Colgate-Palmolive (India) Ltd

NSE:COLPAL

Earnings Call Analysis

Strong Margins and Strategic Focus Drive Growth

In the latest quarter, Colgate-Palmolive (India) reported a 10.7% domestic growth, bringing the full year growth to 9.5%. The company achieved its highest-ever quarterly EBITDA margin at 35.9%, up from 29.8% last year. This growth was driven by strong brand equity, cost-saving initiatives, and premium product offerings. The company continues to invest in recyclable packaging and has increased advertising spend by 20% year-over-year. Looking ahead, Colgate-Palmolive aims to balance volume, price, and mix growth, focusing on top-line expansion and simplification for sustained profitability.

Steady Growth and Strong Financial Performance

Colgate-Palmolive (India) has demonstrated solid financial growth this quarter with a 10.7% increase in domestic sales, bringing their full-year growth to 9.5%. Notably, their EBITDA margin saw a significant improvement from 29.8% in FY '23 to 33.7% in FY '24, with the latest quarter yielding the highest margins ever at 35.9%. Such growth is a testament to their robust financial strategies and operational efficiencies.

Robust Margin Expansion Strategies

The company has effectively expanded its margins by 250 basis points. This success is attributed to multiple cost-saving initiatives rather than solely relying on pricing adjustments. Key strategies include global synergies, optimized plant actions, automation, and favorable product mix changes. These measures contributed to a 20% quarterly increase in profitability. Moreover, Colgate plans to transition to 100% recyclable toothpaste tubes next year, reflecting their commitment to sustainable practices.

Increased Advertising Expenditures

Colgate has increased advertising spend by 20% year-over-year. This investment is pivotal in supporting core brands and launching new initiatives like the Brushing at Night campaign. The total advertising spend has reached INR 760 crores, emphasizing the importance of brand visibility and consumer engagement in driving sales.

Strengthening Brand Equity

Colgate continues to hold dominant brand equity, with top-of-mind awareness growing from 61% in 2022 to 67% in 2024. Their brand is the first choice for 61% of consumers and 78% perceive Colgate as an oral care expert. This strong brand equity supports their market leadership and provides a strong foundation for future growth initiatives.

Focus on Premiumization and Innovation

Premiumization remains a central strategy for Colgate, with their premium portfolio aiming to grow 2.5-3 times faster than their base portfolio. Innovations like the dual zinc and arginine formula in Colgate Total, which offers best-in-class antibacterial protection, are key drivers. This premium product, backed by 125 patents, underscores their commitment to science-based superior products.

Expanding Market Penetration and Diversification

Despite universal penetration in core formats like toothpaste and toothbrushes, Colgate sees significant room for growth. Rural markets, in particular, are showing promise, outpacing urban growth by 200 basis points. Furthermore, diversification into personal care products like Palmolive is progressing, with new variants and increased advertising efforts to capture market share.

Cash Generation and Shareholder Returns

The company’s cash generation continues to be strong, with adjusted bank balances growing from INR 1,263 crores to INR 1,567 crores. This financial health allows them to offer significant shareholder returns, including a special dividend of INR 10 on top of the INR 26 second interim dividend, leading to a total of INR 58 for the year.

Future Growth Expectations

Looking ahead, Colgate sees ample opportunities to further expand the oral care market and drive value through premium offerings. They are committed to a balanced approach in price, volume, and mix to sustain growth. Significant focus will be placed on leveraging their robust brand equity and expanding market reach, particularly in rural areas and new product categories.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q4

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Colgate-Palmolive (India) Limited Analyst Conference Call for the Financial Year 2023/2024. Please note that this conference call will include forward-looking statements, and these statements are made on the basis of the company's views and assumptions as of this time and are not the guarantees of future performance. [Operator Instructions]

Today's session will begin with a brief presentation by the management of the company sharing their views on the overall company's performance and strategy. And this will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

I now hand over the proceedings to Ms. Sujata Nairi, Director, Commercial and Investor Relations at Colgate-Palmolive (India) Limited. Thank you, and over to you.

[Sujata Nairi, executive]

Thank you, Yashasvi. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Colgate-Palmolive Analyst Meet for the financial year 2023/2024. Very happy to have all of you here. We will start this presentation with a brief presentation from Jacob and Prabha. This would then be followed by a Q&A session. Before we start, I'd just like to point out that the statements here may have some forward-looking statements, and we have included the safe harbor about that's in our presentation as well.

I will now hand over to Prabha for her opening remarks and presentation. Thanks, Prabha and over to you.

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

Thank you, Sujata. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here, and thank you for joining us. It's been about, I think, since August of last year since we met at the Brand Days. Jacob and I are very excited to talk you through the results of this quarter. This is the structure of what we're going to cover, really a quick update of our performance. The important point of what is our view of oral care and the forward view of the category. What's our strategy to take on this category and lead it to the next level and then a look at our financial performance.

So diving straight in, the last time that we spoke, we had laid out the 3 principles on which we run our business, which is that our effort will be to grow our top line, strengthen the equity that we have, which is already exceedingly strong and to make that even better and to take simplification to the next level. And as we go through this, we will talk through all 3 of these parameters. Starting first with our performance. I'm very pleased to report that in the latest quarter, we have delivered a 10.7% domestic growth, good double-digit growth in a good quarter for us, and this takes actually our full year performance to near double digit, which is 9.5% and the highest performance that we've delivered in the last little while and really a testament to the strength of this organization.

This comes along with an excellent performance on margin, EBITDA margin strengthening from the 29.8% levels of FY '23 to 33.7% margin of FY '24. And in the latest quarter, we have delivered the highest margins ever at 35.9%. I know that we have a lot of discussion around margin in this company. And the way we look at margin is actually to see it as the ability of this company to drive performance which is linked to the strong equity that we have the privilege to run and linked also to the financial discipline and the rigor that we have on managing all lines of the P&L.

