Vishal Mega Mart (NSE:VMM) Q1 2027 Earnings Call

0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Vishal Mega Mart Limited Q1 FY 'twenty seven Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Sheikha Puri from SGA. Thank you, and over to you, Ms. Puri. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Vishal Mega Mart Limited's Q1 FY 'twenty seven Earnings Conference Call. We have with us Mr. Gunender Kapoor, MD and CEO Mr. Amit Gupta, CFO.

0:48 I hope everyone got an opportunity to go through our financial results and investor presentation uploaded on the company's website and the stock exchanges. We will begin the call with opening remarks from the management, following which we will have the forum open for question and answer session. Before we start, I would like to point out that some statements made in today's call may be forward looking in nature, and the disclaimer to this effect has been included in the earnings presentation shared with you earlier. I would now like to invite Mr. Guninder Kapoor, MD and CEO, to give his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Well, thank you very much, and a very good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

1:37 A very warm welcome to this call. I'll briefly take you through the quarter one 'twenty seven results and some of the key highlights, and then we will open the call for questions. Well, we've had a good start to FY 'twenty seven. In this quarter, we did a revenue from operations of 3,727 crores. This was a growth of 18.7% over last year, and this was backed by a strong same store sales growth of 10%, a clear proof of the resilience of our business model in this very dynamic and uncertain operating environment. Operating EBITDA was $3.87 crores, which was a growth of 19.3% over last year.

2:29 And our operating margin improved from 10.3% last year to 10.4% this year. Profit after tax was INR $2.59 crores, which is a 25.6% growth over last year. And the PAT margin improved from 6.6% last year to 6.9% this year. Our superior merchandise, operational excellence and customer first approach helped us deliver consistent results even when the broader environment remained very challenging. Our total store opening momentum remains strong with the addition of 27 new stores in the quarter.

3:15 This takes the total store count to eight nineteen as of June 26 end and our presence in five fifty nine cities. All the new stores opened, 10 were opened in South India, a market where we continue to see strong momentum. And now we have further 16 small stores and three were opened this quarter. And the small store format agenda is making good progress. Our total trading area stands at 13,800,000 square feet. Our private brands continue to see strong customer traction, contributing 75.2 to revenue growth or rather our revenue in quarter one FY 'twenty seven.

4:06 Our quick commerce expanded to seven sixty seven stores across five twenty cities in the country. The total number of registered consumers on QuickCommerce crossed 1.4 crore people. With elevated inflation, weighing on demand environment in quarter one, we expect the impact to taper down in the subsequent quarters. We remain confident and excited about the journey ahead, underpinned by strong fundamentals of our business and continued excellent execution of our growth strategy. With these very brief comments, I would request the moderator to open the floor for questions.

4:54 Thank you very much. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. As a reminder to all the participants, The first question comes from the line of Pitesha Seth with Amit Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you, sir. All store format, what is the kind of store addition that we can anticipate under this format beyond the 80 to 100 store guidance that you all have given?

5:47 Your question is regarding the small format? The small store form. Yes. That's right. Okay. So let me explain our opinion on the small format. The fact is that the small format is half the size of a regular format. And in terms of absolute revenue and absolute margin, is again exactly the half of a normal format. So our approach to the small format would be as follows. In any particular state, once we are in a situation where we have almost exhausted the entire opportunity for the larger format, then we would start expanding into the small format stores, quite obviously because the larger formats give double the revenue and double the margin in absolute sense.

6:44 So at this moment, UP and Haryana are the two states where we have stores, I wouldn't quite say exhausted, but we have quite a significant number of stores in almost the entire state. So we are doing the small format at this moment only in these two states. And we will continue to grow in these two states. In the fullness of time, as more and more state reach the situation, we will then explore them for the smaller formats. But at this moment, the small format is focused in UV and Haryana, where we have, to a large extent, exhausted the opportunity for the larger format.

7:36 Does that answer your question? Question. For the update. Your voice is breaking. Can you come in the range and talk? Is this? No. Your voice is still breaking. We cannot hear you. You. Let me come back. Alright. Please come back in the queue. Thank you. We'll take the next participant. That is with Nippon Mutual Fund. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hope I'm audible. Yes. Please go ahead. Yeah. So just coming to this as as on the small format. Those two for... For our strategy. One was to penetrate in the existing market where we are number... High number of store.

