MARICONSEQ1FY26August 11, 2025

Marico Limited

11,572words
127turns
11analyst exchanges
2executives
Management on call
Saugata Gupta
MD & CEO, MARICO LIMITED
Pawan Agrawal
GROUP CFO & CEO -
Key numbers — 40 extracted
80%
encouraging, with nearly the entire business either sustaining or gaining market share, and over 80% of the business sustaining on improving penetration. Revenue growth in the India business reached
60%
tiple rounds of price increases and ml-age reductions amounting to an effective price increase of 60% plus. After normalizing for ml-age changes, the brand remained in growth territory during the qua
35%
whether it's in 2014-15 or over an 18 to 24-month cycle in 2017-19 where we had also taken around 35% price increase and still delivered 5.5% growth over a period of 2017-19 and a 6.5% growth in 2014
5.5%
o 24-month cycle in 2017-19 where we had also taken around 35% price increase and still delivered 5.5% growth over a period of 2017-19 and a 6.5% growth in 2014-15. The scale of our operations, couple
6.5%
taken around 35% price increase and still delivered 5.5% growth over a period of 2017-19 and a 6.5% growth in 2014-15. The scale of our operations, coupled with resilient back-end capabilities and
12%
e forecast of monsoons and the decent progress so far. In fact, prices have just come down around 12% from the highs in the last two weeks. As consumer pricing gradually normalizes, we expect Parachu
140 bps
in its recovery, led by sustained momentum in the mid and premium segments. The franchise gained 140 bps in value market share on a MAT Regd. Off: 7th Floor, Grande Palladium, 175, CST Road, Kalina,
25%
t-based nutrition range sustained accelerated growth momentum. We remain on track to deliver over 25% growth this year and over the medium- term, while steadily improving profitability. During the qua
₹ 850 crore
eardo, Just Herbs and the Personal Care portfolio of Plix, exited the quarter with an ARR of over ₹ 850 crores, scaling up well ahead of our earlier targets. Given this trajectory, we are on track to reach 2
2.5x
es, scaling up well ahead of our earlier targets. Given this trajectory, we are on track to reach 2.5x of FY24 ARR by FY27. We continue to operate with a keen eye on the profitability and are striving
rs,
eel, and I would like to share a perspective on why we see it in that way. Over the past few years, the CPG landscape has undergone significant shifts shaped by macro events and evolving consumer be
99%
, which is a far more sustainable and enduring lever for growth. We draw a lot of confidence from 99% of the business gaining or sustaining market share in India, which has happened after a while. We
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Guidance — 20 items
Saugata Gupta
opening
“I would like to start with a narrative on the operating environment during the quarter gone by, after which I will touch upon our performance and strategic objectives going forward.”
Saugata Gupta
opening
“While General Trade also moved into growth after some quarters as a result of focused initiatives, improved execution, and the ongoing progress of Project SETU.”
Saugata Gupta
opening
“That being said, we believe the current market conditions are unsustainable, and the copra market should settle down over the course of this fiscal year given the forecast of monsoons and the decent progress so far.”
Saugata Gupta
opening
“As consumer pricing gradually normalizes, we expect Parachute to chart meaningful recovery in volume growth given our competitive advantage under such conditions where the smaller players are out of the market.”
Saugata Gupta
opening
“Saffola oil has bounced back to deliver mid-single digit volume growth, which is in line with our medium-term aspiration.”
Saugata Gupta
opening
“We expect the brand to be steady on a full year base.”
Saugata Gupta
opening
“We are confident of maintaining a double-digit growth momentum in the franchise throughout the year on the back of sharper brand activations supported by a strategic pivot from trade-led investments towards brand-building and therefore increasing SOV, especially in the mid and premium segments, along with enhanced direct reach through Project SETU, which invariably benefits VAHO.”
Saugata Gupta
opening
“We remain on track to deliver over 25% growth this year and over the medium- term, while steadily improving profitability.”
Saugata Gupta
opening
“Given this trajectory, we are on track to reach 2.5x of FY24 ARR by FY27.”
