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Arvind Ltd
Earnings Call Analysis
Q2-2025 Analysis
Arvind Ltd
In the second quarter of fiscal year 2025 (Q2 FY '25), Arvind Limited showcased a commendable recovery from a challenging first quarter. Following a slow start, all segments of their business reported positive trends, signaling a coordinated effort in their 'One Arvind' strategy and verticalization initiatives. The company registered a significant revenue increase of 14%, reaching ₹2,188 crores, marking the highest quarterly revenue in the past nine quarters.
Arvind's EBITDA for this quarter reached ₹221 crores, reflecting a robust outcome in line with revenue growth. The EBITDA margin remained stable, showing last year's margin of around 10.6%, despite some increased costs, including logistics and fixed overhead. Profit before tax also grew by 20%, totaling ₹135 crores, although deferred tax adjustments slightly impacted profit after tax, which stood at ₹97 crores when adjusted for exceptional items.
The textile segment reported revenue of ₹1,633 crores, with an EBITDA of ₹168 crores and an EBITDA margin of 10.3%, marking a strong performance supported by volume growth and a favorable product mix. The Advanced Materials division generated ₹388 crores in revenue and ₹60 crores in EBITDA, maintaining a 15.3% margin despite lower demand from a major client. Looking ahead, Arvind maintains confidence in achieving a 20% growth run rate in this division as the outlook improves for the second half of the fiscal year.
The management has set a growth guidance of 10% to 12% for FY '25, attributing this ambition to improved demand visibility across both textiles and advanced materials. Following a 14% growth in Q2 and positive momentum expected in Q3 and Q4, there’s optimism around achieving double-digit growth despite challenges faced in the first quarter due to a labor strike.
Arvind plans to bolster its capacity in garment production by aiming for a 50% increase in volumes over two years, projecting to reach 60 million garments by 2027. Significant investments in renewable energy are also underway, with an aim to increase renewable energy sourcing from 50% to over 80%, enhancing sustainability credentials that appeal to clients and are expected to contribute positively to margins.
While the Advanced Materials division continues to face challenges due to unexpected demand fluctuations in human protection, there’s positive anticipation for a rebound in Q3 and Q4 as previously underperforming segments gain momentum. The management conveys a strong outlook, affirming their preparedness to adapt to varying market conditions and ensuring the capacity to meet demand.
Arvind’s management has identified margin expansion as a key area of focus, featuring plans that include automation and enhancing production processes. They are targeting an increase of around 200 basis points in margins over the next couple of years. This would further elevate their Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) from the current 13.9% towards their goal of 20%, positively impacting overall profitability.
In conclusion, Arvind Limited is poised for growth, reflecting on a solid Q2 performance and optimistic projections for the remainder of FY '25. Their strategic focus on sustainability, capacity expansion, and margin improvement provides a promising framework for investors looking for stability and growth in the textile and advanced materials sectors. Despite macroeconomic challenges, strong operational execution could lead to favorable outcomes as the company gears up for a stronger second half.
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Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Arvind Limited Q2 FY '25 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I now hand the conference over to Mr. Satya Prakash Mishra. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's call to discuss the financial results for the second quarter and half year ended '24-'25 for Arvind Limited. With me today is Mr. Punit Lalbhai, the Vice Chairman; Mr. Jayesh Shah, Director in the Board and Group CFO; Mr. Susheel Kaul, our Managing Director and President of Textile Business; and the Chief Financial Officer of Arvind Limited, Mr. Nigam Shah.
The financial results and related presentations were uploaded to our website. I hope you had enough time to go through it. I'm happy to report that we are back on a growth path again after a slow start in quarter 1. We have been able to make up some of the ground that we lost in quarter 1, which is positive.
For the first time in last 3 years or so, all segments of our business have reported positive trends in volume, realization, revenue and EBITDA together, which indicates towards the progress of our twin strategy of One Arvind and verticalization. We continue to work in a very challenging macro environment, where active conflicts in various parts of the globe creates wobbles in supply chain, and some prediction towards a pessimistic economic outlook adds to the pressure.
However, there have been green shoots in areas like revival of demand in domestic front, aided by festivities of quarter 3 and spring of 2025. Our industry-leading sustainability credential with differentiated product offering continues to attract more and more marquee names to our customer portfolio. We are very confident that this trend will help consolidate our position in Textile business and drive growth for the future.