And starting, of course, with the strong equity that I've already mentioned a couple of times in the very first few minutes of this call, this is the strength of the Colgate brand equity. The numbers -- the letters that you see in brackets indicate a significance over the previous time period. So when you see the column 61% top-of-mind awareness in 2022, going to 64% top-of-mind awareness in 2023 and you see [ an A ] next to it. It says that the 64% is actually significantly better than the 61%. And similarly, the 67% is significantly better than the 64% and the 61%. And top-of-mind, of course, being the measure that is really critical to all FMCG brands given that most FMCG purchase is the system one purchase in the moment.

When you ask a consumer, when I say toothpaste, what is the first brand that comes to your mind, 67% of them say Colgate or a brand of Colgate. Commensurate with that increase in top-of-mind awareness, we also see an increase in the brand of First Choice. So the same question of what would be your first brand of choice, a little bit more considered as the heading would suggest. A little bit more considered view of what would you buy in oral care and 61% of consumers say that they would buy Colgate. Again, significantly up over the previous couple of years.

And the last one, which is perhaps the most important functional measure of category performance, oral care expertise is now at 78%, again, significantly up over the previous couple of years. And all of this culminates in a measure that we call North Star, it's a cumulative equity measure, which measures equity on 3 parameters of how visible are you, how distinctive are you and what is your emotional bond. And you can see that the strength of this brand is incredible. And what is really heartening to see is actually the movement even against a very, very strong start.

From a simplification lens, there have been really 3 areas that we focused on. One, of course, is the use of data to make sure that the decisions that we are taking are faster, are better and are more in tune with what is happening in the market. And to that end, we have deployed an advanced marketing mix model that allows us to keep modifying how we spend our advertising money. Colgate is actually one of the, if not the most advertised FMCG brand in the country and making sure that we use that expenditure to drive growth is critical to us, and this market mix modeling helps us to get better and better at doing that.

We now have an AI-led planogramming, which I've referenced before, but goes from strength to strength in terms of ensuring that our availability in stores, particularly self-service stores is exactly as we believe it should be in that store in terms of share of shelf in terms of ensuring full on-shelf availability in terms of assuring planogramming, in terms of proximity of A to B, et cetera. And the measurement of that is really getting better and better and giving us significant insight which allows us to keep moving this forward at a rapid pace.

And of course, simplifying supply chain is one of the reasons why we are able to continuously deliver continued margin improvement as we suck out every non-value-adding cost in the system, allowing us to both invest back in product and packaging quality as well as invest back and significantly increased advertising. Advertising for the year has gone up by 20% and for the quarter has gone up by about 18%. And this is something that we're committed to doing, once again linked back to the equity of this incredible brand.

Coming back to oral care, and I want to step back for a moment and just remind you of the context of oral care in India. The average toothpaste consumption in India continues to be under-indexed to any comparable country. And we compare to Philippines as being the nearest perhaps to our market. And with that comparison, we are at 0.6 index on a total India level, broken up at 0.7 in urban and 0.5 in rural. So significant headroom opportunity for us even if we approach the consumption levels of Philippines. And then if you take that to the extreme of the Brazil type consumption levels, then you're saying we are at about 0.33 index in India. And so we could potentially have an old toothpaste market that is 3x the volume size of the market that we have currently.

And why is that? It's because of the number 2 numbers that you see below, only 20% of urban households brush twice a bit. So any time you visit your dentist, they would tell you that you should minimum be brushing twice a day. And of course, 55% of rural households don't brush daily. And these 2 opportunities moving them is actually a fundamental pillar of our strategy, which we'll talk about shortly.

When we take a look at the toothbrush category, there's one fact on the slide there, which is 78% of toothbrushes are sold below INR 40. The other fact is that on average, a toothbrush gets replaced every 9 months, where, again, the dentist would have you believe that you need to replace your toothbrush ideally every 3 months. And therefore, the opportunity to both move the frequency of replacement as well as driving up the premiumization or moving people to better quality toothbrushes becomes a huge opportunity for the company.

And why do we believe that we are the best place to move all of these numbers? And why are these numbers important to us because of numerous set of facts. And I know that I labored the point on these facts, but these are good facts and so I'm going to labor the point on the fact that we are India's #1 oral care brand by far. We are the India's most loved oral care brand. Again, by far, we are the most penetrated oral care brand existing in 9 out of 10 households. We are the most recalled oral care brand. We discussed that already and the most considered oral care brand as well.

Also, our relative strength in the category is exceedingly high, and we can look at this from 3 parameters. Firstly, what is our relative size versus the #2 player in the category. So in the toothpaste category, we are 3x the #2 player in the toothpaste category. And in the toothbrush category, we are 1.5x or near 1.5x the #2 player. Then if we move our attention to a portfolio play and where does Colgate play, the top line and the red dots really indicate where we play across every benefit segment that is important to consumers, whether it's the strength of teeth, fresh breath, sensitivity, pain, gums, it really doesn't matter what the segment is. We play across all toothpaste segments. And you can link that back to the oral care expertise that we've already looked at. And every other player in this category actually plays in 1, maybe 2 segments.

When we then double click that into, do we play across price bank? The answer is also yes. And we're the only company that actually plays with our portfolio, starting from a INR 10 CST, all the way up to our most premium brands, the most therapeutic brands that are available through the professional oral care channel, we play across all price points. So this combination of a starting size, a portfolio that plays across all categories and across all price points, sets us up beautifully to make sure that we are driving this category forward.