8:22 And also, in the smaller city or town where population is less than one leg or the few dozen, smaller store may be viable, which last store may not be viable. So... And now as you say, you are much more confident of the revenue per square feet and everything. So why the expansion is still slightly slow? Like, if you take our third quarter, we open two stores. Fourth quarter, also, we open three stores. In the first quarter also, open three store only. Because Swarth Town can take up 52, 70 is Swarth for West store in one point five years also. So any reason you are going slow on that? So firstly, I must say that to begin with, we were experimenting with a smaller format, and we wanted to ensure that the results are exactly in line with our expectations.

9:13 Our target was twofold. Firstly, to ensure that the relevance of the small format is established in smaller towns, and we have pretty much established that with a revenue per square foot, not the absolute revenue. The revenue per square foot in line with that of the larger format. Second was to establish that the financial outcomes are the same and as attractive as the larger format. And again, we've been able to establish that the return on capital employed in the smaller format stores is pretty much the same as the larger format. Now we are at a stage in two states where we can start expanding more rapidly in the smaller format.

10:04 But I must say that while we are opening the small format stores in these towns, we equally are opening large format stores also because while the opportunity is largely exploited in these places, it is not completely finished. So for example, this quarter, while we are looking at small format for Uttar Pradesh, we opened five large format stores also. And similarly, while we've opened new stores in small formats in Haryana, we've opened two large format stores also, and this will continue in the future also. We will further accelerate the opening of small format stores. And I totally aligned with the spirit of your question. We can see an opportunity of almost 3,000 small format stores in the country.

10:55 And as we progress forward, you will see increased momentum on the small format. Understood. Second question on the supply chain side initiative, which we have started on the RFID sites in Class one, one point five years, we started experimenting on this. So at what stage right now, how many stores you rolled out or planning to roll out? And by when you see that entire store and back end will be implemented with RFID? And some initially result in some of the store where you improved, how is the productivity improvement or throughput improvement? Or any reduction in the manpower improvement? Any software aspect you want to highlight? So at this moment, I think I had mentioned the last time that we were experimenting with two stores in Delhi NCR.

11:43 At this moment, we are rolling out RFID into all those in Delhi and CR. So that is the current status. And we will go one stage at a time because the way we are rolling out is that we have to first put RFID tags on all the existing stocks in the stores. And then we will need to maintain a separate supply chain for the RFID tagged stores because those tags will go to the stocks will go to the stores with RFID tags, whereas the rest of the network will continue to get stopped without the RFID tags. So at at this moment, we are doing Delhi NCR. Again, we want to be 100% sure that it's working very well and we keep rolling it out. But I think the entire rollout will slightly exceed one year time frame.

12:40 The benefits we've been able to establish quite clearly for the RFID tags, the first and the obvious benefit is better inventory management. So earlier, for example, counting the entire store stock in clothing would be an overnight exercise. With the RFID tags, we can count the entire store and the clothing stock in four to five hours. And therefore, we can do a stock count almost every week. Secondly, with the stock count, we can also get all the details of what the merchandise is, its aging and so on and so forth. So the quality of information available would be of a significantly higher order.

13:28 Thirdly and quite obviously, we expect the shrink to come down in the RFID tag stores. For example, the RFID tags that we are using after a lot of development is a tag which cannot be removed unless the merchandise has been checked out. So as you can appreciate, once the merchandise is checked out, it can be assumed that it has been paid for, and it is not stolen merchandise. And only then can the RFID tags be removed. Otherwise, they cannot be removed. And so on and so forth. There is lot of analytics that we can generate from the RFID tagged stores.

14:17 So we have quite clearly established all these benefits in our pilot and experimentation. And we are progressing with our maximum possible speed. But one has to appreciate that to launch our RFID in the store, the first step is to put RFID tags in all the existing stock in that store and then set up a supply chain from the distribution center, which is separate for these stores because the stock from the distribution center to the store will be moved only after putting the RFID tags. So yes, it will take us slightly over one year to complete the network.

15:11 Next question comes from the line of Nihal Mahesh Jam with HSBC. Please go ahead. Three questions. The first is, last quarter, we had this discussion around the potential cost inflation. And we noticed that despite that both on a yearly and a sequence Sorry for interrupting. I Mister John, your voice is breaking. Can you come in the range and talk? It's still breaking, mister Jam. Correctly, the one we cross margin. Mister Jam? Yeah. We have lost the line of Mr. Jaam.