Now coming to the results for the quarter of -- quarter 2 of FY '25. As I said above, all key segments of our business have reported positive volume growth and a stable realization, which resulted in an overall revenue for the quarter to register a 14% growth and stood at INR 2,188 crores. This is the highest quarterly revenue in the past 9 quarters.
EBITDA for the same period, adjusting for a spillover cost of mainly air freight of INR 11 crores, mirrors a similar growth in revenue. Reported EBITDA stood at INR 221 crores. Similarly, adjusted EBITDA margin reflects a last year margin of around 10.6% on a Y-o-Y basis. Apart from higher logistics costs that I've stated above, some of the fixed costs like salaries have been -- given an impact in the quarter 2 that has increased some of our fixed costs.
Profit before tax during the quarter gone by is in line with the revenue growth that I've spoken about and increased by 20% to reach INR 135 crores. However, some impact on deferred tax, which we will speak about, to the tune of INR 29 crores has eroded the profit after tax. There is no cash flow impact of this transaction. And if we adjust both the exceptional items, the profit after tax during the quarter gone by would have stood at INR 97 crores. ROCE during the period on a run rate basis improved by INR 150 crores from 150 basis points to reach 13.9%.
Coming to the segment-wise performance during the quarter. Textile division revenue stood at INR 1,633 crores, with an EBITDA of INR 168 crores, translating into an EBITDA margin of 10.3%. This is one of the better performance of Textile division in a long time and is duly backed by volume growth and a good mix of products and customers, with stable realization across individual product baskets.
In quarter 2 of FY '25, Advanced Material division reported a revenue of INR 388 crores with an EBITDA of INR 60 crores, which is a growth of nearly 10% and 7%, respectively. We have been able to maintain our margin, which stood at 15.3%. It is important to inform that some of the growth in AMD is skewed towards quarter 3 and quarter 4, so we are confident of achieving our guided run rate of 20% growth soon.
Coming to our capital management plan. As guided earlier, this was to be a year of high growth CapEx to augment our Garmenting and AMD capacity. After a slow start in quarter 1, we have regained momentum and spent about INR 167 crores in the first half of the year, which is nearly 40% of the annual plan. We are confident that we will hit the desired allocation by end of this year.
With this, I conclude my opening remarks. I now hand it over to Mr. Punit Lalbhai to give his comments about the results and the market.
Good afternoon, everyone. It's -- as usual, it's a pleasure to be here with all of you today and answer your questions. But before we get to questions, just let me give you my flavor on the quarter gone by. I think Satya has done a great and comprehensive job about describing what has happened. I echo his sentiments in that we are glad that we are back to business as usual. And the difficult first quarter is behind us, and now we can focus on the future.
I think in a difficult overall environment, we achieved 9 million-plus Garments. I think that's a creditable performance. I think despite all the supply chain disruptions created due to the labor strike in the first quarter, the team was able to normalize delivery and satisfy customers. And despite incurring significant air freight, have still been able to deliver a great performance on the Textiles side.
And I think AMD continues to have a strong outlook going forward. If we think of H2, both businesses, Textiles and AMD, are looking to have good demand, especially Textiles, which is probably looking at all-time high sort of rates of demand. I think another important thing that we are going to -- on the cusp of doing is signing an agreement that will take our renewable energy to 80%.
Our sustainability commitment is very dear and important to us. And we are market leaders or perceived as market leaders on that front, and we want to continue to maintain this position. It's very valuable to our customers, both in AMD and Textiles, and therefore, we'll continue to invest here. And this new investment will take our renewable energy to 80%, and we will -- and it will also help improve our margins going forward.
I think that's pretty much a flavor of where we are. I would love to open up the floor for questions. Thank you.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Aabhash Poddar from Aionios Alpha Investment Management.
So just wanted to understand a bit more on the Advanced Material Divisions or AMD. So yes, you highlighted the second half is going to be stronger. But I would have thought this quarter should have also done well, given that there was some spillover from the previous quarter. And typically, we look in the past also, we've delivered 20%-plus volume growth in this category.
So if you could just talk a bit about the push in the periods and the pulls that have had transpired in this quarter? And then entirely for the full year, are you still confident that you will see 15%-plus value growth in the segment? So that's the first question.
So I'll answer the second part first. I think, yes, I'm personally quite confident that we'll see that sort of value growth. I think if you look at the volume growth even in Q2, it is quite good. We had close to 15% volume growth in most of our segments. I think there was also a significant amount of price erosion because of raw material prices collapsing in several important raw material categories.