So that brings me really to our strategy, and I spent a lot of time talking about oral care, and this is a strategy that I hope is very familiar because we've now been talking about it for quite a few quarters, but I'll go through it once again anyway. Our first critical job is to lead toothpaste category growth. This is both our privilege and our responsibility with all of the data that we've discussed so far to make sure that this category is growing faster. And therefore, 1A, if you were of our strategy is to grow toothpaste category volume. The second within that 1B is really for us to grow to our core within that, which is the 3 brands of Colgate Strong Teeth, MaxFresh and Active Salt.

Our second job is to premiumize through science-based superior innovation, all the words being really important. And we'll talk about it, how this comes to life through Total, through Visible White and through thinking on therapeutics that we are now deploying. Our third leg is to drive growth in toothbrushes and in devices. Like I said, we're about 1.5x the second player in the toothbrush category, getting ever stronger as we deploy some very exciting plans. And the last leg, which allows us to say that, yes, we are an oral care company. And yes, we are the oral care expert, but there is opportunity for us in diversification and to leverage the great equities that we have outside of India and of course, the Palmolive equity in India. And for a change today, I'm actually going to start by talking about personal care before I come back into the world of oral care because we're quite excited about the work that's happening on Palmolive.

A quick background on Palmolive before I go there. Palmolive equity built over 73 years in India, 60% of our target audience is aware of the brand. This is something that with the plethora of new age brands that are coming into categories, this is the kind of awareness that would be very, very coveted. And we are very lucky to have a brand that has such blatant equity. Our strategy on Palmolive is to play in cleansing, body wash and hand wash and that's really the focus of where we play. The body wash category, sub-3% penetration all India, but growing rapidly as consumers look to get better and better and more premium experiences, the category grows at a CAGR of anywhere between 30% to 40%, depending on when you look at it and presents a huge opportunity for us given that we start from a relatively small position, this is a category where growth is there for the taking.

And what we have in our arsenal is really a global portfolio and technology to support superior products delivered to consumers, delivering superior experiences. Starting with what we've done just a few weeks ago, which is the launch of 3 new variants on Palmolive, 3 exceedingly well researched variants, which deliver a supreme sensorial experience communicated are backed now with brand-new communication, which we'll just talk about in one moment.

[Presentation]

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

So the reason to be for Palmolive is really to encourage our consumers that in the stress and the hurry and the number of to-do lists that we have in fighting of traffic and stress and pollutants, to just maybe take a moment in that shower or bathing moment to slow down and to enjoy the sensorial experience that is Palmolive. Within -- this is what we have in play currently. Like I mentioned before, we have the opportunity of a global portfolio to choose from. And as we go forward in subsequent quarters, we will see new things coming in from our global portfolio, and we always remain in conversation on relevant inorganic growth opportunities.

So with that, I'm going to pivot back to the Oral Care category and talk about leading toothpaste category growth. And really, the focus is going to be on -- first, on the first part of driving category growth, where our efforts have been in the area of moving that 20% number of urban brush twice a day to being higher than that, and we'll show the communication and then talk about it.

[Presentation]

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

Launched during Diwali last year, I hope most of you, if not all of you, have had a chance to see this campaign. It's very, very simple insight, which is that as Indians, we love of our sweets. A lot of sweets get eaten after dinner. Then you go to sleep, having eaten sweets without brushing your teeth, which is a surefire recipe for oral health issues. And therefore, the exhortation to brush at night. Of course, just moving consumer behavior, as we've discussed, is not easy. It takes time. And it's also not about us just putting 1 piece of advertising on air and assuming that it's a magic bullet. So it is about creating awareness, as we have done here, ensuring that we're contextual in the moment of purchase. So the things that you see on the left were all the activations that were done around Diwali in and around the sweet locations and continue to be done now, and then to make sure that we continue to remind topically, and there's an example here from the IPL.

[Presentation]

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

So contextual ad for every single match with every single combination of teams that has gone out and obviously, at the appropriate moment because this does play in the second match of IPL, which is usually about the time that dessert is being thought of. And this -- all of this above-the-line activity is also supported by very strong on-ground activities, which include a strong home-to-home program.

And underpinning this, and I keep coming back to this because it's really critical to the Colgate Company, is our mission of making sure that we are improving the oral health of everyone in this country and the flagship program that we have under that is really our Bright Smiles, Bright Futures program, which has been running now is in its fifth decade, goes to schools at grassroot level and teaches the basics of oral care. Brushing -- the right way of brushing, brushing twice a day, saying no to tobacco, ensuring that you replace your toothbrush and making sure that you have that right nutrition that leads to right oral health. In its 50-plus years, it has reached 176 million children and is perhaps one of the large reasons why toothpaste and toothbrush in this country have universal penetration.

In the last year, we have done -- we have added about 5.2 million children who have been reached through this program. And through the coming year, we have a commitment to reach another 10 million children. Currently operational in 8 states, along with partnership from various state governments and other organizations. We are looking to expand this program to closer to 10 to 12 states in this financial year, a critical program, which has long-standing and consistent commitment, and this is the kind of commitment that we intend to put behind brushing at night in terms of the above-the-line activities that you just saw.

So I move from 1A to 1B and talk about our flagship -- from our flagship program to our flagship brand, which is Colgate Strong Teeth. We had relaunched Colgate Strong Teeth with a superior formulation last year. This is the only market standard toothpaste, which has the benefit of Arginine technology. And just for me to repeat myself, Arginine technology works towards working with the bacteria in your mouth to ensure that you can get stronger teeth. So a technology that actually has been patented by Colgate and has been used and clinically proven to deliver stronger teeth. We've now taken that superior product and put it in a packaging that highlights the existence of Arginine and the role of Arginine. And we are taking this particular communication further and deeper into the rest of India.