15:58 We'll promote the next. Mr. Vivek, please go ahead. Hi, good evening, GK. Am I audible? Yes, Vivek, you're audible. Good evening. Hi. Good evening, sir. A couple of questions. First, on the I think that's what Nihal was probably asking. On the can you just Vivek, your voice is not coming through. We have lost the line, Mr. Vivek. We'll promote the next. That is Nihal Mahisham. Please go ahead. Hi, moderator. Am I audible? Yes. Now you are. Yes. Sure. Sure, Mr. G. K. Amit. Three questions. First was gross margin. We've seen an improvement despite not discount cost pressure starting from May. So if you could just highlight that.

16:47 And Sorry for interrupting. Your voice is breaking. Can you come in the range and talk? I am actually trying to... If I'm audible, then can you hear me now? Please go ahead. Nihal, we can hear you, and we got your first question. Can you go to the next one, please? Sure. Second was we've seen an organization structure change where, obviously, Mr. Mano has moved on, and I think, Mr. Shashi Gamma has obviously moved in as a Chief Operating Officer. So just if you could highlight the current organization structure and how, say, the responsibilities are going to be incrementally CEO? And the third question, in your release today, you mentioned about a foreign capping of 49%. So is it just to do with the FAMR regulations or anything more related to that?

17:35 Okay. Good. So I will take the first two and I'll request Amit to come in for the third. On the gross margin, the improvement that you've seen this quarter of from 28.4% to 28.7% is largely because of the fact that our promotional expenditure has been lower than the previous year. Our focus this quarter has been to ensure that we maintain prices and to ensure that all the numbers add up, etcetera. The impact of maintaining prices has been pretty good on our same store sales growth, as you can see from the numbers. And therefore, we've had to promote less as compared to the last year same quarter. So that's on the first question.

18:29 Secondly, yes, Shashi has replaced Manoj. Manoj is moving on from the company. As you know, Manoj has been with us for more than ten years and has played an excellent role in the evolution of our business. And now he is moving on. As a consequence of that, there has been no change in the off structure. It is just that Shashi is going to replace Manoj in the same role. And I will request Amit to take on the third question quickly. So yes, this is in line with our disclosures in and the idea is to ensure that the company remains Indian owned and controlled.

19:26 Mister Jam, your voice is breaking. Thank thank you so much. Mister Jam, sorry for interrupting. Your voice is breaking. We cannot hear you. Mister, I request you to please call back in the queue. Thank you. We'll follow-up the next status Vivek M from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Am I audible now? Yes, you can go ahead please. Perfect. Hi. Good afternoon, GK. First question is continuing with the earlier participant. So this foreign ownership, which you have mentioned, Amit, less than 50%, your disclosure says that it is because of one of the subsidiary. Apologies if it's a wrong understanding, but I thought even as a multi brand retail because of the holding company is into that business, you still need that approval sorry, you still need to restrict it to 50%.

20:25 Is it not because of the holding company that you need to do this? Vijay, just to clarify, we were India owned and controlled even before the IPO and as we speak today also. Foreign holding is close to 20%. However, we want to make sure that we remain as Indian owned and controlled entity. That is the reason why we are proactively putting this gap to 49.99%. No, I understand that part Amit and that is clear that you are Indian owned today. My only question is you have mentioned in the release that the existing business of one of the wholly owned subsidiaries require you to do that, but shouldn't it be applicable for the hold call also? Or am I That's true. No, no, that's true.

21:16 So we are doing multi brand retailing in our wholly owned subsidiary, which is Air Plaza. Obviously, that entity is into the multi brand retailing, and that would require approvals. So keeping that in mind, we have passed this resolution. Understood. Okay. So that's the first question. Second is, GK, what are the given how the inflation deck is, what are the kind of price hikes you would have taken in your own labels in both apparels as well as FMCG? So, Vivek, our endeavor has been to ensure that the price hikes two things. Firstly, they are totally minimized, as I mentioned in my response to the earlier question.

22:07 And the second thing which we have ensured without any exception at all is that the price increase has not been affected in any of the opening price points or mid price points. The price increases, if any, have been affected only in the higher price points. And this has not been done across the board. It has been done only in selected merchandise categories where again two things, the price increase to the minimum possible extent had become absolutely critical. And again, in merchandise categories, which are extremely price sensitive, the price increases have either not been implemented or they've been implemented to the minimum possible extent.