So in a sense, we were swimming against the tide on the realization front. However, I think even factoring all of these things, the demand looks good enough to where we can make up. I think if you look at quarter 2, human protection is where perhaps, compared to our initial estimates, we would be lower in terms of what we achieved. And that's mainly a result of one of our large customers having unexpectedly low demand.
However, we have compensated for that in quarters going forward. So I think if you look quarter-on-quarter, we will have certain ups and downs. But on few quarters together basis, I think achieving the kind of growth that we've always been guiding should not be a problem. And I don't see that as a problem going forward.
Perfect. And just second piece is just more of a clarification on the garment bit. So obviously, you talked about that second half is going to be better for the garments, given the way the typical seasonality sort of plays out. So just clarifying, we are still expecting that we should be able to do 40 million sort of a overall volume run rate for the entire year for garments piece, right?
I think we'll be slightly short of that, but not significantly. I think this quarter also, we'll be 9 million-plus, slightly higher than quarter 2. And quarter 4 is when we will breach the 10 million mark is how I'm seeing things.
The next question comes from Vikram Suryavanshi from PhillipCapital.
Sir, just on our capacity additional opportunities, now Gujarat government has also announced the Textile Policy? How do you see...
Vikram, your voice is a little unclear.
[Operator Instructions]
Sure, sure. Is it audible now?
Better. Much better.
Okay. So I wanted to understand our expansion plan opportunities, particularly in line with what -- the Gujarat government has now announced the Textile Policy. So will it help us to further consider the new expansion within the state or will continue to look at MP, Odisha or other states for expansion plan?
So I think Gujarat has announced a very good policy. I think it will be advantageous for us because Gujarat, being our home base, there is some base load investment that is always going to be planned here because of the concentration of management capability here. And so, to that extent, this will help.
I think Madhya Pradesh, Odisha is also something that we will consider, especially from a labor cluster availability perspective, especially from the perspective of Garments. But I think from the perspective of AMD, I think Gujarat, with the new policy, is looking extremely attractive. Of course, we have to get into the fine print of the policy. It's quite recently announced, and we'll be actively sort of evaluating opportunities to invest in Gujarat.
And post Bangladesh issue, how is our interaction with the customers in terms of shifting to India and in terms of opportunity landscape? Are we seeing material change or it will take some time? How is your reading with the customer?
So short term, no change. No change for a number of reasons. The first reason is Bangladesh did an extremely good job in getting back on track, at least, large parts of Bangladesh did a good job in getting back on track. And two, because short term, there is really no capacity available in India for them to shift overnight. So I think the Indian garment industry has to back on the front foot to create all the capacities before customers can think beyond their normal plan to shift to India.
I think India is definitely on their sourcing metrics more now than ever before, and they want to source more and more from India. But if they have to accelerate beyond their existing plans, we also have to accelerate in terms of capacity creation, which will happen, I suppose. And I think medium term, events like this will always create the risk management teams that all the customers -- and to focus on sort of risk mitigating that sourcing structure.
As I've always been saying, Vietnam and Bangladesh were already approaching saturation as too many eggs in one basket for many customers. I think from that perspective, this unrest in Bangladesh only reinforces the need to have more sourcing locations. And India ticks a lot of boxes amongst the future candidates for further diversification. So I think the opportunity was always interesting and remains interesting even after the unrest.
The next question comes from Prerna Jhunjhunwala from Elara Capital.
Sir, am I audible?
Yes. Yes, you are.
So I just want -- I had a question on Bangladesh. During the quarter, there was disruption in Bangladesh. Despite that, we've been able to achieve very strong volumes on export front in denim, as well as in the woven fabrics.
Could you just help us understand what went right for us, whether these volumes that we did in denim are sustainable? Or it was some kind of pent-up push that we did during the quarter to -- which came in from Q1 -- something. I mean just trying to understand what happened during the quarter for the volumes.
See, most of the business in the Bangladesh was supported by the branch itself. So while there used to be challenges from the banks to get involved, that branch will come forward and give the guarantees.
So what Punit bhai said is very right. That is the reason how Bangladesh swiftly came back because it was also the requirement for the branch to gear up on the capacities because they needed the capacities as they had retail shops. Otherwise, would be an issue. So since the branch supported all the banks and all the demand portion, the demand remained undisturbed for us.
