United Breweries Ltd
NSE:UBL
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United Breweries Ltd
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Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q3 FY '23 Earnings Conference Call of United Breweries Limited hosted by Investec Capital Services. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Harit Kapoor from Investec Capital Services. And over to you, sir.
Yes. Thank you, Michelle. On behalf of Investec Capital Services, we would like to welcome the management of United Breweries and thank them for the opportunity to host this call for the Q3 FY '23 results. I would also like to thank all participants who are joining the call.
From the management of United Breweries, we have the senior management team, Mr. Radovan Sikorsky, Director and CFO; and Mr. P. Poonacha from Finance and Investor Relations.
I'll now hand the call to Mr. Sikorsky for his opening remarks, post which we can take the Q&A. So over to you, Radovan.
Thank you. So good afternoon, everyone, on the call. Thank you for joining. So today, we'll discuss the results of Q3. I'm here together with Mr. Poonacha. And after the opening comments, as was mentioned, we're happy to take questions in terms of our financials.
So if you look at quarter 3, so volume growth, as you saw, was up 4% in the quarter this prior year, and it was primarily driven by Telangana, Rajasthan and Karnataka.
Nice growth in the premium segment, growing 13% versus the total portfolio of 4%. So that's nice to see that premium trend that we've been talking about continues.
Difficult on the EBIT for the quarter, down 69%, due to the changes seen in the state mix -- the impact of the state mix. The -- really, the inflationary pressure now really coming through, as we thought it would come through in these quarters, and also some route-to-market impact as well. This was partially offset by the volume and, of course, the price increases coming through as well nicely.
The inflationary pressure on the cost of sales, like I mentioned, is impacting the gross profit margins and contributing to a decline on our GP to around 41.8%, 42% broadly.
In terms of the region, their performance, if you look at the regional volume performance versus prior year, you can see there the split between North, West, East, South. So the North in the quarter growing around 13%; West, around 2%; the East, 3%; and the South, flat.
Now despite the growth in the volumes in Telangana, Karnataka and Kerala as well in the South, we were impacted by declines in Tamil Nadu. So that's a little bit on the regional level. If we can still chat a bit more about it in the questions.
In terms of net sales, on the previous -- on the next slide, sorry, sales were at around 2% in the quarter. We did have some additional discounts booked in the last quarter, which were flowing through from previous quarters, which impacted our revenue growth by about 1%. So underlying, we're looking at around 3%.
And within our revenues, we also had an impact of -- we show the net income from our [indiscernible] in the revenues as net income. And of course, the margins on the contract growth were also down due to the inflationary pressure on cost as well. So there also had an impact on the revenue growth.
In terms of the pricing, so pricing continues to be growing at around 5%, 6%, what we're getting through in pricing. And we continue to see growth opportunities on pricing also going into 2023.
And the state mix had an impact on us, right? So strong growth in certain of the key regions where pricing structures are different to our average, and that has had an impact on the mix in terms of the state mix.
On the next slide, where we show the year-to-date, so April to December results, so you can see there great growth in volume. We're up 43% in terms of volumes, pricing around 6%. Then we have the impact of the state mix. And so overall, we're looking at a strong revenue growth, net sales growth of around 39% on the year-to-date. So nice -- really nice performance in that respect.
Overall, our margins -- in our operating margins year-to-date are broadly flat, so not much growth coming through there, but really impacted by inflation and more so, as you could see in our quarter 3 results.
So volumes, of course, the leveraging of the volumes, the growth in the volumes is helping us. And even though the fixed costs are up with the business reopening, operating profit margins were broadly flat.
So that is -- that, I think, would cover my summary. I think on the outlook, we can also close after the questions. I can just give a little bit of an update on the outlook.
[Operator Instructions] We have the first question from the line of Alok Shah from AMBIT Capital.
The first question is, what was the operating model change in Tamil Nadu that you've highlighted once again? And can you quantify the volume impact going to the same? That's my first question.
Okay. So in Tamil Nadu, we have basically approached the market. We've mentioned also in the results in the quarter 1, quarter 2 I think it was, that we've changed the operating model there. Basically, we go direct, and we are using now our own sales force in Tamil Nadu than operating through a third party, and that was the main change.
