Advanced Enzyme Technologies Ltd (NSE: ADVENZYMES) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Feb. 12, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Ronak Saraf — Investor Relations Manager
V. L. Rathi — Chairman and Non- Executive Director
Mukund Kabra — Whole Time Director
Beni Prasad Rauka — Group Chief Financial Officer
Rasika Rathi — Additional Non-Executive Director
Analysts:
Viraj Kacharia — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Abhishek Navalgund — Analyst
Ravi Purohit — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Advanced Enzyme Technologies Limited Q3 FY ’25 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. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Stard zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr Saraf, Manager, Investor Relations at Advanced Enzyme Technologies. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Saraf.
Ronak Saraf — Investor Relations Manager
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Advanced Enzyme Technologies Q3 and Nine Months FY ’25 Earnings Conference Call. We sincerely hope you all have gone through our financials and press release and the PPT, which has been posted in the Investor Relations section of our website. We have with us Mr. Vasant Rathi, Chairman and Non-Executive Director; Mr. Mukun Kabra, Whole-Time Director; Mr, Prasadhraka, Group CFO; and Ms. Rasika Rathi, Non-Executive Director, Advanced Enzymes and VP of SEB USA. Today, the management will discuss the performance and business highlights, updates on strategies and respond to any questions that you may have. As-is usual, for ease of discussion, we will look at the consolidated financials.
Before we proceed, I would like to draw your attention to the forward-looking statement contained in the PPT. During our call, we may make forward-looking statements regarding our expectations or predictions about the future. Because these statements are based on current assumptions and factors that may involve risks and uncertainty, our actual performance and results may differ materially from our forward-looking statements.
With this, I would like to hand over this call to Mr Basand Rathi. Thank you, over to you, sir.
V. L. Rathi — Chairman and Non- Executive Director
Thank you, Ronak. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of the entire Advanced Enzyme family, I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year, even though we are in February now. I truly appreciate you taking the time to join us, and I warmly welcome you to the conference call for the 3rd-quarter and the first-nine months ended 31st December 2024. Let me start a quick review on the global economical scenario. The global economy exhibits a mix and resilience with lot of challenges.
The IMF reports that global inflation has declined, declined indicating progress in combating high inflation. However, growth remains sluggish compared to pre-pandemic level. Moreover, as you know that there are US elections and President Trump is elected and that is a complete uncertainty what is going to go, what is going to happen in the future, even though there are a lot of taxes are revited we will know pretty soon what else can unfold.
Regional disparities are evident. For instance, the United States is expected to experience a short-term economical boost, while Europe and China faces significant economical headwinds. Additionally, geopolitical tensions and potential trade war risks continue to pose challenges through economical stability. Overall, while there are positive signs, the global economy is navigating a complex landscape with both opportunities and risks.
With this, I conclude my remarks and now hand over the call to Mr. Mukun Kavra and he will talk to you about performance of the company.
Mukund Kabra — Whole Time Director
Thank you, Yale, sir. Good evening, everyone. I will quickly take you through the commentary of this quarter. Our operating performance in-quarter three has steadily enhanced, showing growth and sustainability in our financial stability. We achieved a top-line of INR1,691 and INR691 million, growth of 5% on a year-on-year basis and 16% on a sequential basis in-quarter three. Our EBITDA stood at INR553 million, grew by 3% on a year-on-year basis and 30% on sequential basis. EBITDA margin stood at 33% and PAT margins stood at 23% during the quarter three. In the last quarter, we couldn’t realize somewhere around INR8 crore of the sales because of the sales reversal.
So in this quarter, we saw an incremental revenue recognition of around INR80 million, which was delayed in-quarter two financial year ’25. This resulted in higher sales in the current quarter of about INR80 million. Accordingly, the revenue for this quarter three financial year ’25 after giving this effect would have been at INR161,610 million and for quarter two financial year ’25 would have been INR1,540 million, a growth of INR70 million on quarter-on-quarter basis, about 5% instead of 16% and the gross margin remained at 77% in the quarter three financial year ’25, equivalent to quarter two financial year ’25.
Talking about the human nutrition, the human nutrition contributed around 60% in this quarter on year-to-date basis the revenue is around 60%. H&H constituted about 68% of the revenue in nine months of financial year ’24 and for current financial year nine months, it is 64%. Annual Nutrition, our Annual Nutrition business contributed 12% to the revenue in-quarter three. This segment grew by 22% on year-on-year basis and 9% on sequential basis.
Year-to-date, financial year ’25, AHN witnessed an increase of 12% and constitute about 12% of the revenue as compared to 11% in year-to-date financial year ’24. Bioprocess, our Bioprocess business contributed 19% to the revenue in-quarter three. This segment outperformed during the quarter by around 36% on year-on-year basis and 91% on sequential basis.
The food business grew by 39% on year-on-year basis and 130% on sequential basis, while non-food business reported growth of 25% on year-on-year basis and 4% on quarter-on-quarter basis. Year-to-date performance of food business remained flat at INR580 million, constituting about 12% of the total revenue. Year-to-date non-food business grew by 28% from INR125 million to INR160 million. This constitutes 4% of total revenue as compared to 3%.
