Can you give us some color on market share trend, you know, for different product of yours? I think both the companies are doing well. I think we are in the range of 0.5% up or down. Both the companies are growing at a reasonably fast pace. Whole industry is growing. We haven't got the latest results, so I don't know. We're definitely not losing any market share. Okay. My second question is that in the opening remarks you mentioned that you are looking forward to far better performance going ahead. Is there any way to kind of quantify it? Or are you looking at better volume growth or margin expansion? What really are the drivers of your optimism for next year? One, I think is clearly the last two years we have gone through in our peak season, which has been pandemic, and we hope that this year is not going to be the same. We expect a major growth in the second quarter of our, which has been both years affected by the pandemic. That itself will give us a bump in our overall volumes, and that with the volume growth automatically our margins as well as our pack and EBITDA will go up. We expect a very healthy growth this year. We have been able to mitigate most of our cost, which has been increased by PET by lightweighting the preforms and also partly passing the price, consumer price to a little bit. We don't We have got enough resin for our this year. I don't see any further challenges for us as far as cost escalation is concerned. Thank you, sir, for this. Overall, I believe that earlier you were looking at some 21% kind of EBITDA margin as a sustainable margin. Is that something which one can look to Yes, I think we can definitely look at something in that range going forward. Okay. Sir, if I can just ask one more question that you talked about, you know, this competition and that both of you are kind of not conceding any inch to each other, it looks like. In that kind of situation- We are trying not to. I don't know if we are, but. Okay. The fact that you are getting into Bihar and couple of others, this is the kind of geographical thing that you are doing. Overall, I thought that you might be losing market share. Well, we hope. We are trying, but I don't have full numbers to say that we are. I don't want to say it, but I think we are doing reasonably well, and I think the other company is also doing quite well. That's all I can tell you. Okay. There is no impact of this Omicron wave on this latest quarter? Pardon me. This latest quarter, there was no impact of lockdown or anything, right, sir? The quarter in December. Last quarter, no. October, December, there was no effect of. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Devanshu Bansal from Emkay Global Financial Services. Please go ahead. Yes, hi, thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on really good set of numbers. Sir, can you give us some color on January trends, as in how have been the trends in January? Because this was a relatively more impacted month. No, as I said before that unless and until there are major lockdowns, we are not getting affected, and we are, I think, back to our pre-COVID days. We are looking at a very positive year, actually. Okay. In December quarter, we have seen about 17% volume CAGR on a two-year basis. In previous quarters also, as we've indicated that the volume growth in non-impacted months has been upwards of double digits. We're assuming that FY 2022 is going to be a normal year. Can we base this growth into assumptions for coming years as well? Well, definitely this year the growth will be much higher, provided we don't get any pandemic again, and there are not lockdowns. As I said, we expect a very healthy growth and a very healthy margins, which is 21% growth, margins. Because last two years we've had a bad second quarter, which is our main quarter. If we don't have pandemic this year, we should have a very healthy quarter and going forward for the full year, it'll be a great year. Just to reframe the question, so in current year, season quarter, if things remain normal, can we see sort of a 10-12% sort of a CAGR relative to pre-pandemic levels in the June quarter? Let me give you one data point, and let's, you know, we'll leave it to you to extrapolate. In 2021, when Delta came on scene in May 2021, the volume was 66% lower than 2019. Overall we had grown. We definitely feel, you know, it will be higher than 2019. Rest of the month, you take the volumes and you can work out what growth in the second quarter we can expect. Sure, sir. There has been a change in revenue mix, as well as improved international realizations, that have led to overall realizations to improve. As this revenue mix normalizes, should we see our overall portfolio level realizations to moderate slightly in the coming year, or we can still grow over the FY 2021 level? It's a continuous process. We'll keep on growing. You know, as and when new packs, new sizes, new things are introduced, they always come with a premium. Like Sting, which is 5% of our mix, comes at a good premium to us. If you look at our products which are growing faster is Sting, which is a premium product, Dairy, which is a premium product. Tropicana is growing at a faster. All these products are premium products, so that's why. We expect a much better year this year. That will all bring in a healthier top line and as well as the bottom