Well, perhaps a couple of quarters, a couple of weeks of demand was impacted. So to that extent, it would have been slightly better. But as Susheel bhai rightly mentioned, not significantly so. And I think when we look at denim, quarter 3 is always the low season for denim somewhat.
So we should compare quarter 1, 2 and 4 to 1, 2 and 4 and 3 to 3. So 3 is a low season. So we do expect a slight dip in denim volumes, which is going to be more than made up by growth in Woven volumes. So it's the best quarter for woven, it's the worst quarter for denim, quarter 3 going forward.
Okay. Do we plan any capacity expansions in Denim, given that we have reached 90% utilization this quarter? And the outlook for the business continues to remain strong.
So I think we're going to expand denim as a category through the verticalization route by adding more garment capacity. I think this business lends itself much better to verticality. More and more of our customers want a full package, and our realizations and control over the supply chain also increased with verticality. We don't want to remain very highly dependent on fabric sales to Bangladesh. So we will grow, but we will grow through garment expansion. So no fabric capacity additions are planned in denim.
Okay. Okay. The next question is on CapEx. You've spent around 40% of the CapEx for the year. Can you just give some clarity on where have we spent? Where can we see capacity additions during the year? And where it has already happened?
So we have spent broadly along the lines that we were planning to, 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. 1/3 going towards AMD, 1/3 going towards garments and 1/3 going towards everything else, including fabric differentiation and automation, maintenance, things of that nature.
Okay. So is it percolating into capacity expansion in this quarter or third quarter, fourth quarter is what I wanted to understand.
It will give some capacity expansions in woven because there's a transit times involved in any CapEx. Once you start doing any CapEx, it has around 6 to 9 months of total, right from the building to the execution time. So it will have a transit time, but it will start growing from Q4. Late Q4, it will start growing.
To clarify, we are expanding our wovens footprint because it also serves AMD. So to that extent, that investment is also an AMD-specific investment, where the wovens capacity has increased. So that our substrates for our human protection business in AMD, we can grow our capacity there. So that capacity will be coming onstream towards the mid of Q4. So a little bit, we will see a fill-up in Q4, but this will hold us in good stead for next year, mostly.
I think some of the investments that were made in garmenting are already paying dividends. So that will -- those will also kick in fully for Q4. That's how Q4 volume is higher. And also, a lot of those investments are there to help us improve our margins and to make our people dependency better. In a highly uncertain labor environment, a lot of CapEx was targeted towards automation. So it will give us higher volume, it will also give us better costs. So those are the investments that will kick in, in Q4.
Understood. And one last question on bookkeeping. We've seen depreciation cost declining on a Q-on-Q basis. Is it sustainable and the reason for the same?
So some of the assets, so particularly the Ethiopia assets, got written off. And that is the reason why depreciation fell. In fact, since we are investing and accelerating the investments towards the second half, you will see increase in the depreciation charge, and it may go back to where we were earlier.
The next question comes from Surya Narayan from Sunidhi Securities.
Am I audible, sir?
Yes, yes.
So first question is that, as you said, the woven is related to the protection area of the AMD. So my question is that, are we going to increase the capacity beyond 125 million meters, what we have initially set?
We can go ahead Susheel bhai and answer this question.
We are going to -- in the woven, will be around 135 million to 140 million, it will depend on the product mix. But we will touch that level of the capacities now. It is the combination of AMD and wovens.
Okay. So in that case, that extra capacity would be -- because you were saying from Q4 onwards, the traction will be visible. So that would be available for FY '26, I guess?
Yes. It will mostly come from the rest, yes.
Yes. So -- and sir, another point is that now in the garment facility, the ultimate aim was to achieve around 60 million tons -- million pieces. So that will be achievable in maybe next year. So this year will be continued somewhere around 40 million meter -- million pieces?
So I think broadly correct. I think we will add more than 10 million pieces next year and exit at a run rate that is approaching 60 million for the year after.
Okay. Okay. And sir, regarding the AMD area, what I am seeing is that the composite has given a very good comeback because -- as industrial as well. So I mean, it is heartening to see. But now the human protection is still lagging because you were doing fantastically well last year. So any reason for that?
Yes. As I mentioned, one of the major customers, the orders that were expected didn't come in because of their own market performance. And so in a very short period of time, it is not possible to backfill those unexpected changes in demand. And so it was a soft quarter from a human protection perspective. But composite sort of did well, and so did industrials, which, last year, was a little bit under pressure. But that said, I think, going forward, we have good demand even in human protection. And so we should be back on track in the second half of the year.