The specialized manufacturing business contributed 9% and grew by 49% on year-to-year basis and 28% on sequential basis and 27% of year-to-date and constituted about 8% of our total revenue as compared to 7% during the nine months of financial year ’24. Key wins during this quarter, as we mentioned in our last earning call, about significant challenges for our customers is the lack of familiarity with enzyme and providing applications and testing. To facilate this, the company has established a separate independent laboratory named Staria Labs under its US subsidiary. This lab will focus on testing enzyme and providing products.
We acknowledge that R&D is crucial for sustained long-term growth. We also maintain product portfolio, specific strategies that focus on complexities of the geographical market fit. We are proactively seeking new opportunities and advancing the development of new products and molecules within our biocatalyst and bioprocessing portfolio. These innovations are anticipated to contribute to future revenue growth. We are optimistic about the upcoming years, anticipating growth and success.
With a strong pipeline of innovative products, we are confident in our ability to achieve our strategic goals. Our commitment to delivering exceptional value positions us well to capitalize on new opportunities and navigate any challenges. We look-forward to building on our momentum and driving great year ahead. With this, I conclude my remarks and now hand over the call to Mr who will walk you through the financial and key subsidiary numbers.
Thank you. Over to you, the.
Beni Prasad Rauka — Group Chief Financial Officer
Thank you very much, Mr. Good evening, everyone. I hope you all are in good health on the company’s consolidated financials for the 3rd-quarter and nine months of fiscal year 2025. Q-on-Q basis, the revenue is grew by 230 million, 16% of growth. EBITDA has increased by INR128 million. This is 30% of our total revenue. PBT is increased by INR108 million, about 26% of growth from INR422 million to increase by 30 million. PAT is increased by 55 million, 16% of growth from INR334 million INR389 million.
On YTD basis, our revenue is increased by 36 million, 1% of increase from INR4661 million to 4697 million. EBITDA is increased by 3 million and profit before-tax is slightly down. PAT is increased by 1 million, so it is about 1,072 million as compared to 1,071 million. It’s about 23% of our revenue. I would like to give some numbers of our subsidiary companies. Biotech stood at INR172 million of revenue and EBITDA of INR22 million, PAT of INR7 million as compared to INR176 million and 33 million and 14 million respectively in-quarter two of FY ’25.
On YDD basis, the revenue of JC Biotech is INR488 million as compared to INR483 million and EBITDA of INR66 million as compared to INR59 million. PAT of JCB is INR19 million for nine months as compared to INR16 million. The revenue for stood at INR64 million with EBITDA of INR13 million and PAT of INR6 million in Q3 as compared to INR49 million of sales and negative EBITDA of 8 million and a loss of INR10 million.
So for nine months revenue is INR160 million as compared to INR166 million in FY ’24 for nine months with EBITDA of INR7 million negative as compared to INR12 million negative and PAT of INR29 million. This is loss after tax for nine months INR29 million as compared to INR26 million. Revenue stood at INR154 million, EBITDA of INR30 million and PAT of INR20 million in Q3 as compared to INR104 million of sales EBITDA of INR17 million and PAT of INR4 million.
So Cytek is a witness — has witnessed a revenue increase of about 27% in nine months from INR304 million to 386 million, EBITDA of 66 million as compared to 38 million and PAT of 32 million as compared to 12 million. Sale of our largest product, which is anti-inflammatory enzyme stood at INR35 million for Q3 as compared to INR315 million in Q3 of FY ’24. For nine months, the sale is at INR890 million as compared to INR1031 million and this constitute about 19% of our total revenue as compared to 22% in FY ’24 for nine months top tech 10 customers constitute about 26% during this quarter as compared to 25% in the last quarter.
The B2C segment contributed about INR1.23 million as compared to INR1.37 million during the same-period previous year. So total B2C sale for nine months stood at 3.27 million as compared to 3.79 million. We do have the you know, detailed breakup of our human healthcare segment where we give the data point for the pharma business in India, the international business of human nutrition.
So I’m giving those numbers for Q3, the Pharma India business is about INR460 million as compared to 419 million in-quarter two and for nine months 1,366 million as compared to 1,650 650 million. The international business stood at INR559 million as compared to INR573 million in the previous quarter. And for YDD1,656 million as compared to 1,510 million.
Our R&D spend for quarter three is about 81 million as compared to INR75 million in the corresponding 3rd-quarter of FY ’24. So total expenditure on AED standalone basis for R&D is INR242 million as compared to INR202 million on consolidated basis, R&D spend is about 5% in Q3 FY ’25 as compared to 5% in Q3 of FY ’24 last year. On consolidated basis, R&D spend is about 3% in Q3 and 3% was there in Q3 of last year. That was from my side.
Questions and Answers:
Beni Prasad Rauka
Now we shall be opening the floor for question-answer. But before that I would like to mention that post the invite of goal we have received about 10-11 questions and since Rasika is with us so we will be happy to use this opportunity and would like to address those questions. So I will ask a question on behalf of the investor community and we’ll request Rashika thereafter to answer those questions in a moment. Yeah. So first question is, what do you see the company’s vision for three years and five years in qualitative and quantitative terms? Not asking for guidance and outlook. Please, Rathika.