Saugata Gupta
opening
“We continue to operate with a keen eye on the profitability and are striving to deliver double-digit EBITDA margins in this portfolio by FY27.”
Risks & concerns — 15 flagged
We are also seeing the positive impact of Project SETU-led initiatives in rural, and on mid- premium segments of VAHO.
— Saugata Gupta
While the pricing-led denominator effect may suppress optical margins this year, we are not alarmed by the optical drop in operating margins and firmly believe this is a temporary hiatus and not a structural concern.
— Saugata Gupta
While delivering double-digit EBITDA growth this year may be somewhat of a challenge, we expect better visibility by the second half.
— Saugata Gupta
I do notice your very resilient volumes, but that could be a function of market share again, because the very big retailer which had a concall recently, said that in coconut oil they saw very sharp decline versus your almost flattish volume.
— Abneesh Roy
On South Africa, what is happening there, why have you not changed the full year guidance in spite of weak, flattish number?
— Abneesh Roy
It is difficult to give quarter-on-quarter guidance, Avi.
— Pawan Agrawal
But does this kind of price increase put significant pressure on titrating for consumers?
— Mihir Shah
Can one expect a sharper decline on volumes of Parachute or not really?
— Mihir Shah
VAHO is margin accretive category if that goes by double-digits while the kind of pressure that you see from copra, I mean, when will this converge and when can we start seeing margins starting to expand, can it be like in two to three quarters, is that a fair understanding?
— Mihir Shah
So, see, from a margin percentage standpoint, very honestly, it is very difficult to sort of gauge because there are multiple moving parts in terms of the commodity inflation, price increase that Regd.
— Pawan Agrawal
Therefore, margin percentage guidance is difficult.
— Pawan Agrawal
And as I said again and reinforcing, let us wait a quarter because situation is volatile.
— Saugata Gupta
There could be minor volume pressure here and there.
— Saugata Gupta
So, therefore, we are absolutely confident that there would not be a scenario where we will have any major decline.
— Pawan Agrawal
So, we have seen across many segments that consumption is under a huge amount of pressure and in this kind of a scenario, basically the consumer is willing to go for cheaper alternatives.
— Percy Panthaki
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Q&A — 11 exchanges
Q
Yes, congrats on a very good volume and revenue growth. My first question is on the India Hair Oil business, so three subparts to that. First is, copra, how is the supply side now looking? And what kind of correction do you see in the next two, three quarters? That is my first sub-question. Second is, VAHO has seen a smart recovery after a few years of challenging times, the entire category saw challenging times. Now with urban recovery being talked about by most FMCG companies and rural continuing to remain reasonably robust, would you expect VAHO volume growth to accelerate from here? That i
Saugata Gupta
Let me first address your question on Coconut Oil. As far as copra is concerned, as I said that the correction has started, we also need to understand that we being a significant buyer of copra, Regd. Off: 7th Floor, Grande Palladium, 175, CST Road, Kalina, Santa Cruz (East), Mumbai – 400098. CIN: L15140MH1988PLC049208. Email: investor@marico.com Marico Information classification: Official we have to also manage the entire supply chain assurance as well as pricing. We are now in a state where we believe we have much more control of the situation. Because, as you know that copra and the overall
Q
Saugata and team, good to see results. Firstly Saugata on ATL versus BTL what you mentioned. So, at a consolidated level I see your advertising spends have gone up quite a bit, about 25%, but India business is actually down 20%, the absolute number is like lowest in the last five years or let's say 20 quarters. The percentage number I know the denominator shifts quite a bit in your case but we have seen inflationary cycles in the past, at about 3.5% this is also the lowest number that at least I recall or we have ever seen. Can you just elaborate more on this?
Pawan Agrawal
You are right, Vivek, it's incorrect to look at ASP percentage to sales because of the denominator effect. Having said that, yes, of course there has been some cut in India ASP, but let me just tell you two three broad counters for that. #1, we have not cut in the focus categories of premium, VAHO, Foods and PPC. So, in these categories we have invested adequately. Also, Saugata touched upon the fact that we have ensured that our share of voice is higher than our share of market in focus categories. Secondly in BOP of VAHO we have definitely cut down due to competitive activity at the trade an
Q
Hi team. This is Avi here from Macquarie.