So can we have a run rate of around 10% to 12% minimum?
Yes, I think that should be possible. And we are already at that run rate. So it should be possible to continue and do better than that, in fact.
Okay. And industrial part, sir, is there any railway component coming in?
No. So the railway component falls under the composite section, where we weave glass fabric and then use several types of molding technologies to make railway parts, all kinds, driver cabin, toilet, interiors, window panels, door panels, all sorts of composite parts.
So out of INR 1,060 million, how much is related to the railways, particularly revenue?
So currently, the railway revenue is quite small because it is -- it's a new division. About 10% of the overall composite volume would be the railway. It's not more than that currently. But that's a segment that we expect will develop and grow better.
And regarding defense clothing, we were actually expecting some major orders. So any update on this side?
So we are doing a good amount of defense. So defense is embedded in the human protection numbers. And there, we have -- we are participating in several product categories for the Indian Army, Navy, and we have also, on and off, going with Air Force. So all 3 -- I mean, we are -- defense is a very important part and will become even a more important part of our product portfolio going forward.
So minor date has come into the long-term side. So is it temporary? And will -- our exit rate will be what we were last year?
Yes. So this debt is temporary, which we have borrowed at the time of Q1, there's industrial unrest. So I think we have already started repaying. So at the end of year, we are expecting the term loan remains same, I think around INR 400 level crores.
And taxation will be remaining the same?
No. So in terms of taxation, right now, there is a onetime impact due to deferred tax. And due to, I think, the last change came in the Finance Act in the month of July, so this is a onetime impact. I think going forward, the average tax rate will be coming down.
So I mean, let's say, if you discard that element, what would be the normalized rate of taxes, sir?
So it will be around 25%. So it will be normalized, which is around 25%.
The next question comes from [ Vikas Jain ], an individual investor.
So my first question is with respect to the textile margins overall. So if we just look at the broader performance across segments, we have done really very well with them in terms of volumes across denims, across your wovens, as well as our garments. However, our margins have been broadly at close to around 10%, 10.5% odd levels. So what exactly will play going ahead, most likely in second half, which will improve or even take the margin levels back to that 11%, 11.5% and even beyond that?
So we have a lot of work to do on margin expansion. And I think it's more than a quarter-on-quarter goal, it's a few quarters' goals, where we are investing in automation. We are investing in better processes. We are investing in newer technology. So all of this put together, as I have spoken earlier also about, I think 200 basis points is something that we can target over a year, 1.5 years, a couple of years. That's the kind of target that we are taking.
Margin expansion is always a higher-effort, quarter in, quarter out, discipline-type execution job. And we are all on it. We recognize that there is an opportunity to improve, and we will do that. And if we are able to unlock that, then our return on capital employed will jump further to very interesting numbers.
Great. Great. So sir, just to be a bit more precise, let's say, talk about Garmenting segment, right? So 9.2 million, 9.3 million is the run rate right now. So is it likely -- what I'm trying to understand is, is it like there's enough room for us to improve the product mix on the product mix side so that our garmenting margins improve, and hence, our overall textile margins go up?
Margin is a function of 2 things. One is product mix and second is efficiency. So our efficiency needs to go up and our product mix needs to improve, and we are working on both. For example, our mix, our margin expansion by -- for that one product category will, from quarter 1 of this year to quarter 1 of next year, where we already have visibility, will grow by almost 30%.
So that kind of margin expansion is happening in one of the product categories where we were first restricted to commodity-type orders. Now we have made investments in things like garment dyeing, in things like seamless garments, in fleece, and in washing, so -- in printing, in embroidery. So all of these types of value addition will increase the margin.
So that effort also has been invested in. And continuously, the effort is to invest in better automation, less people dependency, deskilling the operations so that our of 50%, 55% efficiencies can go to 65% and 70%. Both these things put together, we'll see margin expansion.
And I think the largest scope of improvement is there in garments. We've been working on building up volumes. I think now parallelly, we started a process of improving the quality and improving the efficiency of orders.
Correct. Correct. Because, sir, the reason why I asked is like while the earlier -- the cotton price as well as our product mix did support the realization front. But now when the volumes are up, and we are doing some very strong set of volumes.
But then the realizations have been, on a year-on-year basis, if you have been toned down against growth profile. Let's talk about year-on-year growth for garment. That has been relatively on the lower side. So that's what I was just trying to understand, like can product mix compensate for that?