Rasika Rathi
Hello, everyone. I’m. So you’re asking about guidance and outlook for three years and five years. From the US perspective, we expect to deepen our footprint in nutraceutical ingredients sales. Historically, we have always had a recognized brand in enzyme and probiotic sales in this industry, but recently, we have seen significant brand expansion. There’s a lot of progress here in recent years. Our customers are buying our ingredients, but rather than hiding their source, they’re actively marketing that their consumer brand contains our ingredients. This creates a lot of value for us as a company.
As they market our ingredients, we create stickiness with them. They now want to continue using our ingredient as their product, but their marketing also acts as a proxy for marketing for us, creating brand recognition in the market and more importantly for us, follow-on sales as other companies copy the original brand. The point of this is to show that we are doing excellent in our brand recognition and expect this to grow and create inbound sales opportunities for us. We are also expanding our sales force to go out and capitalize on this brand recognition.
In the next five years, we expect to focus on the major market sectors of gut health, protein powders and pet supplements, where we see lots of opportunities for science-backed research products. This puts us at an advantage with our strong research team and helps create a moat around our products. Of course, there are several headwinds. There is significant market upheaval with the new political situation in the US. We do not yet know-how tariffs and other major policy changes will change the landscape or the economy.
Ultimately, there is uncertainty here, but there is a chance that we can be a big beneficiary here as well, if the rules shake-out right okay the next question is how do you see the US panning out? In the past few quarters you have mentioned that growth will come from this market well as I mentioned the political situation in the US is that there will be a lot of change. What is unclear is who will be it will be good for and who it will be bad for.
One thing that is very clear right now is that it does not look like it will benefit China economically. The longer this goes on, the more potential there may be to capture some markets that has gone to low-cost producers in China. Effectively, because we are fundamentally a player with a strong presence in India and the US, we are better-positioned to take advantage of the rules as they stand right now.
And so-far, it looks like the current political position also looks favorably on our place in the health, nutrition and wellness industry. But what is not clear is what impacts the new rules and regulations will have on the US and global economy. The long and short story here is that there’s uncertainty. We do not know who will win in terms of suppliers and finished products. So our approach is to stick to our core fundamentals of delivering excellent service to all players, so we can grow with the winners.
Beni Prasad Rauka
Okay. The next question is, what challenges are you facing in the business since all other international players in the enzyme and probiotics space are doing very well?
Rasika Rathi
Well, I think the competitive landscape in our industry is influenced by a variety of factors with each company navigating its own unique challenges and opportunities. Growth is generally modest right now with many companies experiencing low single-digit growth rates and in some like ADM even facing a decline as evidenced by their 9% decrease in 2024 so I’m not sure that I agree.
Larger companies, they have the benefit of substantial resources, well-established brands, greater market penetration and robust R&D capabilities. In contrast, companies like ours must invest considerable effort and strategy to break-through and differentiate our products in a market dominated by these industry giants. But what I do think is going to happen is when we do, the payoff will be significantly greater.
Beni Prasad Rauka
What strategy or steps are you taking to strengthen your global sales team and increase your distributor network?
Rasika Rathi
I mean this is the continuous strategic process. It is not so simple as hiring more or signing more contracts. It requires evaluating several factors and criteria to ensure long-term success. Our product is very technical. In many of our industries, it is not so simple to simply slot in a new salesperson or a new distributor. It requires a significant learning curve to be able to sell well. And the quality of the salesperson or the distributor is just not enough.
We must also evaluate the size of the network, a distributor’s influence in the market, payment terms, financial stability and the potential size for scale. But we recognize the value of this. It is an enormously important task and we have created a key goal of improving our sales using these avenues.
Beni Prasad Rauka
So next question is, can’t you go aggressive on the sales front, compromising on certain margins?
Rasika Rathi
Our favorite question. The answer is that it’s just a balancing act. An aggressive sales strategy it can backfire. It can trigger a price war in the market, where companies continuously lower their prices to outdoor — outdo competitors. While this might boost revenue in the short-term by attracting customers, looking for bargains, it can ultimately harm the company in the long-run. Given the niche market of our product, we find that service and quality are driving factors in the sale.
A price war could significantly damage the brand’s reputation and devalue its position in the market. As we and our competitors would race to the bottom, customer loyalty would weaken and the company may find itself struggling to recover both financially and strategically, undermining its long-term growth and stability. That said, we always evaluate the sale. We do make judicious choices to achieve the right kind of sale, always keeping investor value in mind.
Beni Prasad Rauka
Okay. Next question is what is the status of wet management and sugar maintenance products which you launched in USA a few quarters back.
Rasika Rathi
We have received excellent initial feedback in our test marketing. But as you all know, launching a molecule from scratch takes significant time investment. It may be several years before we reap the full benefit. We are pursuing this opportunity actively because we see a good market for this product.