Saugata Gupta
Hi, Avi. Hi sir. So, I just had one question on copra. Just wanted to understand a bit, how is current copra versus the sector average is it if you could kind of give us a sense? And based on that would it be fair to say if you could kind of help first clarify that part. We didn't get the question Avi? Versus sector average as in?. Versus the quarter average. I am really sorry 1Q average. Is it ahead of that? Is it below that? How would it be just to get a perspective? Are you asking about inflation, the copra inflation? More in terms of the cost. Yes, yes, 12% down in the last few weeks. So,
Q
Hi, team. Thank you for taking my question. Firstly, on Parachute, just one small clarification. In the press update you highlighted that there is a consumer pricing of about 60% and that translates to closer to about 30%, 31% for the quarter. I wanted to know, after this 31%, what is the incremental pricing that you have taken that has yet to come through in the numbers?
Pawan Agrawal
So, we have taken additional 30% price increase in Quarter 1. We do not intend to take any further price increase, as I just mentioned. So, the full effect of this price increase will be visible in Quarter 2, where the value growth probably could be even higher on the Parachute franchise. But again, from Quarter 2 onwards, or later half of the Quarter 2, we will also start anniversarizing in the base. So, in H2, your pricing growth will progressively come down from the peaks of Quarter 2. Understood, Pawan. Thank you for clarifying that. After such sharp price increases, I mean, historically,
Q
Hi, everyone. My question is on the Parachute segment. You mentioned that now there is like a 60% price increase on Parachute. We have seen inflationary cycles in the past, but I do not think we have ever taken a 60% YoY pricing in Parachute. So, in light of this, I know you said you will take measures to protect volume. But in light of this, do you think it is possible that with a 60% pricing, volume might touch a negative double-digit kind of number? Or you think that that's out of the question, it cannot get so bad?
Saugata Gupta
First of all, I the 60% is a point-to-point. And as Pawan alluded to, as we move towards second half, this number will go down drastically. It could go to between 35% to 45%, if there is no pricing action. And I gave some piece of statistics that this has happened twice in the past, we have taken 35% hikes earlier. That time, India might have been the 11th largest economy, today we are far bigger, and the aspirations have grown accordingly. Number two is, this 60% is a one- quarter phenomenon. It's not a two, three-quarter phenomenon. And as I said that there has been stabilization happening o
Q
Hi, good evening and thanks for your time. So, two questions. Firstly, on VAHO, what would be the volume growth? I mean, you indicated that it's sort of double-digit, excluding Shanti Amla. Including Shanti Amla, would it be like low single-digit?
Saugata Gupta
No, it will be slightly more. It is mid-single-digit. Mid-single-digit. And so, that effectively means that volumes for the remaining 30% of your portfolio, other than Parachute, Saffola and VAHO, would be sort of north of 25%. Would that be the right rate to get you to the 9% overall. All I can say is that we have indicated that Saffola is mid single-digits, we would not get into individual category-wise growth. But yes, the premium part of the business, and diversification of business, would be higher growth. I understand. No, that's very clear. And then just lastly, on this VAHO bit again,
Q
Yes, good evening and congratulations. Focusing on the Foods business, there has been a slight moderation from the 40% growth you saw in Q4 to 20%, so any specific parts you want to highlight on that?
Saugata Gupta
On a quarterly basis this happened because last year there were some launches. So, we are fairly confident about delivering 25%-plus growth in the Foods business. There is nothing to be worried about. We look at two things. One, we look at is if the core of the Foods portfolio, which is the Saffola Oats, Masala Oats, Honey etc, are growing in double-digits. Yes, they are growing in double-digits. Sometimes, parts of True Elements, or some parts of Plix can cause some fluctuation. So, I do not think there's any cause for concern. Maybe 40% would have been a slightly higher number because we hav
Q
Yes, hi. Good evening. So, just had three questions. One was on SETU. So, it's almost a year and a half in your three-year journey. Just wanted to get a sense of, how much of the 500,000 direct would we have broadly covered and any target for this year?