The volume impact that we have seen coming through in Tamil Nadu, in quarter 3, we had quite a significant impact in volumes. So of course, we are looking at how we can restore the volumes in Tamil Nadu and what opportunities we have to restore there. And so we were working through that going forward.
We look at different operating models that we have, and we consider whether we can work with the model that we've chosen in Tamil Nadu. We will probably have to readjust certain things in sales, and we'll see. We will look at that as we go forward.
Got it. Just to understand this a little better. So in Tamil Nadu, if the wholesale and the retail is controlled by TASMAC, so how would a private company go direct, if you can explain that? So does your salesperson goes directly to the retail counter and place his order and passes to TASMAC? Is that what you're doing, if you can explain that?
Yes. Well, we sell through TASMAC. But previously, we didn't have the sales force actually employed under us. And now we -- actually, the sales are actually part of our team and visiting the retail outlets, and that was the change. Previously, we did it through an agent.
Okay. So now employees are on your sales. Okay, okay. Got it. And when you say you plan to restore volumes and no plan of restructuring, so what does that make? I mean, can you explain then this also?
Look, we are working through it at the moment. We're not planning on any restructuring at this point in time in terms of the footprint there. And so we are working through it with management on how we can restore the volumes. I think, for now, I don't want to say more than that. I think it's an internal discussion. And as we progress then, we can give more information on that.
Okay. My second question is with respect to this gross margin compression and specifically the sequential gross margin compression of 500 basis points, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think at the start of the year, the strategy was not to procure barley for the full year.
So would it have happened that this quarter, on the spot basis, you would have procured barley and that was the reason why the sequential gross margin compression was 500 basis points?
So as you know, the barley crop comes in around April in India, and that's when we are procuring the barley for the following season. That's what we're doing this year as well. There was a bit of shortage of barley as well for us actually going into 2022, and we also had to import actually malt, right, which was quite a significant cost for us as well.
And barley prices have gone up significantly. I mean, we are looking at price increases of -- also barley converted into malt because conversion cost from barley to malt have also gone up because of energy prices. So we're looking at increases of around 45% and more in terms of that.
So that has been a significant impact for us. And the fact is that, beginning of the year, we were still producing under the old crop, right? So the impact wasn't as big in the beginning. But now it's fully on the crop of April of 2022, which was much higher and then also the malt that was imported. So therefore, that had quite a big impact going forward.
And I think it's going to continue for now also going into quarter 4, for sure. But the good news about it all is we can see is that the crop that's coming in now in April, which we will then start utilizing in sort of July this year, is looking very good in terms of quality and quantity at this point in time, right?
Of course, it can still change once the harvest begins, et cetera, but it's looking very good. And therefore, we see that if that will be the case, then that will really ease the pressure on costs in a big way going into quarter 2, quarter 3 next year.
Got it. Sir, clarification, this 45% you said is the [ widening ] barley price increase from April till Dec.
Yes. Actually, it's over 50% if you compare quarter-to-quarter. But year-to-date, it's around 40% or so. But in the quarter itself, it's aggravated because now we are really purely on that crop and also the imports.
Got it, got it. And just a final a bit more of a clarification. So if there's an expectation that the volumes will come back, specifically I'm going back to Tamil Nadu, was the impairment necessary according to the management's assessment? Because if volumes are likely to come back, there's a short-term impact, right?
The part -- I've said the management is trying to restore the volumes. I cannot tell if they are likely to come back or not. We will do what we can as a management team to get the volumes back.
I mean, Tamil Nadu is a state where we can see category growth. There is opportunity for the beer segment, and we will work what we can in there. So that's the way we look at it. But we took an impairment on it based on the current -- our positions at the end of December in terms of -- there was a decline in cash flows and EBITDA, which triggered an impairment review. And therefore, we did an impairment review on the assets.
Got it, got it. I have a couple of more questions. I'll join back in the queue. Lastly, just a request and a suggestion on behalf of clients also if maybe Mr. Rishi, too, can join the call given like many of the CEOs of other companies joined. This will help investors and us get a strategic perspective of the business as well.