Beni Prasad Rauka
You always say that you are watching on new molecules or launching new products every year but you have never mentioned what those products are and how they are performing in the market or how big the market size is.
Rasika Rathi
This is the balancing act. Enzymes and probiotics are a niche sector but they are also highly competitive in our industry. Even though it is specialized, the competition is fierce. Companies are constantly monitoring each other’s launches and innovation. This intense rivalry poses a significant risk for our investors if we were to speak about everything because competitors may quickly replicate or modify our products to create something similar, diluting our investments in R&D.
Beni Prasad Rauka
So here, I would also like to add something. As far as market size is concerned, I think in our earning calls and whatever like presentations which we provide on quarter — quarterly basis. So earnings presentation, you can see we have one particular page or slide where we give the numbers, what is the kind of opportunity available. This is on Slide number 27. Okay. So next question is, you mentioned that you are more in strategic acquisition that fit your operating segments, but it seems like your acquisition did not turn out as growth supportive.
Rasika Rathi
Now I just disagree with this. Strategic acquisitions are often more about enhancing a company’s capabilities and protecting revenue than just driving immediate growth. One of our goals can be to expand revenue over-time, but all of our acquisitions are driven by strategic value to the company in the form of new skills, technologies, intellectual property, backward integration or market access.
If you look at our historical acquisitions, they have always brought specialized expertise in some way. For example, EVOX is a specialized in protein engineering and has a lot of intellectual properties which helps us to innovate new products. Specializes in effor best-in technology, which allows us to deliver an innovative delivery system in finished formulations.
Beni Prasad Rauka
Okay. Do you have a particular acquisition in mind or are you thinking about this in the broader strategic sense?
Rasika Rathi
Acquisitions are always an ongoing continuous process for us. Each potential opportunity is carefully evaluated to assess strategic value. Our broader criteria may be a robust customer-base, geographic presence, valuable patents, a unique product portfolio, manufacturing capabilities, so on. In recent times, however, we have noticed that companies are demanding inflated valuations that do not always reflect their true work, but we remain committed to constantly evaluating new targets, ensuring that any decision made aligns with our long-term growth objective and overall business strategy.
Beni Prasad Rauka
Okay. I think the last question from the communities in what business segment are you looking to acquire?
Rasika Rathi
We are looking for investments that secure our business both upstream meaning ingredients, R&D, that kind of thing and downstream, closer to the final customer. To date, we have acquired both types of companies. We remain open to these types of acquisitions for future growth.
Beni Prasad Rauka
Okay. Thank you very much. Ratika. Now we open the floor to more question-answer from.
Operator
Thank you very much. We’ll now begin with the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may restart in one on their on telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star in two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press and 1 to ask a question the first question is from the line of Viraj from SIMPL. Please go-ahead.
Viraj Kacharia
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Hello, am I audible? Yes, I’m out. I will go-ahead. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Just two questions. I think in the last quarter, you talked about the sales difference and if you adjust the amount which you gave in the opening comments, then we have seen a degrowth in sales and this compares to the double-digit growth which we were expecting in the second-half. So how do you kind of reconcile the two?
Beni Prasad Rauka
I mean I’m sorry, your voice is not so clear. So can you please repeat the question?
Viraj Kacharia
Yeah, am I audible now?
Beni Prasad Rauka
Yeah. Yeah, you are audible, but I will — the voice was not clear. Please repeat.
Viraj Kacharia
So the question is, if you see in last quarter, we had talked about there being a sales difference from Q2 to Q3. And if you adjust the amount which you gave in your opening comment, then the sales in Q3 has actually degrown adjusting for that. And this compares to the double-digit growth which we are guiding for in the second-half. So how do you kind of reconcile the two?
V. L. Rathi
No, I think as far as guiding two-digit growth, we already mentioned that we will be having only single-digit growth that may clarify first. And then as far as the impact of the derecognization of revenue, I think Mukund has already explained that in this quarter estate of INR169 crore, if we reduce that impact, it would have been INR161 crores for this quarter and last quarter where it was INR146 crore, it would have been INR154 crores. So you have some 5% of growth in that sense. But overall for nine months, we have only 1% of growth. But I think that we have already mentioned in the Q2 call.
Mukund Kabra
And if you take — even if you take into this account of this INR8 crores, this is the highest quarter what we have on a sale front. So there is no question of de-growth basically.
Viraj Kacharia
Just two questions. So going, say, into Q4 and then FY ’26, how should one look at the growth profile for our business given the kind of indications you’re hearing from key markets and key customers?
Mukund Kabra
So we are in the process of budgeting right now for the next year and we’ll come out with the scenario at the end-of-the 4th-quarter results. And this year we already clarified that we will have just a small single-digit growth. So and for the next year, we’ll come back into the next quarter.
Viraj Kacharia
Last question was, if you look at peptides space, can you give some — what we are hearing is that there’s been some impact on one of competitors. So can you give some perspective, how do you see the competitive landscape and our play in that?