Saugata Gupta
So, to be honest, while we kicked off SETU sometime around one and a half years ago, but the impact has just started because we were prototyping SETU. I would say that we are seeing the first signs of growth of SETU, and you will see perhaps better, impact of SETU as we go into the second half of the year. There are two parts to it. One is the rural, where we are not only doing direct distribution, but also converting some of our indirect to direct using far more technology and getting control of EBITDA ranges. The second part of the SETU is urban, where we will increase our presence in food s
Q
Hi, congratulations on a great quarter. My first question is again on the digital brand. So, you have given this enhanced aspiration of 2.5x and also margins going up sharply. Your chart shows a significant jump from where you are today to '27. So, now what you have seen in other digital companies sometimes, is that all the things do not happen together. If you try to pull the margin up, it does affect the growth rate at least to some extent. So, what's giving you the confidence that you can do both which is scale up the top line but take up the percentage margins in some of these businesses?
Saugata Gupta
Okay. I think I covered this last time. There are two cohorts. Beardo and Plix have broken even. In fact, Beardo is close to double-digit EBITDA. Plix has broken even too. They are now on an accelerated growth path, and obviously they will continue to perform, because of cost and scale synergies. So, in order to make them grow at an accelerated pace, I do not need to sacrifice margins. Actually, EBITDA will also increase. As far as Just Herbs and True Elements are concerned, we are okay with moderate growth and get to a path to breakeven within the next 18 months. The biggest one, is that I th
Q
Yes, thanks a lot for the opportunity. So, my questions are around copra prices. There is a drop of around 12%. So, based on the previous answer, it seems like we are not going to take any price cut right now and we will look to balance. So, the other two questions are around, there was a solvent extractor in press release which talks about pest attack, hurting yield of copra. So, is there any such concern for this year? And second is around, as import of copra is banned in the country? So, can we import finished goods from Bangladesh?
Pawan Agrawal
No, we cannot import either copra or oil. We can only import to the extent what we can export. Now, the representation is from the independent industry body. So, again, we do not have such information of pests etc. damaging the crop in a wide scale manner. Yes, there could be some limited impact. But again, it's an industry body which represents the industry as a whole. Just to add that, as I said that the drop has not been major, it's 8% to 9%. It happens in any crop and whatever little visibility we have is, there's no additional concern as we go into the next year. Yes, this is reassuring.
Q
To conclude, we have had an encouraging start to the new fiscal, having delivered robust growth and resilient margins in both India and international businesses, despite facing unprecedented levels of input cost pressures. In India, there are clear signs of gradual pickup in the core portfolios while the new businesses are playing their part in accelerating growth. International business has been a consistent growth driver and we intend to further solidify its double-digit growth trajectory over the medium term. We are fairly confident of maintaining the strong volume and revenue momentum in t
Management
Speaking time
Saugata Gupta
44
Pawan Agrawal
19
Moderator
13
Percy Panthaki
9
Avi Mehta
8
Vivek Maheshwari
6
Mihir Shah
5
Abneesh Roy
4
Aditya Soman
4
Nihal Mahesh Jham
4
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Opening remarks
Saugata Gupta
Yes. Hi, everyone. Good evening to all those who have joined the call. I would like to start with a narrative on the operating environment during the quarter gone by, after which I will touch upon our performance and strategic objectives going forward. During the quarter, we witnessed stable to improving demand trends in India across urban and rural. Premium categories continued to outperform the mass segments, while alternate channels like Modern Trade, E-commerce and especially Quick Commerce continued to lead growth. While General Trade also moved into growth after some quarters as a result of focused initiatives, improved execution, and the ongoing progress of Project SETU. Looking ahead, we are optimistic about a gradual and broad based recovery in consumption sentiment supported by easing retail and food inflation, a favorable monsoon, increased government spending and higher MSP. Moving on to the quarterly performance, we have continued to deliver a sequential uptick in underlyi
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