I do. Thanks. So for sure. So the plan would be for our sort of full year results, I've asked that the CEO will join us as well. So you know that we can have a discussion with the CEO and the CFO for the full year.
The next question is from the line of Pratik Rangnekar from CS.
Just to understand the Tamil Nadu issue a little bit more. Just wanted to understand, you changed the sales channel from -- going from indirect to direct. So is there anything that was necessitating this change as such? And what was the benefit of -- what is the benefit that we see in doing this change?
As we mentioned, Heineken acquired the majority in 2021. And so we review the business models where we can improve the business, where we can drive efficiencies. We look at commercial terms, et cetera. And it was decided that we would take this approach in the state, and that was the decision that was done where we now use our own sales force and not through an agent. We have seen now declines in volumes, which we need to address, and that's our position at the moment.
[indiscernible] Is it that we would -- then maybe suppose the decline does not -- is not arrested, then in that case, would you look at reversing that decision in some time? Or is it something that you will continue with?
Well, like I said, we will try and restore those volumes. Whether we will manage that is another question, but it is our role as management and our sales team to try and do that. And we will look at different options of how we can restore those volumes.
Got it, got it. So just one more question from my end was that now from the last couple of quarters, we've seen premium growing much faster than the portfolio. But at the same time, in terms of advertising and marketing spend, we remain at the 5% of sales kind of level, at least at an overall annual basis. So is it that once the premium starts going up, you will have to -- there will be some sort of an uptake in the advertising spend as well?
Well, our plans for next year as well is to try and increase ATL, BTL spend in the market. Obviously, the -- there is -- the legislation around advertising can be quite restricted in some areas.
[Technical Difficulty]
Yes. Sorry, it looks like we were interrupted. So I was talking about marketing spend. So I think -- I don't know where I was cut off, but I said, going forward, we want to increase store ATL, BTL. But as you know, there are restrictions around how much advertising we can do and where and how.
But we will continue with that in terms of how much we put behind premium and also our mainstream. And we monitor our return on investment. You know that we are doing the right things.
The next question is from the line of Umang Mehta from Kotak Securities.
I just had 2 questions. One was, again, on the change in distribution in AP and Tamil Nadu. We believe the volume contribution from these 2 states used to be 4% before the change. Would it be possible to share the contribution during the quarter? And the second question was a bit more color on the negative state mix during the quarter.
No. So the volumes were even a bit higher in terms of the state of Tamil Nadu. We should remember also with Andhra Pradesh, the volume decline has taken place earlier on sort of in the back end of 2019 where we had a big impact, right?
So there, already, we had quite a big volume impact on Andhra Pradesh. Just to be clear on that one. That's why we also mentioned in the note that, inter alia, the combination of route to market, but also changes in policy. So that was the case.
In terms of this mix, state mix, I mean, we have very strong growth, I have to say, in some of the states, right, like Telangana and Rajasthan, which is great to see because there is a lot of opportunity there.
And we're in states where we have higher contribution, some of the states in the South. Like -- the likes of Karnataka or Maharashtra, those growth haven't been to the same extent as those ones, and that's just causing the mix impact. So that's the reasoning behind it.
For us, it's important that in these states, as we get our -- we have strong positions, and the growth is there, that we also started extracting more value out of those states in terms of price increases. And we're already seeing some successes this year of getting more price in areas like Rajasthan, so that is nice to see.
If I would like -- if I would add to it, if we compare Karnataka, for example, in the quarter, we were up around 12% versus 19%, it's 7%. So it's nice to see that there is growth in those states well. But the other states are all growing that much quicker.
Got it. And just on the first question, possible to share the mix of Tamil Nadu in this quarter in volumes?
So yes. So I mean, Tamil Nadu was down considerably in terms of the mix. If we had an underlying volume performance of around 4% in the total portfolio, we would be high single digits, excluding Tamil Nadu.
[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Krishnan S. from Motilal Oswal Institutional Equities.
For many discretionary companies during the quarter, it was a case of 2 halves. So did you see something similar that October or maybe early November was good and the second half of the quarter was weak from a demand perspective?
Not really, no. No. Actually, it was -- no, I can't really say that, no. I didn't see that.