Mukund Kabra
Yeah. So as you — as we all know, like we were the leading player, we still is the leading player. But when you are the leading player, it’s always difficult to hold more than 90% of the market-share. There will be some market-share here and there, which will — which will happen. But as of now, still we are the leading player. So I won’t go into more details about who is the player and what about the player and what is the impact, but I I can always say that we are still the leading player into this segment.
Viraj Kacharia
No, what I really meant is, do we see any material changes in competition intensity or us benefiting from that.
Mukund Kabra
Time will tell you like right now it’s very it’s very early stages right so we will wait-and-see how the things were, how the things pan-out.
Viraj Kacharia
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Bhavian Aha from Investments. Please go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi, sir. I wanted to understand who will be heading the new facility Nashik given the departure of Dr Anil Gupta, who I understand looked after the R&D function and what is our product calendar looking like? Like are we focusing on repurposing our existing library of enzymes for new use cases or are we adding like more products there.
Mukund Kabra
So Dr left long back, it’s already like 3.5 years and there are always the players who are there the R&D is in a good hand there are many capable people who are handling those in terms of like R&D when we talk about R&D it will be three times bigger than what we have in the first stage at present. That is our goal to begin with. There are few recruits we already did and we are in a process to recruit further.
In terms of addition of products, we already mentioned during our last few calls that every year we add at least five to six molecules and we will continue to add and we will increase this space as we move on.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Sir, and regarding the vision of the company, as Rashika mentioned that the vision is to deepen footprint in nutraceutical, gut health, protein powder and pet supplement. So anything else because, sir, generally like I mean our aspirations are always-on the right track, but something happens and we end-up with like growth. So for next five to seven years, exactly what’s the growth plan.
Mukund Kabra
So Rashika was talking more about like US and US business, how it is panning it out. As you know and as we are talking about overall, we have like over three different segments and we have already explained which are going to be the different growth areas into the different areas.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And sir, last question, sir, any plans to utilize the cash like INR600 crores that we have on our books or any plans to — also any plans to bring the cash-back in the US back to India.
Beni Prasad Rauka
So as far as you know, getting money back from US is concerned, we are getting a good return from that whatever we have invested in USA. And apart from that utilization, yes, at appropriate time, whenever there are like ways to utilize like we have been giving incremental dividend to our investors. And apart from that, if there will be an opportunity of acquisition, which as we have mentioned earlier, it fits to our strategic planning, then that money will be utilized.
So it is like utilized in a way, which is giving us a return. Of course, in a way like if you look at the return from business point-of-view, it is lower. I understand that. But apart from that, I think it’s in safe hand and we are getting a good return and US again you are getting some 3%, 4% every year that rupee depreciation benefit as well.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhishek from Centrum Broking. Please go-ahead.
Abhishek Navalgund
Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. The first question is again on the US piece. So you mentioned that the focus is to deepen the presence in the nutraceticals. Some of the customers are also labeling and mentioning your name and stuff and also the focus areas were discussed. What we understand is clearly US has been the key market for us since a very long period of time. But like the earlier participant also mentioned, somehow the growth has been flattish. We are stuck at around INR180 crore INR200 crore annual number. So if you are actually seeing traction from the customers and higher visibility, what stops us for giving a guidance from next one or two years perspective, at least a range that would actually help or? So that’s the first question.
Beni Prasad Rauka
So regarding giving the guidance, definitely, as such, we have been talking time and again that we always aspire to give you at least two-digit of growth. But sometimes what happens when you revisit your numbers because last year we have seen the kind of some kind of the growth is not there. So in a way we Call-IT a degrowth. So we have to revisit our numbers and that’s the reason Mukun was saying that let me take some more time to churn out all the numbers, look at every customer, every product and see that where we can reach in the next year. So that’s the reason the guidance was probably Mukun was of the opinion that we should not give the guidance in this particular quarter, give us some more time. So we’ll come out with that better guidance. This will help you and everyone in the process.
Abhishek Navalgund
So — but you are in a way saying that there are signs of recovery, right? So you are indirectly saying that FY ’26 is not going to be like ’25 as far as the US market is concerned.
Rasika Rathi
Yeah, so the mixer is going to.
V. L. Rathi
Was telling you before or so is that we see a very broad — see market is completely changing last two, three years. What is happening is it is more — this utraceutical market is more of a research-driven products which are well-proven technically and has a data supporting it. And most of the companies now are preferring to put our labels or our names, our proprietary names, registered trademark names on their major brands are coming with it. Now their growth depends on how these product grows also impact us of how our growth is going to happen. But it will be broader range growth, more stable-growth.
Second thing which is happening, which nobody can imagine right now is what is going to be the impact of various different countries, even in Northern — North-America. For example, Canada and Mexico are going to be impacted with a straight duty or no duty or how is it going to work because these markets are also very equally coming to our spare in US markets, okay? So there are lot of lot of areas which are going to impact and that’s why we are looking at wait-and-see attitude for next two, three months before we can come up with our numbers or give some kind of guidance. Overall, we see a very positive trend as far as our product penetration is concerned, new product development is concerned, various different research papers and products which we are coming up with. So yes, we are looking at growth numbers will tell a little bit later.