Our second brand, MaxFresh, has also been the most successful brand in our portfolio over the last couple of years, again, underpinned by proprietary ultra-freeze technology, which is a flavor delivery system that delivers freshness like no other toothpaste does. Again, has been revamped with new packaging graphics as well as more premium packaging, which includes a standup pack, strong commercial support behind the key SKU of INR 20 and continuous activation. This is a young, vibrant, focused on young adults toothpaste and therefore, needs continuous engagement and excitement to keep it relevant and active. One example of which follows here.

[Presentation]

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

Always brings back happy memories. And I move from Colgate MaxFresh to Colgate Active Salt, which is really the third part of our core portfolio. Once again, and I'm going to sound a little bit like a stuck record, but this is really about the underpinning that we have, that superior technology and superior products are the way to go in this category. So we have relaunched Colgate Active Salt with a superior technology that actually is better at fighting painful dental problems or fighting the niggles, the dental niggles that various consumers have. Once again backed by a new communication that has tested in the top 15% of advertising, and once again supported by a very strong commercial investment.

[Presentation]

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

So salt has great belief amongst consumers in terms of the efficacy of it to solve many, many oral care problems. And this is salt technology that has been incorporated into our new formulation. And all of these efforts that have been going on, on these brands for a while now have led once again to consideration for every one of our sub-brands going up. You saw the numbers for the overall Colgate brand. This is now broken up by sub-brands, and consideration for every one of our key sub-brands continues to rise. And obviously, there is opportunity for us to do even more.

I move from this to the second pillar, which is really science-led premiumization. And I want to start with Colgate's globally #1 brand, which is Colgate Total. If you talk to any Colgate employee around the world and you ask them, which toothpaste do they think is the best, the answer will most likely be Colgate Total. This is an equity that has a lot of room in India. It used to be a larger brand and has opportunity now to restore some of that size or at least all of that size. In this brand, what we have done so far is to make sure that we are building accessibility and driving trials. We're sampling over 9 million units a year.

We have launched an access pack, which is 80 grams at INR 80, which is at roughly about 45% to 50% premium to the market standard toothpaste pricing, which is really the sweet spot where we imagine that premiumization will take off. And early results on this brand have been great. So in the channels of the future between MT and e-comm, we are seeing market shares grow quite actively. And the portfolio from an internal growth perspective grows at 3x the rate of the rest of our portfolio. So lots of things for us to be happy about as far as Colgate Total is concerned.

The second leg of our premiumization has been whitening. This is a segment that we have created, and we almost entirely own being by far the largest player in this segment. Our lead product here is a whitening toothpaste, Colgate Visible White. A brand new media strategy on Visible White has just been rolled out, focusing really on ensuring that we use our very strong first-party data, reach of influencers, high beauty affinity consumers because this is actually a product that sits in the space between oral care and beauty because it is oral beauty. First, it is one of the first whitening products in the country and again doing exceedingly well.

This month or well towards the back end of this month, early in June, we will also launch a first to the world whitening booster in the Colgate franchise. This is akin to a gel that you put on your teeth, leave for a few moments and then wash off for whiter teeth. It is in addition to -- adjunct to toothpaste, not a substitute to toothpaste, and therefore, allows us to play in an opportunity which is beyond just the paste category and making sure that we continue to expand the portfolio of products that are available under Visible White. So Visible White will have a toothpaste, a premium toothpaste. It already has a device that is available in professional oral care channels. It has -- now will have a whitening booster gel and has a toothbrush. So a full portfolio of products to ensure that for those who are desiring whiter teeth, there is something on offer for everyone.

And I switch from oral beauty maybe to the other end of the spectrum, which is really the oral therapeutic business that which your dentist recommends. 9% of Indians go to a dentist every year. The 9% number itself is quite small. But when you multiply that into the population, obviously, it's a very, very large number of people who go to dentists. This driving the professional oral care channel has actually been a strategic business pillar for us. We're extremely fortunate that in our 87-year history in this country, we've had the most tremendous relationships with the professional channel and continue to build on those relationships.

We have about 2.5 million plus annual touch points of contact with dentists. We have the first ever key platform of direct to dentist, which is Dentist First and have 100-plus tie-ups with dental colleges, which is far in excess of any other competitor. And this continues to be an area of focus and continues to be an opportunity for us. It grows very rapidly. But the headroom on this is way more than the size that we are currently.

I move then to the toothbrush category, big actions in the toothbrush category. Toothbrush is a slightly different category from toothpaste in that it doesn't get a lot of advertising. There is some but it doesn't get a lot of advertising. So the heavy lifting on this category is done by having superior products with superior packaging that calls out on shelf and whether that shelf is a modern trade shelf or a general trade shelf. Therefore, ensuring that we have taken one of our largest franchises, which is Zig Zag, relaunching it to go back to its core equity of Zig Zag bristles for interdental cleaning has led to some very stellar results. And of course, we have an opportunity to continue to upgrade our portfolio. And it is our intention to make sure that we are borrowing the regimen story of whitening toothpaste and a whitening toothbrush, a total toothpaste and a total toothbrush, a PerioGard toothpaste and a PerioGard toothbrush and so on and so forth. So that the regimen idea of how you use a toothpaste and a toothbrush continues to get built.

We're exceedingly happy with the results that we are seeing on toothpaste -- toothbrush. And I want to talk about just 1 geography where we were losing to our competitors over the last little while over the last 2-, 3-year period and have over, with these actions that we have taken in a very, very large geography, restored market leadership, which I think is fantastic, and we will only go from strength to strength from here.

I move now, having already covered personal care earlier, to just a few of the enablers that we've inputted. The first one, of course, starting with Shopper. One of the things about the Oral Care category is making it clearer to consumers the ladder between good, better and best. And I think there's opportunity for us to keep driving that ladder. And to that end, planogramming in modern trade and ensuring that there are some visible aids to help understand what is good, better and best is something that we have now deployed in a few stores. We're doing a pilot with Reliance. Early results have been nothing short of spectacular.