And if you can comment on the market demand for the quarter. I'm not talking about your revenues, how the demand for the quarter so far.
You mean -- I'm not sure what you mean. You mean -- I mean, our...
Various discretionary categories are seeing slowdown in terms of consumption because the inflation is affecting the consumer wallets. Are you seeing something similar in this particular quarter?
No, I don't think so. Even compared to 2019, we can see the category is growing. So we don't see really a slowdown at this point in time. And we are not changing our forecast of the category growing high single digits going forward at this stage in time.
Got it. A couple of questions on raw materials. Radovan, did I hear you correctly stating that the benefits of lower barley cost will be felt from 2Q onwards and not in 1Q, which is the very crucial quarter, summer season quarter for UB?
Let me just clarify that a little bit, so we're not confused. Because sometimes, a mix calendar year with this financial year, So just to be clear. So like I said to you, so the barley crop -- the new barley crop, we will start using in around June, July, okay? So that means the impact will be sort of more in quarter 2. The impact will be coming through that, we'll start having benefits.
Quarter 4 will be a difficult quarter 4 for this financial year. We will continue to see pressure on our margins. Quarter 1, also quarter 2, we'll start seeing it coming through. Now on -- what I do see, however, is that the pricing that we have a lagging should start helping those margins as well definitely, right, as we put the pricing through as well and where we can. But it's going to be a difficult quarter 4 and quarter 1 going forward.
That's clear. Just one final question on glass bottle cost. You may not have been affected for this particular quarter, which is seasonally weaker because of higher proportion of market bottles. Are you seeing significant inflation on that front as well, which could impact in Q4 and Q1?
Yes. I mean, on bottles, we're still seeing pressure on pricing, definitely. There is really a sort of demand-supply happening there. The supply is a bit restricted, and there is quite a bit of demand, particularly from us as well. So that is -- those economics are playing out there. But we -- so we see still some pressure going forward on glass prices.
So I think what we are working on quite strongly, and we have quite good plans in place for that, is to make sure that old bottles are coming back. We can improve on that ratio. And we believe there's quite a bit still to be done on that one, and that is an important efficiency for us in terms of glass going forward. So we are really working as a team, and we've set up a good project around that to get the old bottles coming back from the market into the season.
Okay. Just to clarify. What was the extent of sequential as well as Y-o-Y increase in glass bottle cost -- new bottle cost?
New bottles?
Yes.
Sort of high level, it was double-digit percentages in a range of around 10% -- anything between 8% and 15%.
[Operator Instructions] We have the next question from the line of Tejash Shah from Spark Capital.
You mentioned in your press release that Delhi slowdown, you attributed to frequent market change policy. So is this slowdown observed for the whole industry or we would have lost market share?
And we -- just curious to know, in such scenario, how does the consumer behaved, they stop drinking beer or they source from other states or they move on to some other liquor formats, which are available more easily versus, let's say, beer? So if you can throw some light on these 2 aspects.
You were asking particularly about Delhi, if I understood, yes?
Yes, yes.
So Delhi, yes, so clearly, our volumes have come down. And we have lost some market share there, yes. So we have lost share. In terms of consumers, well, I think consumption is probably lower, but consumption is going also to some of the local players.
Sure. So basically, in such disruptions, the market share actually goes back to local players versus the organized large players. Is that a fair understanding?
In Delhi, I would see that happening, yes.
Sure. And sir, on barley prices, earlier, we have -- actually, in the past, we have entered into very long-term contracts to protect our margins. Considering the experience that we have had recently on barley, will we explore that option as we go into buying season this period?
For long-term contracts, we do annual contracts with the barley producers on the next crop. And the barley is really much based on how good the crop will be at the end of the day. So -- and that's the approach we are taking for barley going forward as well at this point in time.
What we are doing, however, quite a bit now is that we are working with barley farmers, how we can increase acreage, how we can improve barley crops. And with -- at Heineken, we try and draw a lot on Heineken's experience in that respect because they have exposure across the globe with barley.
And so we are trying to leverage on those experiences and work with local farmers on how we can improve that. So I think that is very positive going forward, seeing as barley is such an important ingredient for us. So I'm very positive about that going forward.
