Coromandel International Limited (NSE: COROMANDEL) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Jan. 31, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Sankarasubramanian S — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Jayashree Satagopan — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Ranjit Sirumalai — Analyst
Nirav Chimodia — Analyst
Prashant Biyani — Analyst
Arjun Khanna — Analyst
Somaiah V — Analyst
Ankur Periwal — Analyst
S. Ramesh — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Vignesh Iyer — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to International 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 the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star Linsey Ro on a phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr Ranjit Sirumala from IIFLC Capital. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Ranjit Sirumalai — Analyst
Thank you, Muskan. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the International’s Q3 FY ’25 Earnings conference Call. We thank the management for giving us this opportunity to host the earnings call today. From the management, we have with us Mr Shankara, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer; Dr Ragram Devarakunda, Executive Director, CPC Bio-Products and Retail; and Mrs JC, President, Corporate and CFO. We will begin the call with an opening remarks from the management, post which we will have a Q&A session. Over to you.
Sankarasubramanian S — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you good afternoon, everyone, and thanks, Sanjit, for organizing this conference call. I’ll give a brief overview on the business environment and the company performance and JC will take you through the financials, then we can have a clean decision day end. On the agriculture scenario, the rainfall Northeast monsoon, which is a major rainfall activity over South Peninsula, especially in our markets of Andra,, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka has been good and all regions have reported good range, especially in October, December period and majority of these regions received above-normal range. Also going by the yearly estimates for the next cropping season, our global weather models are predicting to neutral conditions to prevail, which very well for the agriculture scenario for the next season. Thanks to good monsoon, reservoir levels are comfortable, especially in the southern part with most of the regions reporting high storage compared to last year’s normal levels, although there have been drop-in the northern regions. The conditions have resulted in improved drop sowings. As on January, we could see 2% growth in the crop soy, reaching to 64 million hectares, predominantly wheat Rabi being the Rabi season, wheat is a predominant crop, 31 million one pulses 14 million in oil. The first advanced estimate of the major agri projects the food grain output at 157 million tonnes as 9 million tons more than last year and the record output of paddy and night expected in the current-season. The gross value-added from and allied industries is also expected to grow at 3.8% compared to last 1.4%, making it the fastest-growing sector in the country. On the quality side, there has been good development in terms of infrastructure strengthening. Government has recently-announced the work under River linking project that intends to bring 3.5 million hectares under irrigation. Further, there has been renewed impetus for completion of room project in Andhra and that can bring in another 1 million hectares of land under irrigation, especially in our core markets. As you are aware, has been closely engaging with the industry to ensure availability of purchases and during the rubbit period, especially in the sowing stage, the industry and government has worked together in ensured availability of DAP in the natural market and also availability of alternate grades of NP NPT grades. And to support this, government has also announced a special package of 3,500 tonnes per rupees per metric ton got extended beyond 31st December as the 31st March. Besides this one-time package, they have also extended additional price compensation beyond purchase price of DAP in order to ensure availability of DAC. As company as industry, we are working towards balanced additions and try to see how best the shift can happen from DAP to NPKs. On the industry side, fertilizer raw materials fairly stable, except we saw sudden in sulfur and sulfuric acid especially due to demand coming from China and Indonesia and price for Q3 has been fixed at $1,05, $5 reduction over the previous quarter. And also there has been a corresponding reduction in graft prices we have witnessed. Overall, I would say the raw-material prices remain reasonably stable and likely to remain stable in the 4th-quarter with the easing of geopolitical tension across the globe. For the nine months period, fertilizer production for the industry has gone up by 5% to 11.3 million tonnes. Of course, imports are lower to 5.6 million tons, almost 20% lower basically due to supply-chain disruption of DAP. However, on the consumption side is one of the best season industry has ever witnessed in this period, the year-to-date consumption has grown by 6% to 20 million tonnes versus 18.9 million tons last year. Also, we have seen the shift happening between no DAP even though the availability was less, but farmers have opted for NPK and almost, I would say 1 million shift has happened from DAP to NPK, especially in the northern markets of the response to the grades like has been good. Overall share of NPA NPKs has moved up to 58% from 49% and Q3 also witnessed significant uptick in-demand and consumption rose by 27% due to improved situations. And SSP industry consumption also has grown by 3% on year-to-date basis and especially in Q3, it has grown by almost 59%. Cop protection global markets are seeing gradual reduction in the channel inventory levels with improvement in consumption, some of our key molecules have received good interest in the market and we expect the situation to further improve in the coming periods. Coming specific to our company performance for Q3, our has reported very resilient performance with overall increase in volumes