Abhishek Navalgund
Sure. The next question is, have we added any new customers, let’s say, in last three to six months and any — in any particular region per se.
V. L. Rathi
Actually, yes, we are added a few new customers in last six months and they are global also. The company, this market is becoming a global market. It is not a regional market anymore there is an enormous impact of how these global companies are coming up with and they have a power muscle power of advertisements and investments. So lot of lot of merger acquisitions are happening in this industry also.
Abhishek Navalgund
Okay. And in the Asia segment, excluding India, are there any market-share gain story or this is — I mean, we should not read too much into it as far as this quarter number is concerned.
Mukund Kabra
I would say that we shouldn’t read too much at this point of time because we cannot like really comment on quarter-on-quarter basis as we move on, we’ll have more clarity. We should look more on a nine months number for a longer numbers.
Abhishek Navalgund
Sure. And last question on the cash on the balance sheet. Are you reconsidering the dividend payout policy or something or that is going to be the same.
V. L. Rathi
The dividend policies, listen, for last two years we are declaring special dividends right. So our Board of Directors always considered those issues from time-to-time and take appropriate decisions we are we are very much committed to our investors and making sure that their you know investment is taken care of.
Abhishek Navalgund
Sure. Sorry, I missed one more. So the Nashik R&D is on-track to commission by end of first-half or the timeline is different?
V. L. Rathi
I think we were talking about end of this year ’25. Not the financial year, but this year.
Abhishek Navalgund
End of — so CY — by end of CY ’25 you are saying, right?
V. L. Rathi
Yes.
Abhishek Navalgund
Sure. Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Next participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Niharika from Capgro Capital. Please go-ahead. No. Go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
You are audible. Good evening, yeah. So in last con-call, you had mentioned that Biocatalyst molecules commercialization is taking some time. So wanted to know where are we on that and what could be the possible impact on-top line? And also do we have any new molecules in the pipeline or have you filed patents on any of the new molecules?
Mukund Kabra
As you were saying, like this is going to be one of the growth area and probably like the growth we will see in the coming financial year. We are talking about the molecules. We all — we always work on the lot of different molecules. We do add one or two molecules each quarter roughly at this time — at this time, that is the pace at which we are going on. Some molecules may be — we may see the commercialization coming into the next year.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. And my next question is about the probiotics market. So in the investor presentation, we can see that the market size is around $70 billion. Do we have any plans in-place to tap this market, say, for example, even if we have 0.1% of this market, that would be an increase of INR500 crore INR600 crores in top-line. So wanted to understand more about this market.
V. L. Rathi
Yeah,, you are very correct, the probiotic market is fastly expanding and we are very much looking into key which are already we have several papers published on various different probiotics right now. Lot of patents have been filed also on the complete enzymes and probiotics together and we are expecting some of the — some of the products to be approved by the various different regulatory agencies in various different markets.
Unidentified Participant
Understood. So any possible impact on-top line and by when can we see the impact of probiotics on?
V. L. Rathi
It is going to be an integrated part of it, some of it. We are not separating that as a separate category per se, but we are integrating it in enzymes and probiotics because all our markets are it’s not about one or second product or one-product by itself. But in US market, we have an integrated market of and probiotics.
Unidentified Participant
Understood. Understood. Sir, one more question. So any specific reason why we had mentioned in the last con-call that there will be no-growth in India sales in FY ’25? I mean, is it an industry trend or something specific for advanced enzymes?
V. L. Rathi
So Mirika, depending on like looking at all the numbers what we saw last year and when we were like recalculate — revisiting all the projections, we realized that probably this year there will not be any growth. We did add some customers, but at the same time, we did lose some of the market-share, particularly into the anti-inflammatory area and some of the other areas and that is where this — that is where this recalculation of all the numbers came in.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, understood. And one last question. So we see that the asset turn is hovering around less than one. So wanted to understand about capacity utilization levels like what is the current level and when do we expect turn to move above one?
Mukund Kabra
We do have still like lot of capacity. Our utilization is almost like 55%, 60% still. We are at the same level. So we’ll wait-and-see when we need to expand. As we were saying earlier as well, whenever we reach to 80% of the capacity levels, we will go for the expansion. The capacity is a very funny area. Sometimes you are at 55%, 60% and then something good happens in the R&D and that again like reduces your — that also increases your capacity. So we are in a space where 1 plus 1 is not two, but 11 and that is where this capacity utilization is always an interesting phenomenon.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, understood. That’s it from my end. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nitesh from Crest Capital. Please go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi. My question is to Sika. So you know, how does the management plan to solve for the growth issue? Are we looking to add more people on the sales side? Because we’ve done good on the R&D side. So is it more of a sales issue? Just trying to understand at our size, why can’t we grow faster?
Rasika Rathi
Yes, we’re always looking to add-on the sales side. That is the quickest way to move us forward. And as I mentioned, it is a very key task that we are approaching very aggressively.
Unidentified Participant
So you know because of the M&A activity which has happened in our space in our industry, Novo, Hansen, DSL and Ferment. There’ll be a lot of talent available. So do we have any plans to hire them as consultants on our sales side to expand, to grow our USA, Europe business and incentivize them on-sales, which will also mitigate increase in fixed costs for us.