And sir, in the past, you have mentioned that imported barley is also an option, and we have seen that there is a better malt yield that you have seen in imported barley. So any thoughts around that? Are we actually going on that route as well?
No. I think it's again dependent on the crop. So the 2022 crop was not of such good quality. The barley was a little bit moist, okay? So that -- the conversion ratios then are not as good as they should be into malt.
Whereas what we're seeing for the next crop, this crop coming through September '23, seems to be a very good quality crop. And that should be very good for us as well in terms of -- like I said, in terms of quality and quantity.
We imported at the back end of 2022 as well. There were some shortages and also some quality issues. So we imported malt as well, yes, which comes with quite a cost. And that also, of course, impacted our margins, like I mentioned earlier.
But for sure, our drive is to source locally. We want to use Indian raw materials as much as we can. And we want to try and improve, going forward, the barley crops here locally because that is the ideal situation.
Sure. And sir, last one. Have we taken any price hike in the recent months?
In terms of pricing, there is some that we've taken. So we've taken some pricing across West Bengal, also in Kerala. We took a bit in Goa as well. So continuously, we are looking at opportunities and going into '23 as well. So we will take pricing.
There is a pricing, like I said, lag with this inflation. But the big benefit we see, if we're talking quarter 3 2023 and going forward, if we have the pressure of inflation coming down, with the mix of our pricing coming through and with the cost of sales coming down, we can see that, that will be a really nice reflection on our margins going forward.
Sure. Sir, if you can share some number, what was the weighted average hike that we would have taken? And what was the time period? Was is it December start of the quarter? Or was it during the quarter earlier -- early period of the quarter?
Sorry. I didn't understand that. It was very unclear.
Is it better?
[Operator Instructions]
So yes, I just wanted to know, what I asked was that if you can share the weighted average price hike that we would have taken in the last quarter. And was it at the end of the quarter or at the beginning of the quarter we were carrying this?
The pricing?
Yes, sir.
The price increases, it's a range of like between 2% and 6%, up to 8%. And then it was -- it's averaging out around 5%, I think, in that quarter. And then there's, of course, carryovers coming through from previous quarters. And yes, it's actually still the same sort of average.
[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Latika Chopra from JPMorgan.
Apologies, I joined this call a little late. I'm not sure if this was touched upon. But let me discuss with you the Tamil Nadu and Andhra issue. I wanted to understand, at this point, what is your understanding how much time it would take for business to get back to more normalized levels? What is your best guess here? The second part is, how have market share trends for your brands been in these states? If you could share some color here.
Okay. So we spoke quite a bit about Tamil Nadu probably before you came. In terms of best guess, I cannot really give a guess on that. It's difficult. Like I said, we will be looking at restoring the volumes.
Hopefully, we can have some growth coming in as there is more demand coming through in the season in terms of the capacity availability in the state, but it's really difficult for me to say that. It's -- we need the time to work through it.
And we should remember that India is a huge country, right, with a lot of opportunities across a number of states. So we're not dependent on just 1 state or 2 states in terms of our business. We have excellent growth in the other states. We have opportunities to take pricing in other states as well.
So of course, we like to be present and strong in all the states, but the beauty about our business is that we have strong presence across the whole of India. And like I said, we will take the necessary actions to try and restore the volumes, and then we'll see. We'll take it from there.
Sure. And coming back to the other bit, which is gross margin profile, I heard that by June, July, you would expect new barley crop to come through. Meanwhile, there could be some benefits of price increases. Is it fair to assume that this quarter saw the bottoming of gross margin?
And I was just wondering, if we look out 2, 3 years out, how confident are you that this business could reverse back to mid-teens kind of operating margins after we navigate this immediate raw material volatility and the whole Tamil Nadu, Andhra issue?
So I mean, in terms of the margins, the margin will continue to be in this sort of range and under pressure, like I've mentioned before, going into quarter 4 and into quarter 1 of 2023, right? That will continue. And we see, if all things go well in quarter 2, improvement coming through, combination of the pricing and the inflation, the impact of the cost increase.