23:02 As we had mentioned earlier also, our effort this entire quarter has been to ensure that we become more cost efficient in every which way across the board as far as the gross margin is concerned and also to rationalize our promotion expenses as I mentioned in the earlier rounds. So so... Yep. So that's the way we've gone about it. We are very, very aware that our customers need to be protected from price inflation. And whenever necessary, it has to be done in a very thoughtful and sensitive manner.

23:50 Got it. And just a follow-up, GK, in the current context where you have mentioned about the macro and whole host of issues, do you think on the FMCG side, your endeavor will be to take up prices, you know, which will trail the the leading brands, the FMCG brands in a bit to gain market share? And do you think or or rather the share of your own labels? Is that something that will happen or you will still maintain a price parity or the differential with the leader brands? Vivek, our firm view is that our price discount to the market leaders has to be almost in every case, actually slightly higher than earlier or at the very least, the same.

24:45 Under those circumstances, would we allow our price discount to the market leader become lesser than before? So I can assure you that our private brands be either as attractive as earlier or even more attractive than earlier for our customers. And in several there are merchandise categories in FMCG, where almost the entire market has taken price increases, but we have chosen not to take a price increase. So our private brands will continue to be either as attractive as before or even more attractive. It. Got it. Thank you and wish you all the best.

25:34 Thank you very much, Vivek. Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Manoj Menon with ICIC Securities. Please go ahead. Mr. Menon, your voice is breaking. Can you come in the range and talk? Mr. Menon, we cannot hear you. Mr. Menon, I request you to fall back in the queue. We'll promote the next in line. The next question comes from the line of Prerna Chingenwala with Lara Securities. My first question is on inflation only.

26:21 You've mentioned that you won't take much price hike as a response to earlier participant. But I just wanted to understand how do the consumer behave in various categories like apparel, GM and FMCG, can there be a mix change as per your past experience, which could impact your margins? And what could be the minimal price hike that you would eventually have to take if inflation continues at current levels? That is my first question. So firstly, I must clarify that, as I mentioned, wherever it became critical, we have taken price increases, but we have not taken any price increase in the opening price points in any of our categories.

27:12 Opening price points are the lowest price points, and they are typically bought by the most... The least affluent people in in our consumption group. All the price increases have been largely around the highest price points, which are purchased by the most affluent lot of consumption target group. So those have been affected. And at this moment, not seeing the need to take any further price increases beyond what we have already done. This is, of course, based on the assumption that the situation will continue as is and will not get any worse.

27:58 As we mentioned in the commentary in the subsequent quarters, we expect the situation to actually become slightly better. Secondly, we know which of our categories are more price sensitive than others and categories which are extremely price sensitive. And I can give you examples, like children's clothing is very price sensitive or some of these staple foods are very price sensitive. We have actually chosen not to take any price increases to protect our customers. And last but not the least, it's important for me to highlight to you that despite these price changes, a, our total growth continues to be double digit.

28:47 And secondly, the growth of our highest price points is the fastest. So for example, while our total business has grown 10% same store sales growth, in apparel, our highest priced fashion merchandise has grown at 13.9% same store sales growth. So to summarize, I would say that at this moment, no further price increases. I can't say anything about the future because it's difficult to relate as to how we'll announce. Secondly, despite the challenging environment, we continue to maintain double digit same store sales growth.

29:34 And lastly, our highest price merchandise, which is the fashion price points in clothing, continues to grow the fastest at 13.9% same store sales growth. Understood. So sir, will it be possible for you to share SSG breakup between volume and price that would help us understand how things are moving? So I actually have no problem with that, but it's difficult to add the volume of apparel with FMCG and GM. That is... And, you know, that becomes a somewhat meaningless number. But I can share with you the the constituents of our same store price sales, our total number of customer acquisitions in the quarter has gone up by 8%.

30:34 So we have served 8% new customers in our store, and our existing customers have bought 3% more approximately in this quarter. And that's how we have achieved approximately 10% same store sales growth. But my apologies, it's impossible to add the volumes of the general merchandise products and apparel and FMCG. Understood, sir. Sir, any color that you can provide on how the transaction values have gone up? So that would also be helpful, like number of bills or transaction value? So the transaction value for our existing customers has gone up by 3% this quarter versus same quarter last year. And as I mentioned, we have acquired 7% new customers probably through market share gain in this quarter.