Rasika Rathi
Absolutely, we did. It’s a very good opportunity right now to pick-up good salespeople.
Mukund Kabra
And, we are already like contacting few of the people.
V. L. Rathi
Okay. We are in the process of adding a lot more. You have to answer your questions, Nitin. You are correct we are we are looking into expanding the sales force quite a bit.
Unidentified Participant
Okay and on the point of mention and yeah. So the point of entry into new market segments, so do you — do you map yourself against like global peers like Novo, DSM, what are the gaps you know in our product portfolio where we are not present currently compared to them. And have you identified any such products which we plan to launch in the coming years?
Mukund Kabra
There are always few products which we do launch. We always look for our niche opportunities as well. And these are the strategies, the area where we can take on, we always go and take on. This year also like we are adding couple of industrial area where we can take on Nozymes or other people. We are working on the trials. We got few initial successes. We will wait for the final outcomes.
Unidentified Participant
And just on the competition, so today we are facing a lot of competition in in future, there’ll be another product where we’ll face competition. So do we have any targets of, let’s say, 5% to 7% of our top-line should come from new products, new initiatives, anything in that line?
Mukund Kabra
So we are not like really focusing growth on this era and we were talking from last few quarters that the pharma segment will have just a few growth. The main growth pillars which is going to come is from the biocatalyst, from the pharma area and somewhat is from Human Nutrition. Also like from the food areas and from the animal food areas.
Unidentified Participant
So — and just on this new product, so how large can these new products be us?
V. L. Rathi
They will be on the all fronts like what Mukhun has just mentioned and that’s where you can see us somewhat positive trend-right now. You know, the percentage of our sales are increasing into bioprocessing and annual fleet, food processing and healthcare area which is right now we already discussed quite a bit upon. So those are the way it will — the company will grow in this market.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Okay. And on our geographical growth, so just wanted to understand why the growth rates, especially in USA have been so volatile. So if you look at 1H, we’ve grown around 24% year-on-year and then Q3, we’ve seen a decline of around 10%. So any — you know, first of all, any thoughts on why the volatility and then secondly, any way we can reduce this?
V. L. Rathi
So two answers,. Keep in mind that our company is not from quarter-to-quarter should not be judged on a quarter-to-quarter basis, which we are telling for last so many years to everybody who can listen. Second part, which you mentioned, there it was a Mr already explained that INR80 million were not counted in the 3rd-quarter, which is counted in this quarter. So you see that it was like 154 CR sale was in last quarter instead of 146 here, if I’m correct on these numbers. And this quarter is not 170 plus something, but it is 164 something. So there are these numbers are — see how it balances because sometimes with the regulatory — whatever the regulations are, you have to readjust according to whatever the rules and regulations are.
Unidentified Participant
Understood. So just one suggestion from my side. If the family could be there on all calls and meet investors, that would be really helpful for us. And yeah, thank you for being on-call this time and we look-forward to interacting with the family going ahead.
V. L. Rathi
No, absolutely. There is as much as possible. We are always open and ready to discuss Christal clearly, but everybody is here at this time and they are joining one of us what.
Operator
Nidish, do you have any follow-up question?
Unidentified Participant
No, under. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Participants, you may press R&1 to ask a question next question is from the line of Ravi Prohad from SIMPL. Please go-ahead.
Ravi Purohit
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Sir, most of my questions have been answered. Just specifically on this — the segment-wise numbers that we put out in our presentation, there has been significant growth in, let’s say, industrial bioprocessing and specialized manufacturing. Can you kind of just throw some additional light on what these segments are? Are these growth rates sustainable? Are there any one-offs here or do you — do you envisage significant? And particularly on industrial bioprocessing side, there has been a lot of discussions about industrial bioprocessing enzymes, especially your global peers have been discussing that a lot being a very, very large opportunity. And I think we’ve also been doing a lot of work-in this space for the last many years. So is there anything that one should kind of look-forward to over the next few years?
Mukund Kabra
The way we see it is like at least I can talk about next one or two years, short — long-terms we are always working. But the short-term scenario what I can see is on the special — specialty business, we are doing good. We’ll be doing good this year as well as next year. On the bioprocessing side, this year in the food, we will have just like somewhat more growth, not like a significant one, but going-forward, it should be a good growth. And overall, if we talk about the bioprocessing industrial area, we will have a better growth.
Ravi Purohit
Yeah. So what areas do we address in the industrial side, in the non-food side, what industries do we cater to? And similarly, in specialized manufacturing, what industries do we cater to, what — I mean, if you could put some examples, it will be easier for us to appreciate and understand the kind of work that we are doing. And just specialized manufacturing or specialty products actually we are not able to kind of understand correlated to anything.