line. Sure. My last question is, sir, we indicated that this Zimbabwe currency reversal provision should continue for like 5, 6 quarters. This quarter, I think, we have not reversed about $2 million of this provision. Anything on this front you can highlight? Yes, we out of INR 130 crore, if my memory goes right, I think INR 52 crore we have already reversed. The balance, as and when, you know, based upon that quarter's currency rates, will keep on, you know, amortized. This quarter's currency movement was such that, you know, there was no reversal. Whatever is left has to go through the P&L account in due course. What is this INR 33 crore other income in standalone financial? Impact when India gets dividend from its subsidiaries, mainly from Nepal, that is recorded as other income. Okay, sure. Helpful, sir. This is it from my end. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Deepak Lalwani from Unifi Capital. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, just wanted to understand how much price hike have you taken in this quarter? Oh, it's not very much. On a couple of packs wherever there was room we have taken, which is basically to mitigate our PET resin input cost by one via lightweighting, and the second by taking a price increase. We have basically mitigated it. This year we will not have much impact, and that's why I said we will still be able to maintain our 20% EBITDA margins. Okay. Sir, just wanted to understand a little deeper on your pricing mechanism. How does the company think about price hike? Like, does it depend on competition or do we need to take a pre-approval from Pepsi or something like that? No, we don't need a pre-approval, but of course it depends on how the competition is behaving. It's not because, we have to see what the market can take and where we can put it. Whatever we feel the market can accept, then that is the price increase we take normally. Got it, sir. Sir, since, you know, next year is going to be a good year in terms of free cash flows, what is the debt reduction target for CY 2022? From 3,000 at least, you know, somewhere about 40% or so we should be able to reduce. Okay, sir. That's helpful. Sir, if you could share the, you know, the percentage of revenues coming from Tropicana and the dairy segment and what has been the growth rate in this year? Tropicana mix is 2.3% and Sting is 5%. Okay. What about the Dairy business? Dairy, we could not launch in a proper way because of the COVID the day it was launched. It's negligible, but it's promising for the current year. Got it, sir. Thank you. That has helped. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sumant Kumar from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi sir. Can you talk about the overall growth in rural and urban market for our products? See, urban has slightly behaved better than rural, otherwise there had not been much of a change between the two. It was broadly in line with the overall growth levels. You know, rural is growing at faster pace versus urban? Slightly lower than the urban. Urban has been growing slightly faster, and that is mainly because of the COVID happening in the peak season, which is where the rural is much more buoyant. Not because of base effect also? The rural has a lesser impact in Q4 2020, CY 2021. Q4 our volumes are very low in rural. You see the main volume which come from rural is in the peak season, which is April, May, June. Okay. Because of COVID being in end of April and May, that got affected quite badly. Okay. Particularly this quarter also rural is lagging urban growth? No, not this quarter, but if you look at the year, that's where the lagging is coming. Hopefully this year rural will be much faster growing than urban. When talking about the current scenario in Q4 or CY 2021, how is the rural versus urban particular quarter? The growth has been about equal, so there's not been negative in the rural. It started coming back. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next question is on the line of Sameer Gupta from IIFL. Please go ahead. Hi sir, thank you for taking my question. Just a clarification. You mentioned 27% volume growth in the India business and 31% is the sales growth. That's a difference of 4%. Is it safe to assume this is the kind of price hikes taken this quarter? Internationally the realization has been better. That's why. No, no, not international. Domestic, I'm saying. For the quarter, 27% increase and 31% in the realization. Actually, realization is better. This is sufficient to assume that this is a- Product mix which is changing. No? Sting has increased, which is a higher value product, and Tropicana is a higher value product, so. Okay. This 4% difference is largely on account of mix and that is what is reflecting in this number? Yeah. Okay. Sir, another clarification. On Tropicana you mentioned 2.3% of sales. This only pertains to the juices and nectars, right? Doesn't pertain to the Slice or whatever fruit drinks that are sold under Tropicana, right? Not Slice. It's only juices and nectar. Okay, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is on the line of Nikhil Parekh from Samco Investment Managers. Please go ahead. Thank you so much, sir, for the opportunity. I'm sorry, sir, if it is repetition. Can you please, you know, share with us what is the price hike you would have taken for this