31:33 Understood. And so in apparel, do you see this is my last question. In apparel, do you see increase in competition as a threat to growth on a longer term basis as many value retail players are actually looking forward to expand very aggressively in the category, though our plants are also very aggressive. But first mover advantage that we enjoy in many cities that gets compromised as and when they tap on our cities. So any color on that and your thoughts on that, that would be helpful. Thank you. Sure. So firstly, will tell you that there is no new competitor in the market. All the players who are competing in clothing market, they've been around for a while.

32:23 Of course, players have different ambitions, but there has been no increase in the expansion pace significantly from any of the players. Of course, they're all expanding, but they've been expanding for a while, like we've been expanding for a while. So there is no new either competitor or new aggression in terms of expansion that we witnessed in this quarter. Of course, as you rightly the spirit of your question is absolutely correct that this is a very competitive market with lots of very good quality competitors.

33:10 But we've been around in this market for a while, and we've been growing at double digit rates as we've been reporting sales to sales growth. Sure. Thank you and all the best in this challenging environment. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Riyan Syed with Trinidad Asset Managers. Sir, I have only one question about your loyalty ecosystem. The loyalty ecosystem now covers around 75,000 customers and contributes nearly 95% of the revenue.

33:56 So how much measurable improvement have you seen in customer lifetime value and merchandising because of this data advantage? Could you please help me understand regarding this? So I'm sorry, I could not hear all your question, but I could gather that it was about loyalty customers. So as we do we again? Yeah. No. No. We can we can... I'll try and answer. But if I fail to completely answer, please point it out to me because it was a bit patchy for me. We have seventeen point seventeen point five crore loyalty customers, and these customers are contributing 95% to our revenue.

34:45 Correct. And they continue to grow as we acquire more and more new customers through market share gain. And our loyalty customers provide to us extremely valuable analytics, which is used every day of the year for us to sell more to our existing customers. Now if I missed any part of your question because I couldn't hear it, you could please ask me. Yes. Sure. Like, you have you have answered my first part. Just wanted to clarify on the second part. Like, how much measurable improvement have you seen in customer lifetime value I'm asking, like in merchandising, receiving because of this data advantage?

35:32 Well, I think if we understood your query correctly, the 10% same store sales growth that many of the fact that, you know, we are getting a lot of value from our existing customers. So, yeah, I mean, it's working for us. Okay. Okay. I got it. Fair enough. And just last one last question from my side, and then I'll jump back in the queue. Sir, like you're with 75% of your sales coming from your own brands. And so can you please share any internal KPIs comparing repeat purchase rate with faster sales and profitability versus third party sales pickup? Maybe your query was not very clear, but what we could gather is that you spoke about 75% revenue coming from our own brands.

36:30 Exactly you are looking for in that? Like I'm asking, can you share any internal key KPIs comparing repeat purchase rates, either basket size and profitability versus third party brands that you are tracking? So so, you know, the 75% market share that we have in private brands, the constituents of that are as follows. That will help clarify if I got your question right. 100% of our clothing business is private brands. Right? Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. So, obviously, the penetration is a 100%. The buying rates are upwards of 30% of any new option that we introduced.

37:18 In general merchandise, 75% of our business is private brands. Only category where we have significant share of third party brands... In fact, the only two categories. One is kitchen appliances, where we have a brand called Tandem, which has almost 50% market share. And the balance 50% is the third party brands such as Bajaj, Prestige, and so on. Again, all the products that are present in tandem, they've been around for a while, so it's quite stable. It is not there isn't any significant new revenue, which may have come to us through early product trials and is likely to disappear because of repeat buying rates, it's been around for a while.

38:18 The third category is FMCG, where 60% by volume of the share in our FMCG is of our private brands. Again, these brands have been around for several years now, and they're quite stable. So the idea of penetration trial and repeat buying is relevant for new things that are introduced. These are all quite stable businesses. But when we had introduced our new brands, again, we had experienced repeat buying rates, as I mentioned, upwards of 30%, but that was quite some time back. Okay? So these are all stable, steady private brands, which has stood the test of time and are preferred by our customers, 60% by volume over the third party brands, which are available in our store.