Now it is -- I mean, it's a volatile world we are living in at the moment. So any type of forecast do not necessarily have to reflect actuals, right, because things change. But based on what we know and what I'm aware of at this moment, the barley is looking as a positive indicator for us, which is quite a big cost component part for us in terms of our production. So that is good news.
Longer term, again, like I said, the fundamentals of our business are strong, okay? We see also the category continuing to grow, like I've said before, in the sort of high single digits, and we see premiumization continuing. So those are all positives for the business. But again, like I said, we're living in such volatile times. Things could change, but the fundamentals are there.
Sure. And are there any other [ cost fees ] of the company that you feel could be something that you could look to mitigate these cost pressures on the COGS side?
I mean, yes, we do look at that. Of course, at our cost base, I think I mentioned it at the last call, in terms of production efficiencies, we're doing now quite a bit. And hopefully, some of these things will be kicking in.
In terms of being more efficient in our production, we are looking at also how efficient we are with our recipes, but without touching the quality of the brand. You must remember, we always -- we are very much focused on quality, right?
And in terms of quality, we source very good barley. And those barley prices have gone up significantly in the 2022 crop. And actually, that crop was not of the high quality that we would have expected, and that had also an impact, but 2023 crop is really looking good at this point in time.
And I have to mention, at this point in time, in terms of quality and quantity, we will know that once the harvest is done and once we do the necessary tests on that barley, and it goes for conversion into malt. But what I know now, what we know now as a business, we feel quite positive about it. But let's see what the reality brings.
Sure. And the last bit was on any color or any thoughts on the capacity addition plans or CapEx plans for FY '24?
Yes. Well, I think I mentioned that for '23, we're looking at around anywhere between INR 300 crores to INR 400 crores of investments of CapEx into the business. So for sure, we're continuing to invest, improve our lines. We are looking to expand some of the capacities.
We are also working with contract brewers that -- to offer us capacity where we are short because we did run into some constraints during summer last year where we -- there was more demand that we could actually supply. So I think, yes, we are definitely looking into that.
So this is for calendar year 2023 or FY '24, right, INR 300 crores to INR 400 crores.
Yes. It's for financial year in '24, yes.
The next question is from the line of Vishal Punmiya from Yes Securities.
Yes. Just wanted to understand the demand environment for 3Q FY '23. And maybe also if you can help us with the month of January, if you can just highlight the growth trends between on-trade and off-trade for 3Q and for January. And what was the mix of on-trade and off-trade for the quarter and for the base quarter? That would be helpful.
I mean, I'm not going to now start speaking about exactly what January was. I think -- that I think we'll leave for -- when we have the investor call in for quarter 4. Generally, I can just say that the volumes came in within expectation and on our forecast, so that's good news, and growth versus the previous year, and so growth versus 2022. So that is on January. What was the other question in terms of...
No. So basically, I wanted to understand the demand or the volume trends between on-premise and off-trade.
There was no real difference between the two. So we're not seeing that there's a decline in the on-trade volumes. Consumers keep going out, despite that there is a lot of inflationary pressure on consumers. But the mix between on and off is still the same for us. I think it's around 80% to 85% in off-trade and 15% in on -- or actually even less, around 10% in on.
And that would be 15%, 85% in the base quarter? Or would it be similar?
Similar. It's really sort of similar, yes.
So it hasn't changed much over the last one year.
No, not really. No.
Okay. Because I believe that with the on-trade or footfalls in retail kind of going up, the mix would have changed in favor of on trade, at least in terms of volume. So it hasn't changed much. Is that what you are saying?
Not really, no. I think on-trade is an area that we will be focusing on more and more, especially in terms of draft beer. It's something that we want to be looking at more and more to promote our brands through the on-trade as well and offer draft opportunities, yes.
Yes. So actually, my second question was on that. So the gross margins are under pressure in the very near term. So how do we then increase our promotions on premise as well as basically support the relatively newer brands in the portfolio? What would be the additional levers for that?
Well, we're not looking at increasing our promotional activities at this point in time. I mean, we'll be seeking pricing, and we will manage our promotion activities a little bit based on how we are faring also against competition in the market. So I think we try and balance that in the right way.
It's important to us to gain value in the business and, therefore, have strict control over our BTL and that it's managed in a proper way, depending on how the competitive environment is turning out.