We are seeing a significant increase in premiumization and a significant ASP growth on average selling price growth on toothpaste. And this is something that we are committed to. We will learn from this test pilot, make sure that we continue to evolve those learnings into better and better planogram. And this is one more area where we see this as being both privilege and responsibility because it is up to us to move how oral care looks on the shelf and how oral care is shopped, and now we are taking some very concrete steps to make that happen.

And that was in the brick-and-mortar universe. In the e-universe or the e-comm universe, e-comm continues to be a channel that is margin accretive, growth accretive, premiumization accretive for us, a critical channel in which we are very happy with our progress. And the work that is being done in terms of the content creation, as well as the product portfolio that we sell on e-comm is getting better and better. And there are lots of plans for us to continue to make this even more premium and even better as we pull apart the consumers who shop on e-commerce versus those who shop in brick-and-mortar.

Of course, nothing is possible without making sure that we have organization and people priorities absolutely in the right place. They are the engine that drives this wonderful organization. We are doing a lot of effort, both with our own people in terms of making sure that we have structures and the capabilities to win and take this entire business forward, also bringing in talent from the external market in select positions so that we get the learnings from the outside world to marry with our very strong understanding within the company. Lots of effort that is also being made, which is a core part of the DNA of this organization to make people feel cared for and included. These are 2 critical, caring and inclusion being 2 of the key values of the Colgate system and something that we hold very, very dear.

And of course, it's the end of the year. And so as a responsible corporate, we do release an ESG report. Our ESG report will go out with our annual report in about a month. But lots of significant progress made on the key measures of waste, on recyclability, water usage as well as BSBF. And I want to talk here particularly about recyclability. We are already in -- mostly in recyclable packaging. We have the tech for recyclable toothpaste tubes, which we are deploying. And we are in the process of looking at circularity for those toothpaste tubes to ensure that recyclable is also recycled. And as we exit this year, we hope to have some very interesting news to share in this space.

With that, I'm going to hand it over to Jacob to talk a little bit about the financial performance.

[Madukkakuzy Jacob, executive]

Thank you, Prabha, and good morning, everybody. So financial strategy stays consistent, driving sales volumes. And if you look clockwise on that driving margin expansion, which allows us to invest behind superior products and even advertising, optimizing overheads, investing in brands, that's the advertising piece and then therefore, further leading to increase in sales involves sales volumes and, therefore, delivering operating profit increases. So we are very pleased with the results for the quarter. You saw the numbers earlier, INR 1,481 crores for the quarter, 10.7% domestic growth. Margins continue to be very healthy, 250 bps expansion during the quarter to 35.9%, and profitability up 20% for the quarter.

If you look at it a little bit longer term you can clearly see the momentum, 9.5% for the full year '24 with toothpaste double digit in the 9.5%. And you can see quarter-on-quarter, we are accelerating the growth. Gross margin and EBITDA trends continue to be quite encouraging. So this is 1 question we've always been asked, is the company so obsessed with driving margins? So there are different ways to look at it. One way, of course, there is a pricing piece of it, which we normally calibrate with the inflation and the increase in input costs. But we also have what we call a very robust funding the growth program, where everybody in the company has got targets to deliver cost savings. And examples are savings from global synergies, packaging savings, optimizing plant allocations between our 4 plants, automation at the plants, favorable product mix, import substitution.

These are some examples of how we drive margin. This is unrelated to the pricing piece. And it's a big pillar on which our margin expansion rests. But we also use some of it to invest back in the products through product superiority. Prabha talked about that we virtually relaunched and upgraded almost 100% of our portfolio. The packaging innovations you will continue to see. On tubes next year, we will be on 100% recyclable tubes, and we are transitioning as we speak and further investing to enhance the brand experience. So the 400 bps increase that you saw during the year is a combination of this, plus, of course, some pricing.

In terms of investing behind the brands, advertising continues to be a key pillar. We've increased the advertising 20% year-on-year or 125 bps to 13.5% levels. That's INR 760 crores in advertising that we spent during the year. And importantly, the split of advertising, while we continue to support our brands, but we've also spent a sizable proportion of this on the Brushing at Night campaign that you saw earlier in the presentation. And of course, funding the strategy, strengthening core, driving premiumization, building personal care, these are the traditional areas where we continue to support.

Cash generation continues to be a very good story. So INR 1,263 crores going up to INR 1,567 crores adjusted for the bank balances. And our return on capital employed is almost at the 3-digit number. Value creation over time, dividend. You saw yesterday, we announced additional dividend of INR 10, what we call special dividend on top of the INR 26 second interim dividend. That takes it to INR 58 for the year. And our share price continues on an upward trajectory, and I hope some of you have personally gained from this movement, we were up 87% over the last 1 year, reflecting the strength of our performance.

And with that, I hand it back to Prabha.

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

Yes. So in conclusion, I just want to say that we had laid out a strategy about 18, 20 months ago. We do believe that, that is the right strategy for this company. And we have deployed and executed that strategy quite well. We see results being delivered against that strategy and are quite happy with the progress of each of those pillars, and we can also see significant headroom of what more we can do to use each of those pillars. I want to end really with a 2-part thought. The first part on Oral Care, which is that we are the leaders of the Oral Care category by far. And like I've said numerous times during this presentation, that's both a privilege and a responsibility for us to take this very important category forward in this country. We believe we have tremendous headroom to accelerate growth in this category even despite the universal penetration of the core formats of toothpaste and toothbrush.

Diversification for us is currently small and therefore, represents a significant headroom opportunity for growth for the company as we look to take on some of the other categories that we believe we have a right to win. And we continue to be committed to the 3 things that really guide everything that we do, which is to drive top line growth ahead, competitive top line growth, strengthen what is already a very strong company and a very strong brand, and make sure that in this process, we continue to simplify to set ourselves up for future growth.