across the business segments and improved operational efficiencies due to higher throughput, especially of intermediate phosphoric acid and sulfuric acid, low conversion costs and improved power generation in the fertilizer units. Besides that all business segments have grown on new products and value-added products. Our plans have been operating at 95% capacity, producing 8.4 lakh tons of NPK, also registered record phosphoric acid production in Q3 and the new sulfuric acid which commissioned in the last year has been operating on 100% plus capacity, which helped the business to capture value on power savings and also in the volatile price of sulfuric acid is very advantageous for the business to have access to a captive sulfuric acid. Our ongoing project at for setting up 2 lakh tons of phosphoric acid and related sulfuric acid is progressing well and we expect the plant to be commissioned by Q4 of next year. As you all know, we announced investment in additional capacity of 7.5 lakh tonnes of NPK facility at Kakinada. Last week, we carried out Pumituja to initiate the project activity and we are in the final stage of negotiating with technology provider and also business partner and ensure that this project will come up in the next 24 months and be there for commercial production from Q4 of 2027. On the marketing side, we have significantly improved our volumes. Primary sale of NPKs in Q3 stands at 11.4 lakh tonnes as against 9.4 lakh tons we had last year corresponding period, registering growth of 21%. It’s heartening to note that our consumption has been extremely good. There has been increase of 73% in consumption and stands at 12.7 lakh tons as against 7.3 lakh tons we had. This has considerably reduced the channel inventory for the company and also our ability to take the material to markets also been very useful to balance sources in case of any uncertainties. For the nine months period, our consumption-based market-share has moved up to 17% as compared to 13% last year. The company is strengthening its marketing infrastructure and during the quarter inaugurated Foil and Leaf testing lab, the state-of-art facility at. Also set-up a polyhouse facility near Hyderabad to drive research in protective agriculture space. SSP also registered a quarterly volume growth of 29% with the major share coming from value-added products like Grow Plus and urea SSP. On the specialty nutrine business, it mainly relates to water-soluble fertilizers, secondary micro entrains and organic fertilizers. We had a very good quarter. The business could recoup the volumes last-out in and they could show improved volumes, especially in organic fertilizers. The business commissioned Benton itself a plant which has improved the capacity from the current levels. On the Nano DAP, our team has been continuously engaging with the farmers across the country and carrying out field trails and the response has been quite positive. And during the nine months period, we have sold 25 lakh bottles, almost 40% of the total sales happened in the country. As you all know that we also started the Gromo drive, which is a drone spraying activity carried out in the last nine months and we have covered more than 1.1 lakh acres, including the services rendered through our retail outlets. These spraying services besides providing benefit of cost and convenience to farmers, it can also comfortably save 90% of the water during input supplications as compared to conventional metals. This will be one of the activities which will be carrying up as we move forward in the next two years. Crop protection bio business, actually Crop protection has done well in the domestic formulation segment registering growth of 14% and global export market also registering growth of 5%. Business also improved its margin structure and EBIT has improved by 8%, especially driven by domestic B2B and Formulation segment. Overall, EBIT margin for the segment is at 14.3%. The new products introduced during the year have performed very well and the share of sales on new products for the year stands at 24% as against 14% we had last year. In exports, our key products have started receiving increasing demand-driven by positive momentum in Brazil. The business has initiated activities for its multipurpose product plant at, which was approved by the Board in the last Board meeting and we are progressing well to commission the plant in 18 months time. Products business improved its margin during the quarter through volume, though export volumes have got impacted and there has been a delay in securing orders, which will come through in the 4th-quarter. The business is looking at collaborative opportunity on the side, expanding the product portfolio beyond Azra. The company has also initiated steps to collaborate with a global trading company based at Europe for niche product segments in — similar to a CDMO opportunity, which can open up doors for future such engagement and can take the buyer business to the next level. It’s also testing out the new products in-plant extras and microbial space and happy to share that lot of products on the final stage of approvals and registration. In CDMO, we continue to engage with multiple customers and we are in the stage of sample submission, further engagement will happen before we commence the operation. Retail business delivered very strong performance during this quarter and the business focused on all across segments. Fertilizer has done extremely well through the retail outlets and also they improved the performance on all other verticals. Our crop protection sale has considerably improved. Specialty nutrients has grown well and they also increased organic fertilizers volume. And also they are in the process of adding new stores, they’ve added 18 stores during this quarter and now the total store count has moved to 810. The retail business is also focusing on creating exclusive crop protection liquid and spaying services stores under the brand-name of Koreka and they are doing the pilot for three, four stores and if it works well, they will extend this to more number of stores across AP, Telangana and other states. These are the initial observations on the business performance. I will request JC to cover on the financial side.