It can.
Yes. Right. Sir, second question on the AMD front. In the press release, you did mention that one of the mass transport -- mass customers did see some -- and you also mentioned you'd see some challenges. So has that like -- what is the situation as of date and as it stands normalized? Or can we expect some more normalization of pain in 3Q onwards?
So mass transportation business is quite small in terms of the overall business. And it's a project business. So there will be some quarters where projects will be low, some quarters when we are firing on all cylinders. The business perhaps that you are referring to is the human protection.
The overall sort of the volume -- the growth in human protection is slightly slower than it has been in the past.
And what we would expect from our guidance, that, I had already explained is because of that a couple of customers seeing unexpected lower demand. We haven't lost any business to competition, or we haven't lost the customer. It is just that the market conditions for them are not what was expected. And so we have to now compensate with other customers. And that effort has gone successfully, and we should be able to be back on track with demand in Q3 and Q4. .
Correct. Correct. And sir, one last. While you did allude to a lot of factors, but we have mentioned online that from the 13.9% ROCE that we are right now in 2Q, we target to move to around 20%. So just trying to understand what are the major areas where will we see -- where we will see the improvement and that will drive the ROCEs to 20%?
So if we -- if the overall margins increased by 200 basis points, we are almost likely to be very close to being there.
Correct. Correct. And this, you're talking about the Textile segment, right? .
Overall, I think.
Next question comes from [ Vimal Sampath ], who's an individual investor.
Congratulations, Punit bhai. You took a very bold call on expansion of garments when your capacity utilization was less than 50%, and many people had questions about it. So great foresight for that. Now on garmenting only, what I understand, that even in south, they have received a lot of orders. Some big groups in the south, they have received a lot of garmenting orders.
And they are saying that in the next 2 years, they will be nearly double garmenting -- double -- the volumes will be double. So how do we stand? And second thing, you have talked about this investment in renewable energy. Can you throw some more light on that?
Sure. So I think as far as garmenting goes, currently, anybody who a credible garment player, who has capacities, will be full because the demand scenario is pretty good. And India is a preferred location, where people are wanting to diversify their sourcing metrics, too. So that explains why everybody has a good visibility and good order book. As far as growing double, I mean, I don't know whether doubling in a year is a great idea or possible at our scale. I think garment's already...
I'm talking in 2 years. Two years.
Yes. So we are thinking of increasing 50% in 2 years because garmenting is a very execution-heavy business, and we don't want to go over aggressive and then disappoint both investors and customers by faltering on the execution. So I think this is a good and aggressive plan that we have been guiding towards to try and reach 60 million garments in -- by 2027. That was the original plan, and I think we should be able to achieve it.
As far as renewable energy goes, last year, we signed a power purchase agreement in the group captive mode using wind and solar which took our renewable energy component close to 50%. Now we are signing another such agreement after the amendment of the Gujarat policy. It has removed the cap, there used to be a 50% cap. That cap has now been removed.
So we are now going to the maximum possible extent of renewable energy, and we should be upwards of 80% renewable energy after we sign the next PPA. Of course, it will take some time to reach there because the execution and all will happen. So sometime next year is when -- it will take about a year...
Okay. So second half '26.
[indiscernible] energy to come.
Yes. So second half '26, we will be there.
So it will happen in -- beginning '27 is morel likely.
The next question is from Varun Gajaria from Omkara Capital.
So I just wanted to understand, we are looking at 10% to 12% growth in FY '25, right?
Overall, for the company, yes, it's looking like that.
Okay. So if you could tell us, what will be the key drivers of this kind of growth? It seems, in the first half, we've grown around 6%, 6.5%. So if you could just...
Yes. So I think quarter 1 has to be ignored because of the strike. We had a labor strike and a significant erosion of top revenue because of it. I think if you look at now the run rate quarter 2 grew at 14%. And that kind of trajectory is looking likely in Q3 and Q4. That should then bring the -- even full year number to double digits.
Okay. Sir, so how is the order book looking like? And what is the kind of execution that we've done in the first half?
So order book is good. quarter 1 was a very tough quarter because of the strike. As you know, quarter 2 is -- has, in my opinion, the company has bounced back well. And quarter 3 and quarter 4 are looking good from a demand perspective. We have to ensure that our execution is on point.
Okay. Would you like to put a number to how -- what percentage of order book has been executed in the first 2 quarters?