Thank you again for your attention. I now hand it back to Sujata for the Q&A section.

[Sujata Nairi, executive]

Thank you, Prabha and Jacob. We can now start with the Q&A. Over to you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

We'll take our first question from the line of Abneesh Roy from Nuvama. .

[Abneesh Roy, analyst]

Congrats on very good set of numbers, both on sales and margin. My first question is on personal care. So Slide #19 mentioned Protex and Sanex. So is that an indication that these 2 brands have been kind of shortlisted and if any timeframe? And second related question on Personal Care is on Palmolive. So we have seen 3 new variants being launched. We have seen mass media also. So my specific questions are there. Are you focusing essentially on modern trade and e-commerce for Palmolive? Because you have mentioned that 1.2x growth in share of mind that is there in modern trade. So is modern trade and e-commerce going to be the focus next 2 years here?

Second is the category is seeing huge disruption. It's a very low penetration, 3% penetration. But we are also seeing once there come with powder to the liquid, and they have done generally quite well in power to liquid. So given that disruption, focusing on premium, does it make sense? And last is your sales growth was around 9.5% as a company, domestic sales growth in FY '24. Would Palmolive have grown at least 2x, 3x of that in FY '24?

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

So, Abneesh, it's nice to hear you again. And I'm going to take maybe the first 2 questions and leave the third one to Jacob. On the Palmolive brand, our focus is not only modern trade, actually. And I didn't touch upon the milestone algorithm that we have, which tells us what kind of assortment and what kind of stores in general trade. And that is something that we will use to make sure that Palmolive is available in the right type of stores. In general trade with a 3% category penetration, we do need to be careful as to where we place the product and -- so our intention will be to be modern trade, e-commerce and judicious general trade.

The reason for putting the market shares in e-commerce and modern trade is obviously because they respond faster to any actions. And this is an action that is only about 6-odd weeks old, and we're already seeing some green shoots. And we are committed to building Palmolive across all the relevant channels in the relevant stores over the next foreseeable future, and we think we have tremendous opportunity over there.

The second part of your question on disruption in body wash, I think the lovely thing about having a category which is sub 3% penetration is that there is enough opportunity for everybody to grow in different spaces. So there is an opportunity, of course, at the bottom of the pyramid by offering value. And there is equally -- an equal, if not larger opportunity at the top of the pyramid, which is convincing consumers who have money, spending with Palmolive is indeed a superior experience to what they currently experience. So I think there's enough room and enough opportunity for everybody to grow. And so less worried about what other people are doing in this segment in terms of disruption. We're also very, very confident about the technology that we have on Palmolive and therefore, the ability to deliver an end experience, which is truly superior.

On the first question on Protex and Sanex, I should have put on the image there for presentation only. We have a short form in Colgate, which is called FPO for presentation only, and that is exactly what that is. It's not an indication of us doing Protex and/or Sanex. But I can only say that watch this space, and then we will have some news in terms of what we believe is the right thing for us to borrow from our global portfolio and introduce in India. .

And to the question on growth, I'm going to leave it to Jacob.

[Madukkakuzy Jacob, executive]

Yes. So on growth, personal care is growing at a faster pace than oral care. And we continue to expect the growth to further accelerate and widen the growth difference as we go into the following quarters. .

[Abneesh Roy, analyst]

Sure, thanks. That's useful. Just 1 small follow-up on the Palmolive mass media advertising. Would you have a benchmark in terms of what kind of share of mind, share of voice, et cetera, you would like to target? Because this is an under-invested brand for almost 2, 3 decades. So upfront advertising will be needed. So in the channels where you are focusing initially, will you have a significant kind of a number in terms of share of voice?

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

So I think the way we measure these kind of campaigns is really what is the reach that we wish to deliver and how -- what is the best way to deliver that reach. So what you see as the mass media advertising is the only -- the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we are spending on Palmolive. A lot of it is actually going behind influencer marketing, behind digital campaigns and in-store, which is really the bulk of our spends on Palmolive.

So if you take your -- what you see on mass media and multiply it by a few, that is the expenditure on Palmolive. And like I said, we are fully and utterly committed to driving Palmolive and the joy of having a P&L shape like the kind that we do is that we have the wherewithal to be able to do this.

[Abneesh Roy, analyst]

My second question is on the e-commerce section. So currently most of the consumer companies are broadly in the 6% to 10% kind of e-commerce percentage. And within that, e-commerce is around 25% to 30%. So if you could tell us in this category and for the company, how our numbers, yes?

[Operator]

Mr. Roy, may I request you to join back the queue, please? Yes, may I request you to join back the queue, please. [Operator Instructions]

We'll take our next question from Amit Sachdeva.

[Amit Sachdeva, analyst]

First of all, congratulations for excellent performance during the year and delivering on good cost management, revenue growth and earnings expansion. A question, obviously, an analyst ask is how to look into the future. It has been a great year. So with that, I just want to ask a couple of questions there.

I assume that last year was a lot of pricing. Obviously, initiative premiumization, but also simultaneously developing the market. Could you help us understand in the double-digit, nearly double-digit full year growth, what has been the volume mix and pricing element? And as we go into the next year, right, how do you see these elements shaping up? That's one. And so maybe let me just -- if you sort of reply to this one, then I probably link it back. .

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

So I think I want to maybe break up your question into 2 parts in terms of do we see potential for this category to grow and for us to grow within this category and what will make that happen because that's really your question saying, how are we going to sustain this kind of 9.5% growth. And I think the answer to that actually lies in the fact that the -- if you expanded the category, the greatest gains will come to the category leader.