39:24 Okay, sir. Thank you for this clarification, and good luck for your coming quarter. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you very much, indeed. Thank you. Thank you. Next question comes from the line of with Amit Capital. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi. Just continuing with the questions. Sometime in the third quarter, you all had mentioned that there is another format in but hadn't reached the pilot stage yet. So just wanted to check if there's any update or if you can appraise us of the date. So you're absolutely right, Vishal. We are... And we had mentioned that we are working on a new format, but I must point out to you that we will be first going in with pilot store.

40:23 And then based on the response that we receive in the pilot stores, and we will not have only one pilot store. We'll have more than one pilot stores. And then based on the response, we will either need to fine tune our mix or roll it out. I may not be able to share with you the exact date, but I will take the liberty of telling you that we are very close to the launch of our first pilot store, which will be followed by either one or two other pilot stores. And then we will read the response and decide on the further course of action. We are quite close to the first launch. Got it. Thanks.

41:09 Amit, just one question for you. If you can help me with the inventory as of the quarter end? Inventory? Sorry? Inventory? Yes. Inventory. Yes. Inventory as on the end of the quarter. Inventory level. No. So you are looking for exact inventory number? Yes. Yes, please. So our closing inventory for quarter one is 1,900 crores. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. That's all. Next question comes from the line of Harish Advani with Axis Capital. My first question was on the QuickCom side. So you did mention that we are now five sorry, seven sixty seven stores and INR 1.4 crore users.

42:02 But can you quantify its contribution to sales and the profitability of this channel? And some part of this is the QuickCom customer demonstrating higher purchase frequency or any incremental basket creation versus the traditional in store customer? So our QuickCommerce is... You know, the different stores are getting added at different points in time. So I can tell you the range. They are currently contributing to anywhere from 2% to 9% to the store revenue. But in majority of the places, the contribution is at least 5% to our store revenue now, which has been very encouraging for us because when we had started this journey, we had said that our goal would be 5% of store revenue.

42:54 So in most places, we are achieving the 5% level. But in our best places, we are going up to 9% to 10%. That is I understand your first question. The second on the second question, in terms of average bill value, our with commerce customers are slightly more than but not significantly more than our offline customers. So average bid value of quick commerce customers is about 800 rupees. The third fact that I can share about quick commerce is that the share of our private brands. I mentioned that for our offline stores, it is 75% revenue.

43:41 But in QuickCommerce, it's even higher than 75%. So more number of customers are trying our private brands on QuickCommerce and sticking with our private brands. And last but not the least, and terribly exciting for us, is that 20% of our QuickCommerce customers have never shopped at a Vishal store, and therefore, they are net incremental for the entire Vishal franchise. Thank you, sir, for the detailed answer. And sir, my next and final question is on the employee cost. So if we look at it on a per square foot basis, it's up about 13% Y o Y. So we do understand that there has been an element of the increased minimum wage coming into this. But is this then now the steady state number that one can assume as the rate for the staff costs?

44:42 Yes, Harish. So this quarter, we have seen a significant increase in minimum wages across multiple states like Haryana, UP, Telangana, Karnataka and so forth. Obviously, the base has gone up, but we will continue to look for opportunities and try and optimize as much as possible. But obviously, this is a structural change and we'll see how much we can mitigate that. Got it, sir. Thank you and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Sanyi Patana with MK Global. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

45:29 Sir, just on the gross margin front, you mentioned that the expansion is on the back of lower promotional intensity in this quarter. Just wanted to clarify, like, is there a component of a price hike also in this? Not to any significant extent. And sir, like this gross margin should be sustainable for the coming quarters as well, this level of gross margin? If the current assumptions and the current cost structure continues, we are quite confident. There is absolutely no challenge. But I'm not saying that I can see the future any better than any of us on the West Asia crisis and so on.

46:18 So that that piece is is entirely speculative. But if the current circumstances continue and do not even improve, we do not see any significant issue. Sure, sir. Go ahead, Pudar. Thank you so much, and wish you the best for the coming quarters. Yes. You. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. We have reached the end of question and answer session. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Well, thank you very much for your time. And I must thank you also for joining in and taking out time from your busy schedule for our conference call.

47:07 We've always been very encouraged and enthused with your consistent support, and we deeply appreciate that. So once again, thank you all the very best, and look forward to seeing you again on the next quarter call. Bye. Take care. Thank you. On behalf of Vishal Mega Mart Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your line.