We generally don't guide about future order book, percentages and all of that. That granularity, we don't normally get into. But it's very good, as good as it can be. Let's put it that way.
Okay. So sir, right now, how is the export market looking for garments?
Extremely good. For us, garment is almost a 90%-plus export business, and it's looking good. Our capacities are at full, and we are in expansion. So it's looking good, we have high visibility.
Okay. And from hereon, will there any scope for realization -- for expansion in realization?
I did not understand your question.
I'm just saying, from here, will there be any scope for expansion in our realization?
Our realization depends upon the product mix. So if you saw, this quarter, in fact, we had a higher share of mix and that resulted in a lowering of the ASP. So I think going or measuring the performance or the margins of the Textile business, realization would not be a right metric. I think the way we should see is purely the EBITDA margin. And as the product mix and the efficiencies improve, we did see our margins, going forward, improving further.
Okay. So largely FY '25 growth should come -- should be driven by volumes, I believe?
Volume as well as product mix. And it can become a larger component of the overall business, which should also drive that growth.
The next question comes from Akshay Kothari from JHP.
So just wanted to know or update, currently, our AMD maximum, around 75% of revenue will be from U.S.?
So U.S. is a large component. So I think that figure sounds about right.
So considering, say, if everyone is anticipating that if, at all, Trump comes to power, he has been talking a lot about tariffs and tariff base. So would we be impacted by it?
As of now, we don't know of any plans by the potential Trump administration, if it's coming, to put tariffs specifically on India. I think what they've been talking about is mostly focused on China. And -- but I think it's crystal ball gazing to think about these things at this point in time. I think we need to all wait for the elections to be done. And then it will take a while for the dust to settle, and then some of these policy initiatives will happen. So we'll be watching it carefully, and we'll adapt.
In general, I don't think -- I think India is well positioned to -- with the relationship to the U.S., irrespective of which government comes in. So I think we should all bank on that to ensure that the future is good. And if there are certain challenges, we'll figure out how to circumvent them as and when those challenges are realized.
So in terms of market positioning, U.S. and Europe will be the largest market for technical textiles?
Currently, yes. China is also quite a large market. And hopefully, somewhere in the not-too-distant future, India should also become a very large and attractive market.
Yes. That's great. And around only 1 quarter back, everyone was talking about FTA. It seems that it has been backtracked. So what are you hearing about FTA with U.K.?
So I think our information is that things are very close to being closed. I think what happened is both governments sort of changed at the time when the discussions had reached the peak. So I guess, once the other priorities are sort of well attended to. I think this will be picked up at some point. And we are hoping that in the not-too-distant future, we could do something with the U.K., at least.
The next follow-up question is from Surya Narayan from Sunidhi Securities. .
Am I audible?
Yes, yes.
Yes. Sir, looking at the cotton season near term, so for the next year, how do you see the cotton behaving, and especially when the MSP has been hiked by 7%? So how the cotton situation is going to be there? And whether the rise in the raw material prices, especially cotton, we'll be able to want to pass on to the end consumer?
So India is in a very unique position in that because of the 10% duty that has been imposed, it's not behaving according to the global indices. So the global industry indices have dropped and then risen somewhat, but still much lower than where they were, whereas India has remained constant.
I think the crop area is slightly lower than previous years. But Also, demand is very poor for yarn. Indian yarn is now not at parity at the price at which cotton is available. So broadly, we are seeing a bearish situation of prices remaining where they are or going down slightly. That's the current view.
Of course, this is a very dynamic thing, and it keeps changing from week to week and month to month. So this is a space we, like always, will watch carefully and take appropriate decisions. Like last time, when we saw prices hitting their seasonal lows, we went along with cotton. So those kind of calls, we keep taking on a periodic basis. So right now, we feel the situation is bearish, and we're not taking any long calls.
Okay. So because we do a lot of outsourcing of yarns. So in that case, due to the Bangladesh situation extending, so do we -- will we see that the kind of lull in the yarn realization will be helping us going forward?
So I think Bangladesh has very little to do with the overall yarn situation. I think it's more, apparently, China's price and the slowdown in China, plus Indian prices being unattractive because of high raw material cost compared to the rest of the world. I think these factors are more playing a role in yarn pricing.
However, the market very quickly adjusts to the new normal of pricing. So any move in commodities, either up or down, there is a small lag. But then after that lag, things adjust to the new normal. So I think any gains or losses as a result of those kind of movements are temporary in nature. And over a long period of time, they average out. So I wouldn't worry too much about that.