The next question is from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec Capital.
I just had 2 questions. One was on the premium portfolio. If you can just give us a little bit of sense on why this 13% growth how -- in terms of what brands have driven this and the rollout of the Kingfisher, Witbier as well as Heineken Silver and at what stage it is and how do you expect going forward.
Sure. So in terms of the mix within our premium brands, so Kingfisher Ultra is doing very well, I have to say, as a start. So let's first focus on the Kingfisher sort of portfolio. Ultra is doing very nicely. It grew, I think, over 20% in the quarter.
Max is something we still need to work on as well, but it's -- we've also had a very strong double-digit growth, close to Ultra, but we want more out of it.
And Silver, of course, performing nicely for us. We've now launched Silver in Karnataka, as you probably know, in Maharashtra and also in Goa now as well. It's available. It's doing very well in Karnataka. In Maharashtra, it's growing very nicely as well. We want to also push it more in Mumbai itself more. It's there, but we see a lot of opportunity there. And in Goa, it's actually beating expectations.
So we are positive about it, but it's a step-by-step approach. And for us, it's important to see that we are beating premium, in total, and I think that is happening. And our ambition to have a fair share of premium is what we're striving for, and we're working towards that.
And in this ambition, do you expect over the next, say, 12 to 24 months more products to be launched or to believe the portfolio in terms of products is full, and we can just focus on kind of driving distribution for our premium portfolio currently?
So you mentioned Witbier. So we are -- we will focus on that as well. But at this point in time, we want to focus on those winning horses. So for Heineken, the Ultra portfolio. And Witbier as well, of course, we'll be focusing on and doing the right job with those.
So there's focus on those brands. If you have too many brands launched at the same time, then you start losing focus on it. It's all about the right focus to build those brands.
Got it, got it. And second question is on the regulatory environment. You've seen a few of the excise policies come out over the last, say, 30 to 45 days. Any kind of key positive or key negative kind of takeaway that you could share from the same? That was my second question.
No. I think positive as well in some states, I have to say, in the North. So that is quite positive for us. But overall, we're still assessing it, but we're not seeing any sort of negative impact on the business at this point in time.
We have the next follow-up question from the line of Alok Shah from AMBIT Capital.
The first point was, any plans to initiate the operating model change in any other state where also there will be a scope to increase, say, the market share or accelerate the volume growth? That's my first question.
We keep -- we review state-by-state our positions. And at this point in time, we -- I don't see anything really, but that's -- I can't really go into more detail than that. But at this point in time, no.
Okay. And second was what -- any sense that you can give what would be the industry level growth of the premium segment in terms of volume or value, whatever if at there's any indicated data with it?
In the quarter?
In the quarter or 9 months, whatever you can share, that will be quarter.
We grew share in premium. I know that. I don't know if -- we grew around 75% in premium versus last year from April to December. So it's a significant growth, and we gained share. I don't recall exactly now how many percentage points, but we did gain share.
And this bookkeeping. What will be your overall market share at overall company level now?
It's about 50% still. So we're still maintaining that sort of share. As you know, the shares are up and down, depending on its movements state by state, but it's about 50%.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Harit Kapoor for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Yes. Thanks, Michelle. On behalf of Investec, I would like to thank the management of United Breweries for taking out time for this call as well as thank all participants who joined the call I'll now hand over the call to Radovan for his closing comments.
Okay. So to close, I would just like to say that inflationary pressure will remain in the near term, and I mentioned that quite a bit during the call. But we will take the necessary actions to mitigate those impacts, whether it be through pricing, to -- be through better cost efficiencies in our supply chain footprint and also ensuring that our sourcing going forward through barley, through the other materials that we require that we get good prices for that and good quality products, but we see opportunity there as well.
But I think it's important to add that we remain confident about the beer category. We see younger consumers coming into the category. We see such high potential for India actually in terms of GDP per capita growth going forward in the longer term, and also the premiumization parts. Consumers are seeking premium products, looking for variety. And as a business, we are able to offer that. So we remain positive for the longer term. So I would like to end on that.
On behalf of Investec Capital Services, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.