And that is really why 1A of our strategy is to focus on expanding the category. And that's one of the reasons why we are very, very optimistic that we can grow this category. And as we grow this category, we will be able to grow our volumes as well and our value as well. And of course, then there is the -- we haven't even begun to scratch the surface in terms of what we do on premiumization. Just to -- I didn't talk about it because I've said it before. But just to remind you of some of the numbers, only 12% of this category sits above the 140 index. That number for other personal care categories is already 30% plus.

And even amongst [ SCA ] the penetration of a premium toothpaste and I'm calling anything above 140 index a premium toothpaste, is only at 28%. So even amongst those who have money, only 1 in 4 buy a premium toothpaste. So the opportunity to then convince them of the superior offerings that exist in our portfolio is exceedingly high. So very optimistic about our ability to grow this category and therefore, continue to grow our volumes and our value.

To the second part of your question of do we want to break it up? We tend not to break up the number just in terms of -- what we are looking at, though, is a balanced growth between price and volume as we go forward. So price, volume and mix, these are the 3 things that obviously go into it. And we'd look at roughly a balanced growth between all of them.

And to the underlying question of do we have the ability to take more pricing. Actually, price is always an outcome of what is the value that you're delivering or what is the benefit that the consumer sees. And therefore, what is she willing to pay. And as long as we keep enhancing the benefit that we are delivering to consumers, I think this brand has potential to take pricing. So not -- I think actually all of the vectors, our ability to take pricing, ability to expand the market and ability to drive premiumization, I'm quite confident about all 3 of them.

[Amit Sachdeva, analyst]

That's very helpful. So obviously, without any guidance, I can sort of see that where your entity grew, we'll make our own sense of it. Just a follow up a bit. You mentioned that there's a large space in premium. But then if you map the price curve of mostly consumer categories, there's a prestige price point, masstige and premium, oral care has not yet the prestige part of it. I'm sure there's a consumer ready for the best in class and nothing can be better in the world kind of pricing as well. But no brand has, at least in oral care, has attempted that the prestige part of oral care. Do you think about developing that market as well? Or it's too early for India to sort of get into that zone? So I was just very curious.

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

Amit, I must tell you that there is nothing about oral care that we don't think about. And so I think from a perspective of is there opportunity and if we were to put some numbers to where prestige would sit, so let me in skin care, obviously, the numbers are extremely high. But if we were to say 400, 500 index would be -- even that would be considered as prestige in the toothpaste category. Yes, there is most certainly an opportunity in this country. .

And there is an opportunity that exists already. And I think that we are in a position to start looking at these kind of opportunities. But the large bulk of premiumization will continue to come from the 50% to 100% premium kind of range rather than us stretching it all the way out to 400, 500 because that then becomes a very small audience. So opportunity exists. I think the larger opportunity exists at the more traditional definition of premiumization.

[Operator]

We'll take our next question from Jay Doshi from Kotak Securities.

[Jaykumar Doshi, analyst]

I have a request and 1 question. The request is if you could -- I heard your response earlier, but if you could introduce either volume growth or UVG in your quarterly disclosures. And the reason for this request is, first of all other FMCGs share that metric, even Colgate Global does share that metric. So I feel that is an important metric for investors and analysts to evaluate the progress in terms of volume growth and the results of the efforts that you are taking this year. So that's a request.

And secondly, even if you don't disclose, the problem is that there is a lot of noise in the media and wrong numbers get circulated within the community that creates more confusion. That's my request. Now my question is on Colgate Total. I think you mentioned that the brand was much larger earlier, and you're hoping that it restores back to the earlier levels. Sir, could you elaborate a little bit on it in terms of what was the size of the brand? Or what was its salience in overall Colgate sales earlier? What is it right now? And some additional color, if you can provide.

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

Sure. Thanks, Jay. Firstly, on your request, let me just take back and we'll come back to you. But at the moment, we tend not to provide that. And so I'm going to move on from there so as to not repeat myself.

On Colgate Total, this brand has existed in the country for quite a while. And about a decade ago, it actually used to be a double-digit share player in modern trade, albeit in a smaller modern trade category, and therefore, had significant salience to premium consumers. And it will be our effort to take it back into that kind of space where at least in the channels of the future and in select general trade stores, it continues to start edging towards that kind of level. So that would really be where our planning and our thinking is and why we believe we can do that is for me to just since you've given me the opportunity to talk about Total to just spend a little bit of time on the technology on Total, which is this combination of dual zinc plus arginine, which actually delivers best-in-class 12-hour antibacterial protection.

And all of us know that actually, bacteria is at the root of all oral health issues. And this particular product of ours is backed by 125 patents, which is more than, I think, any toothpaste in the world that any company offers and therefore very confident about the technology that this toothpaste offers, the benefits that it offers to consumers and why it is the flagship of our premiumization strategy. .

[Jaykumar Doshi, analyst]

Sure. Just if I can ask, where is Total today in terms of salience after -- at the end of FY '24?

[Madukkakuzy Jacob, executive]

Yes. I mean, Prabha mentioned we were double-digit in modern trade when we were big on Total a few years back. But since then, modern trade is low single digit. But e-comm has been a big story, and e-comm is the fastest moving in terms of premiumization for us, and there Total is a sizable player already. .

[Operator]

We'll read a text question from Percy Panthaki from IIFL. Can you please break up your sales growth for Q4 into volume, mix and price. Same for FY '24 full year. Also, given that pricing will anniversary soon, how should we look at your sales growth over the next few quarters?

[Madukkakuzy Jacob, executive]

Prabha mentioned on the volume piece, we are not splitting volume and pricing. And so we won't comment on that as of now. Going forward, you're right, as inflation moderates, pricing will be an important discussion. But we do expect the category growth, consumption growth activities that we have initiated, along with positive macros in rural that we're seeing rural grew faster than urban, and we continue to see green shoots there. So a combination of that, along with premiumization would be key for us to continue to deliver the current level of growth.