Jayashree Satagopan — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Shankar. Good afternoon all. Let me take you through the financial performance for the quarter and for year-to-date. Turnover, the company recorded a consolidated total income of INR7,049 crores during this quarter and INR9,330 crores for the nine months ended 31st December, registering a growth of 28% for the quarter and 6% for the nine months. The increase in revenues is mainly on account of higher volumes in the business. Nutrients and Allied businesses contribute to 91% share and the remaining 9% comes from crop protection business. For the nine months period, it was 90% and 10% respectively. Subsidy business’s share in revenue stands at 84% for the quarter and 83% for nine months. During the previous year, it was 82% for the quarter and 84% for nine months. Profitability. The consolidated EBITDA for the quarter was INR722 crores as against INR358 crores during the last year. For the nine-month period, it was INR2,202 crores as against INR2,126 crores during the last year. Subsidy business’s share in EBITDA stands at 69% during the quarter and 71% for the nine months. Previous year. It was 37% for the quarter and 74% for nine months. Net profit-after-tax for the quarter is INR508 crores in comparison to INR228 crores for the corresponding quarter last year and INR476 crores for the nine months against INR477 crores during the last year. Subsidy, during quarter three, the company received subsidy amount of INR2,036 crores. Last year, it was INR721 crores. For the nine months period, subsidy received totals to INR5,892 crores and in the last year, it was INR7,033 crores. Subsidy outstanding as on 31st December 2024 was at INR2,095 crores. On-balance sheet, the company’s balance sheet continues to be strong. Focus on working capital improvements has helped in augmenting the cash position. Company intends to utilize the investable surplus for its capital investments as well. Incentives on capital investments, the company had applied to the AP Government for availing incentives on the large capital investments that’s being made in the state. This has been favorably considered by the State Industrial Promotion Board. That’s matters, the company has successfully applied and has been receiving GST refunds. During the quarter, the company engaged proactively with the GST authorities and represented the matter relating to a demand of INR489 crores against the earlier GST applications and refunds received. The company has recently received a favorable order from the GST Commissioner. Interest, during the quarter, the company earned net interest income, excluding the lease adjustments of INR51 crores, crores vis-a-vis 31 crores in the last year. For the nine months period, company earned a net interest income of INR68 crores vis-a-vis INR53 crores in the last year. The company continues to deploy the surplus funds in Board approved securities and will be deploying them further for its future strategic investments., during the later part of the 3rd-quarter, the US dollar strengthened against most currencies with the Republicans winning in the US elections and Donald Trump getting back to power. Indian rupee like other global currencies witnessed a sharp depreciation moving from INR83.79 to INR85.68 during the quarter. Continued to follow a prudent conservative approach of hedging the ForEx exposures, which is immensely helped in limiting the impact of the currency depreciation. Dividend. The Board in its meeting held on 38th January 2025 has approved an interim dividend of INR6 per share. Thank you all for your interest in and joining the call today. We look-forward to the interactions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Nirav Chimodia from Envil Research. Please go-ahead.
Nirav Chimodia
Yeah, good afternoon, team. Ma’am, I have two questions to ask. So one on the agro side. Ma’am, if you can share what was the volume growth for Mancozab in nine months of FY ’25 vis-a-vis of nine months of last year. As well as if also if you can share that like recently, we have seen the prices of in the international market moving up. So how much of that is captured in Q3 and how much it is still left to be captured going-forward?
Sankarasubramanian S
So, thanks for your question. I’m just going to get the volume data out. Meanwhile, in terms of the prices, I’m going to request to give you a bit of an update. My question would be on sort of specific products and pricing,
Jayashree Satagopan
Let’s look at the macro indeed anything I’m going to respond to it, but we will not get into specifics on the product pricing and volume at this stage.