Beni Prasad Rauka
Lovely appreciate. So as far as bioprocess learned food is concerned, here we have like our enzymes for the detergent industry, textile, pul, paper and leather industry. The detergent is negligible as of now, but yes, textile, leather we are doing good in the bioprocessing non-food segment and specialized manufacturing is something like we can also Call-IT as a contract manufacturing where we do lot of contract manufacturing activities on P2P basis in one of our subsidiary companies is specialties manufacturing. So there we do it for human nutrition, animal nutrition and you know nutraceutical segment. So that business is growing rapidly that’s what we could see this year.
Ravi Purohit
Okay. And sir, there has been one of our competitor who has been asked to close-down their plant, CREBS Biochem, which I think is also a competitor to us for. But is this something kind of that helps us or how is the competitive dynamic in the industry? Are you the only two players or is there anybody else in the industry, which has been — I believe in the last few calls, we’ve mentioned that particular segment for us has been under pressure in India.
Mukund Kabra
Yes few few small manufacturers here and there is one of the significant player even if not directly, indirectly we will see time will tell, but that — if that happens then it will be a positive development on our sales.
Ravi Purohit
Okay. Okay. And you know one question for you know Mr Rathi or Rashi, one of you all could kind of give a sense of, you know, for us, when we look at the presentation that is being put out every quarter, there are segments which we are highlighting addressable market for us, right? And given our size and the addressable market for the company, right? So there is a big, big gap between the two, which effectively means there is significant headroom for growth for us, right? But whereas if you look at our performance over the last few years, given our size, we are relatively very, very small and the growth mostly has come from M&A. So is there any impediment that you have faced in the last few years, which has not allowed us to grow organically or if you could just share your challenges or — and things that we are trying to address to get organic growth given the absolute scope is so large and our size is relatively much, much smaller.
V. L. Rathi
Yeah, Rave, let me price, Ravi Rabi,, yeah. Ravi, there are a lot of changes happening in the market and in this industry in US or North-America per se. Regulatory — regulatories are very strong right now and lot of acquisitions, merger and acquisitions are happening. Lot of small players or niche players has been acquired by the big companies. You know that becomes very challenging to continue sometimes with those. Also the industry is now more technical as I mentioned before, more data is required and then that not only data is required but it requires published data to back up the claims, okay.
So there are a lot of these changes are happening in the industry, which we are rapidly addressing. That’s why I said at the beginning that we have — we are now continuously publishing the papers, doing the research studies and validating all those datas and claims which companies are required for the marketing. Does that make sense to you?
Ravi Purohit
Sure, sure, sir. And sir, just one more question, right? So we have launched a lot of B2C products in the Indian market, right? I think we’ve mentioned in the past that we have certain products in probiotic area in the US, but we’ve also launched, I think if I’m not wrong, in the domestic market, right? No, we have traditionally been a B2B company. We are not traditionally a B2C company, especially in India. So would it make sense for us to tie-up with a actually a large pharmaceutical company in India, you know, who can actually help us distribute these products better than having to us to kind of spend all that money, we could — I mean, an example would be someone like Orchid Pharma, right, which have kind of got a certain product developed through NC and now they’ve tied-up with Sipla to basically distribute that product because they are traditionally been a B2B company.
So we’ve also been traditionally a B2B company. So B2C is not really our strength in that sense. So in that sense, we have good products, but you need somebody who’s actually done it for 20 years, 30 years in the domestic market to be able to kind of give you scale so I don’t know, is that something that makes sense for us to do or does it not make sense? If you could just share your thoughts and insights on that.
V. L. Rathi
Rave, I appreciate your suggestions and ideas. You are absolutely correct, we are a B2B company. B2C is a very different market segment by itself. We have a limited goal and objectives, but yes, when see — as and when we go to the B2C, which we are putting some, it will be always a distribution we have to find with the major companies who has a good network of distribution and sales. So yes, we are working on all of these different dynamics.
Ravi Purohit
Okay. Okay. Thanks a lot, sir. And same feedback as the other participant will really appreciate if both you and Rasika can be on all the calls. Just four times in a year, not too much from shareholders’ point-of-view and it kind of gives us a lot of confidence and lot of help to kind of hear your thoughts, right? So would really appreciate and if both of you all could be there in all the calls, please.
V. L. Rathi
No, Ravi, thank you. You are — these interactions really help management in so many different ways. And even sometimes we are not there on the call. There every single thought of yours and everybody is always debated considered and we try to execute the issues in a way and manner which makes sense to all management and the investors alike. So we appreciate thoughts on that and we will, as Rashika said, try to be more interactive as much as possible.
Ravi Purohit
So thank you so much, sir and all the best.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you very much. A reminder to all the participants, you may press to ask a question a reminder to all the participants, you may press R&1 to ask the question as there are no further questions, I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Ronak Saraf for closing comments.
Ronak Saraf
Thank you everyone for taking a valuable time for attending our earnings conference call. We will keep you all posted for any further updates. I request you all to kindly send in your questions or other queries that you may have or remain unanswered. An audio recording and the transcript of this call will be uploaded on our website in due course. Looking-forward to host you all-in the next quarter. Till then, stay healthy, stay safe.
V. L. Rathi
Thank you, everyone.
Mukund Kabra
Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. On behalf of Advanced Enzyme Technologies Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.