[Operator]

We'll take a video question from Mihir Shah.

[Mihir Shah, analyst]

Congrats on great margin delivery. Prabha, my first question is on margins, actually. Apart from pricing and better mix, you mentioned there is a continuous cost-saving initiative that is improving the margins both on gross and on EBITDA level. How much more juice do you think we have that we can take out from the cost side, which can keep taking these margin profiles higher?

I'm sure we are quite an efficient company, and I'm sure there is a lot of zero-based budgeting that you guys will do. But for us to understand where the gross margins can really stack at from somewhere from 69%, 70% levels maybe in the next few years' time, where can it really settle down only from the cost savings side. I understand the premiumization Side. But from that side, maybe you can help us understand. So that's question #1. .

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

So I think, firstly, I don't think it is our effort to massively expand margins as we go forward. Like I said, our focus is really on looking at our cost lines with a view to saying what is non-value-adding cost? And can we suck that non-value-adding cost out of the system?

And yes, we are an exceedingly efficient company, but there is always room for more efficiency. Things evolve, technologies evolve, markets evolve, thinking evolves, lots of India's capability evolves. Many, many things move, which allow us every year to have new opportunities to suck out non-value-adding costs. So I think this ability to generate around 4%, 5% of net sales as gross saving is something that I think we can continue into the foreseeable future, given that things will keep moving. .

The question of how much of that becomes a margin expansion and how much of that we use to funnel back into driving better quality products, better packaging. I think that's really the key question for us. And our effort will be to make sure that we are judiciously using the sources of funds into uses that allow us to drive our top line up. So if you are looking for a perspective on are margins going to continue to expand at the rates that they have between last year and this year, the answer is most definitely not. It will -- I think that is more a one-off expansion that you're seeing. Our effort will be to be in and around the ballpark of where we are currently. .

[Mihir Shah, analyst]

Understood. That clarifies. Second question, Prabha, I just want a clarification. You mentioned that 9.5% growth rate is a sustainable growth rate that we should assume on overall basis. Is that a correct understanding? .

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

I don't recall mentioning that. I do recall mentioning that I think there is tremendous growth opportunity in this category, and that will be our focus. But I'm certainly not giving a guidance on the number.

[Mihir Shah, analyst]

Got it. Understood. What I really wanted to understand, I understand you're not breaking the price and the volume but maybe you can give some sense on the mix that we are seeing. Is there a mix improvement that is -- I'm sure there is a mix improvement that is a part of this. Would it be low single digits? Can that inch up to high single digits later on? Or do you think this mix improvement of low single digits of a couple of percentage points will continue here? Just a clarification on that also, please?

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

So I think the way we look at it is to have a growth rate target for our premium portfolio relative to our core portfolio. And at this moment, our target would be to be at least 2.5, 3x faster with our premium portfolio than our base portfolio. And at this time, we're exceeding that target. And really, given the plans that we have line of sight of for the rest of this year, we can see that continuing to be the case.

So whether it is Colgate Total or it is Visible White with its innovations and the work that has been done on communication, or it is the push into therapeutics that is gaining momentum. We do see an opportunity for this 3x growth rate at least of the rest of the portfolio to continue. And that will keep adding to mix. And that's really what we're focused on rather than a measure of what percentage of the mix is it.

[Operator]

We'll take our last question from the line of Vishal Punmiya from YES Securities.

[Vishal Punmiya, analyst]

Congratulations on strong margin performance as well as working capital improvement in FY '24. My only question is on rural markets. The first time that we had highlighted green shoots was in August last year. Now this quarter, almost every company is kind of calling out the improvement in rural markets. My question is, is it because of base effect? Or is there any major improvement that you are seeing in consumption for your category?

And with this improvement with rural picking up, do we expect the premiumization-led growth to be slightly slower in FY '25 versus FY '24, while volume growth improves for you? Yes, that will be my only question. .

[Prabha Narasimhan, executive]

So thank you. That's a great question, Vishal, for us to end this session with. So what we are seeing in this quarter is rural is outpacing urban growth by close to 200 basis points, which is great news for us because there is so much opportunity to grow this category.

The reasons behind that, and we are, I guess, in the same boat as everybody else as we give this reason saying that there are macroeconomic indicators, that rural is coming back, lots of categories are coming back, as are we. From a more internal perspective of what we have done, we have doubled down on our execution and communication in rural. So we have gone deeper and wider with the communication that we have. And obviously, this supported by the increase in product quality and packaging quality of our flagship brand, which is the largest brand in rural, which is Colgate Strong Teeth, really does help our rural growth.

So that's kind of what is happening as far as the rural market is concerned. And obviously, all of the indicators, the macro indicators that we are hearing in terms of what the monsoon will be like, a general feeling of optimism in the rural market suggests to us that this is something that is sustainable along with the stabilization of inflation, that this is a sustainable growth at least for the foreseeable future.

On your second piece on -- will the rural growth preclude the premiumization growth? I don't think so because these are actually quite independent. And therefore, in the way that we look at it, it is more an and thought than an or thought that where we had already a premiumization engine as we discussed that was working and driving towards greater growth being driven largely by better off consumers in urban India, the rural growth will now become an and on top of it.

So we will see a combination of A plus B, which should certainly help growth going forward.

[Operator]

I now hand the conference back to Ms. Sujata Nairi for closing comments. Over to you. .

[Sujata Nairi, executive]

Thank you, Yashasvi. Thank you, Prabha and Jacob, for your thoughts and insights. And thank you, everyone, for joining us. We are very excited for the year coming by and looking forward to hosting all of you again. Thank you once again on behalf of the entire Colgate team. And this closes our analyst call now. Thank you.

[Madukkakuzy Jacob, executive]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We now conclude today's Colgate-Palmolive Analyst Conference Meet, and we thank you all for your participation.