calendar year 2021? As I said, we have not taken a price hike initially. It's only in the later part, which is maybe in December, we have taken a minor tweaking in pricing, and balance we have mitigated by lightweighting the preform. Okay. Second question is, sir, on the south and west markets. Sir, I wanted to know what will be the contribution to our CY 2021 volumes. I, if I recollect the numbers, I think it was about 150, 160 million cases market when we bought it from Pepsi. So just wanted to know what numbers you would have done this year and, you know, and what are the growth opportunities ahead. Well, south and west is growing quite well for us. Okay. It has been INR 142 million against what we have taken in from Pepsi, which was much lower than this. What is the growth you are expecting? Because if I'm recollecting the numbers, I think 180 or 190 million cases was our target. The last two years, both the years have been COVID years, so you can't expect a growth actually. That's why the growth has been very little, but it's been still better than what we had taken. Okay. In terms of improving the go-to-market- If you want to know, we have grown 33%. Sorry, sir? We have grown 33% in South and West over last year. Okay. In terms of improving the go-to-market strategy, that is still an ongoing process or? You know, we need to, you know, we've not had one proper year, and our business is skewed to April-May-June quarter, and which both years have got disturbed. Hopefully after this year I'll be able to give you much better answers. All right. Sir, one last question is if you can share the absolute volume numbers for Sting. I... 5% of total. 5% of our total volume. Okay, 5% of total. Thank you so much for answering my question. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kanan B. from Edge West Company. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi sir, am I audible? Yes, yes, very audible. Sir, I just wanted to understand that, as two years back Mountain Dew goes on the counters of main shops or any showrooms, mean to say showrooms like restaurants, but now the thing has changed. Are you looking in that way or are you looking in a different way? Mean to say, are you willing to fill the gap with the Sting, the gap which is realized in the Mountain Dew or are you doing it in different way? Why do you feel there is a gap in Mountain Dew? I didn't get you. Well, I'm just asking that as I go to any shop in the village or any city, then they said that Mountain Dew is losing its market share in the sense of its taste and Coke is gaining the market share in spite of Dew. I'm asking in that point. That is not true. Mountain Dew is very much doing well, and we are quite happy with it. Sting is adding additional volumes to it, and that's why you're seeing such large growth. Okay. You have to see like this, if I have grown 33%, so the growth is coming with Sting and other things, you know, which are facilitators for growth. So, if Mountain Dew, which is the obvious winner, if it's coming down, we'll never be able to grow. Okay, sir. Okay. It is looking in your financial. Okay. Thank you, sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is on the line of Sonal Shah from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, I have just one question. I understand our debt levels increased because of higher inventory and some part of capacity issues. Any trajectory guidance that you would like to give for the debt going forward, given our CY 2022 is looking up in terms of operating performance and cash flow positivity? We expect at least the debt to come down by at least one-third, if not more. You know, after taking care of organic CapEx for the next year, at least 40% it should come down, if it is not more. It can rather be 45% coming down from this year. Got it. Okay. That's all from me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question at this time. Anyone who would like to ask a question, you may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Abhisar Jain from Monarch AIF. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, can you give some update on the CapEx progress in the Bihar location that you have taken up? By when is that expected to get commissioned? Bihar and the Jammu plants we are expecting to be ready before our ensuing season. We always plan these, you know, putting up the plants so that we can immediately take advantage of it. I think by March we should have both the plants operational. Right. Sir, basically, for the season, we should get the positive impact. You had given that those locations have much lower per capita and that's the growth area which you can realize, right? Absolutely. Both the plants, Bihar, J&K and our expansion in Sandila will be all completed by before March, and it'll be in production. Sure. Sir, Very badly, because one, the market penetration is very low. Second, per cap is very low. Third, in those territories of Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, MP, you know, that is growing 50%+ for us every year after year. Right. Sure. And sir, I want, also wanted to understand now the company's direction going ahead, since you know we can enjoy some normal years starting FY 2022, hopefully. On the balance between growth and debt reduction, what should be the direction that we should assume? Because if at all you know