Sir, on the garmenting side, on the policy front, so I mean, my understanding from different industry leaders is that it is a tough area, toughest area, I would say, in the value chain. So in that case, is the industry waiting for some government policies, which is not materializing, that is why all the players have actually not ...
Our policies are very good. I mean, it's nothing to do with government policy. I think it's a lot to do with productivity, the focus of our entrepreneurs to invest downstream rather than upstream. I think it's -- I think the industry has to now rise to the -- rise to the occasion. And I think we need to reinvent how garmenting is done in India.
I think we need to -- we have an opportunity to be leaders rather than followers in terms of how modernized, system-driven and automated the garmenting setup is. So there are examples all over the world that have shown that it may not be this complex labor management exercise.
So we are also developing our own models to ensure that the future of garmenting looks very different. And we can create a new model for India, where it's driven by robotics. It's driven by end-to-end sort of data movement, lots of focus on reduction of SMBs, which is the unit of time that drives efficiency, a lot of focus on material efficiency and sort of lowering of wastage.
So all of this, we are actually in the process of building a factory of the future in Bangalore, where the state-of-the-art technologies are invested into and efficiencies that are not achievable currently start to become possible with that kind of setup. So all those kind of efforts are on. And we hope to be able to sort of make a huge mark in putting India on the global map, that leadership in garmenting. So all that needs to be done. It's got nothing to do with government policy. It's all to do with how entrepreneurs are thinking about this industry.
So your reason, in that regard, to go beyond 60 million pieces because by 2030, what is your reason going ahead? Because you are the only group perhaps who is talking of moving to north or the east to where the labor forces are amply available compared to the south, where some of the southern groups were actually sticking to the repair area only. So what is your vision for 2030 for garmenting?
2030 can be a very different view. I think it will not matter so much where you go for garmenting because the labor intensity, hopefully, will become so manageable that all these sort of complex questions of going into the -- into back of the beyond places to chase labor, I think we are trying to realize that script.
That said, I think India needs job creation everywhere. So we will -- we have an opportunity as this industry to be part of that nation-building exercise. I think job creation is going to be one of the most important priorities of any future government. And I think our industry is the largest employer of people. And even after the reduced sort of manpower, intensity will remain very important in this job creation journey.
So I think we will continue to explore newer areas. But we are also equally keen to explore newer models of manufacturing that sort of are modernized factories of the future, are Industry 4.0 and beyond, all of that.
And sir, your raw material intensity, is it raw material to sales in the AMD side, will it be stable? Or is it going to see some sort of a downward cycle because...
Again, it's very segment-dependent, and it depends on the product and category. So I think that's not a question that is relevant. I think you need to track it for each segment. And the general directionality will be that we will be upgrading the criticality and sort of quality proposition of our product mix to higher and higher and more and more profitable lines of business as we go forward and mature more with our portfolio. So that's the general answer. For more specifics, you'll have to track segment by segment.
Okay. And is there any chance we are actually eyeing the aerospace industry and the composite sector?
Yes. Ultimately, yes. But there is a lot of lower-hanging fruit that we can sort of target first. Aerospace is a long-lead-time business. You need a lot of time to get qualified for it. So we've started those exercises and processes and certifications. And at an appropriate time, we will see if we want to sort of invest heavily behind it. At the moment, we have enough engines to grow at the rate we want to grow.
We have the next line of Prerna from Elara Capital.
Sir, I'm still not very clear on AMD business, how we should look at the growth in that business, given that human protection is likely to grow better going forward than in the last couple of quarters?
When it comes to the first quarter, which was strike impacted, I think the 3 quarters should be closer to that 18% to 20% mark. 18% is what it's looking like right now.
The ask rate for the third and fourth quarter is much higher is what I was just thinking when you mentioned 18%. Is this correct.
Yes, it is correct. Yes, it is. And I think equally sort of good visibility of demand is also there. So we feel confident that we can do it for the 9-month period.
That was the last question. I now hand it over to -- I now hand the conference over to Mr. Satya Prakash for closing comments.
Thank you, everyone, once again for participating in the call. I hope most of your questions are answered during the call. Me and my colleague, Himanshu, are just a phone call away for taking next questions, if at all, anything is left out. Looking forward to meeting you in the upcoming conferences, and we'll probably -- season's greetings for the Diwali. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Arvind Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.