Nirav Chimodia
Fine, fine, fine. Sir, also if you can share like last year, we produced close to around 70,000 tonnes of technicals out of over 90,000 tonnes of production capacity. So how are we looking FY ’25 and FY ’26 in terms of the production of technicals, given the kind of newer products we have launched on the formulation side? This along with if you can combine the volume data — volume data growth for, that would be helpful.,
Sankarasubramanian S
I’ll briefly touch upon before you comment on. See, it may not be appropriate to look at absolute volume technicals because more-and-more new products are coming in with a high-value and low-volume. Yeah. And some muscles also go out-of-the system. It may not be appropriate to look at tonnage as the indicator for the future growth prospects, whether we should look at whether we have got for new-generation molecules, which can improve the overall business prospects and the margin structure. There are enough opportunity available for us to scale-up the production. And recently in the yesterday’s Board meeting also, we have taken approval to enhance the capacity of a technical facility besides whatever multipurpose plant we took approval, we are looking at some brownfield capacity expansion, which may come up within Saragam and Dahej. Okay. So we are looking at the current business environment, opportunity throws up with us in terms of the registration, the countries in which we operate and we are planning to take advantage of the market situation and increase our volume growth. Definitely, the capacity utilization may come down due to force moving out, but we are repurposing these brands with new technical and new products and the projects which have been initiated in the beginning of this quarter are in the final stage, will be completed by March and this will come into next year in-production line and will be launching the products and brands both in domestic and global markets. May supplement with any volume data late into. So primarily, just to add, I think specifically the technicals that we are talking about as we have mentioned in the previous interactions, we have brought in a product portfolio to enter herbicide also. Okay. So I think there is — so that we get a good balanced portfolio of infecticide, fungicides and carbide with a view to support our formulation foray, which is — which is with a greater determination to grow in-market as well as we have more foray into selling formulations in the exports market as well. So with that objective, we have invested in the back-end to make some more technicals so that we produce ample quantity both to support the B2C as well as the B2B opportunity.
Nirav Chimodia
Got it, got it, sir. Sir, second question is on the SSP side. So if you can share your thoughts here because last year was bad in terms of the SSP. But given the kind of price increases and the shortages what we have seen on the BAP side, possibly SSP being a good substitute, how do you see the volume growth for SSP in FY ’25 and FY ’26 and also if you can share like what sort of margins per ton we are currently making on the SSP side? Because in one of the interactions earlier, ma’am mentioned that like we were anywhere between INR1,500 to INR2,500 a ton of SSP margin. So if you can share your thoughts here, that would be very helpful. Thank you so much.
Sankarasubramanian S
The SSP is definitely revived. In fact, current year performance is much better. As you rightly said, the shortage of DAP and also the good bonds in situation, there has been a spike in volume. In the case of more than chasing volume, we have looked at the value-added products. We have a unique product which is based plus the like zinc and boron, which can be a potential alternate to DAC has been doing extremely well. We have scaled-up the volume of these variants. In fact, the major share of our volume growth which happened in this quarter has come from these differentiated products like Grow Plus. Also here where we have introduced UVSSP, which designs P is going to contain NSL and this is again a one-tone alternative to DAP. So that has also been very well-received in the market. So our aim in SSP business is to focus more on value-added granulation products. And accordingly, we are increasing our capacity to produce. The plant which we came up in Nimrani for UDSFC has been operating at full capacity. Now we are trying to add this facility at Udaypur, which is another plant for FFP. And going-forward, more than 50% to 60% of the total FFP volume will come from these differentiated products, which improves the margin structure. You are absolutely right, the margins are in the range of 1,500 to 2,000, but it can potentially go up with the increased share of this any grades. As you know, we have plants across the country and we have capacity close to-1 million tonnes. So this year we had some challenges in availability of sulfuric acid and we couldn’t scale-up the volume. But going-forward, our — our aim would be to reach 1 million tonne capacity in two years’ time probably taking it to 8 black tons next year and thereafter 1 million tons. And that too, we focus on these specialty grids, which are as good as any other NPK product the participant has the queue.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Prashant Viani from Elara Securities. Please go-ahead.
Prashant Biyani
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on great set of numbers. Sir, POS volume this quarter has been very strong across India in both area and complex. What is driving this? And would it mean that Q4 dispatches should again be seeing double-digit growth for us? What is the overall months recover levels and crop acreages.