any other growth opportunities, say in international markets, then the deleveraging could be lower than what you had just indicated, right? What would be the direction that the company would like to go over the next two, three years? Could we look at further growth opportunities after only you know achieving some level of deleveraging, or we'll see it on a opportunity basis? Well, if you look at it, we are not really leveraged that much anyway. We are always looking for new opportunities. As and when, as Mr. Gandhi had said, we find any good opportunity, we'll definitely take it because our balance sheet is more than healthy to support it. Moreover, there is no M&A after May 2019. Right. Sure, sir. Understood. Thank you so much and best of luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kashyap Javeri from Emkay Investment Managers. Please go ahead. Yes, sir. Thank you very much for this opportunity. Just to clarify on my, you know, earlier question, you mentioned about, you know, India operations. You know, there was a 61% you said, CAGR growth. What you're basically mentioning is actually the decline in losses, right, for the quarter? This quarter, INR 62 crores-INR 20 crores. Which means the quarterly number which you mentioned for India operations. That's right. If I look at our revenue growth is about 31% on 27% volume growth. But if I look at the EBITDA number, that number is actually, you know, sort of flat versus last year. Was there any EBITDA per case contraction in Indian operations? It is because of the input costs going up, which was the impact in this one. This was a quarter where all the cost of PET resin actually went up. That is why during this quarter is when, by which we have light weighted, and the effects of that will start showing in January onwards. We have also increased our price in the end of Q3, pretty close to end of December. Those effects. This is in- will also show this year. This is in India market, domestic market? India market. If I look at your, you know, global operations, you know, which is Africa and the Nepal operations, there, you know, despite the similar kind of growth, you know, in revenues, the margins have, you know, sort of held up in those geographies. What is the product mix? They are much earlier. There we increased the prices much earlier, and in India we could only increase. Okay. at the end of December practically. That should reflect in first quarter this year numbers. This quarter it will reflect. International operations, because we had already taken a price increase, that should continue steady state in the first quarter of this calendar year. That will continue. Okay. Yeah. That's it from my side, sir. I just needed that clarity. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anirudh from JM Financial. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you very much, Mr. Jaipuria and Mr. Raj. Two questions from my side. If we look at the volumes that were delivered in 2019, will it be fair to assume that this year the volumes will be in absolute basis higher given that we're expecting a normal summer season in domestically as well as internationally? Domestically more, internationally less, because the lockdowns internationally were much lower. The timing, you know, it was winter internationally when it was peak summer here. How should those volumes behave? Internationally, I don't think it'll be regular normal growth which we are getting, whereas domestically you'll see major growth. Okay. Second is, you know, to what extent would you have the pricing power in terms of. So if you were to say, you know, take a 5% or 10% price hike, what can be the effect on demand? Or even if you were to take It's all relevant. You know, we have a competition here. Question is, I can take a price increase, but if the competition doesn't take it or match it, then we have a problem. We'll have a problem in the market. We can't take price increases just like that. We have to be very conscious of how we take price increases. In the past, how has? The market must be able to take the hit. Right. In the past, how has this pricing decisions been playing out? Well, somebody has to take the lead, and one of us takes the lead and the other one mostly follows. There's no hard and fast rule to it. It can be a call by any company, what they want to do. Okay. If the other person doesn't increase, then you end up discounting it to match it. Okay. Just to understand this a little better, till now, what percentage of the raw material inflation you would have, you know, kind of covered? We have covered all our inflation, and we have covered our raw material also. We don't see any challenges for 2022. That's why I said our EBITDA margins will be healthy, and we are looking at again 20%+ EBITDA margins. This is fantastic. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Thank you. I hope we have been able to answer all your questions satisfactorily. Should you need any further clarifications or would like to know more about the company, please feel free to contact our investor relations team. Thank you once again for your interest and support and for taking the time out to join us in this call. We look forward to interacting with you soon. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of Varun Beverages Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.