Sankarasubramanian S
The consumption has gone up significantly. In fact, as you all aware, in the year beginning, the channel was carrying higher inventory that partially got reduced in. Now in this Q3, there is a significant reduction in the channel inventory. As you all know, the most of the market, the crop season comes to an end by February, middle or end. The consumption may not happen from March until season starts in May. But having said that, we could see a significant improvement in POS volume even in January. So this is really helpful in terms of reducing the channel inventory, thereby unlocking the subsidy amount which is stuck in the system. It’s good and also it augurs well for the next curry season where the industry can build-up inventory and meet the market demand. But the volume growth is contingent upon the capacity and the import tie-up which has happened. So it won’t be a double-digit growth. It will be as per our plan. And as you know, 4th-quarter we generally take annual turnaround. So our volumes will be more or less aligned with the market demand. So that’s the way we have been doing every year.
Prashant Biyani
Sure. Sir, for FY ’26, what kind of volume growth are you looking at and it will be contributed by incremental volumes would be contributed through manufacturing or trading.
Sankarasubramanian S
See, it will be a combination of both. Very difficult put a number but we have been carrying out some debottlenecking of our facilities at as well as by and that will be really adding to the volume increase next year. And also our plant where we have currently restarted only phosphoric acid and pulfuric acid, we are ready to start the granulation plant. So that volume we all see the volume growth, all these growth are happening in the existing plants with not operating at facility from the year beginning. It shows the productivity and the debottlenecking which has already happened in an existing facility. We are trying to repurpose this plant for any alternate range of NPK fertilages. So there is a potential volume increase manufacturing, either by getting back renewal and also by debottling the capacities that. Besides that, that we may resort to imports, especially DAP. The company we manufacture NP, NPKs and we import DAP and also sometimes we also resort to NPK. That’s a strategy we have decided to scale-up the volume in the next two to ensure that whenever the new plant comes up, we develop the markets, especially in the northern states of MP, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, that we will be able to easily absorb the volumes as and the plant is concerned. So there’ll be growth in volumes in the coming year.
Prashant Biyani
Right. Sir, for this quarter, I think there is a dip in non-subsidy, non-CP EBITDA come with the segment which comprises of spect chem, organic nutrient, retail and others. Is the reading right? And if yes, what is driving this decline? And I was a bit confused because in your initial commentary, you told that specialty Nutrient business was good, but this non-subsidy, non-CP EBITDA is showing some decline. If you can confirm that?
Sankarasubramanian S
I don’t know-how you arrive at the math on all these are part of the nutrient segment, both specialties as well as the retail function of the segment and that has grown and effect our retail stores have done extremely well in the volumes across categories and most stores have become profitable, 90%, 93% of the stores are profitable. So retail has done well. And specialty claims has also grown on volume terms compared to last year. Both top-line and profitability has grown for this segment as well. And also we have improved our nano DAP AP volumes compared to last year. So probably there can be a marginal reduction in the bio business where the export orders we executed last year has not happened to the deduction. There is only correction or a reduction in the bio business. The rest of the segments have grown well.
Prashant Biyani
Okay. I’ll come back-in the queue. Thank you.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arjun Kanna from Kotak Mahindra Asset Management. Please go-ahead.
Arjun Khanna
Thank you for taking my question and congratulations on a great set of numbers. The first question is in terms of supply-chain. So we are setting up a new granulation trains. So we had acquired a stake in Mining. Any other such acquisitions on the anvil, we had talked about securing rock phosphate. We haven’t seen any such acquisitions or such tie-ups post this one. So would like to hear your comments on the same?
Sankarasubramanian S
See for the new grand capacity, the required 200,000 tons. We are putting up a new plant that take care of — and the corresponding sulfuric acid needs also, we are putting up a plant. So these two major intermediates, what is required for granulation facility is tied-up ammonia we have a long-term contract for we don’t see any challenges. For phosphoric acid, we require rock and we have higher visibility on the source of the rock. And you’re right, mines we are scaling up during this quarter. We have commissioned the fixed plant and the operations are getting stabilized. At this current rate, we are able to support one ship every 45 days and soon that will get reduced to 30 days with improved throughput. So we do expect a expect mines can scale-up volume to 300,000 tonnes next year and in the following year up to 500,000 tonnes, which is a significant supply to meet the rock requirement for the new phosphoric acid plant. So we don’t anticipate any challenge in terms of securing rock phosphate for the new plant. It will be driven by clinical supply plus other existing sources as we have long-term contracts.
Arjun Khanna
Sure. That’s helpful. And what would — and at INR500,000, would that entity be profitable?
Sankarasubramanian S
Yes. It should — the cost structures once the volume improves, currently, the cost structure is a little on the higher side because of the lower output, but the output gets stabilized and we are fairly confident that we’ll be much more competitive. More than looking at the standalone profitability of, we look at the complete value chain of phosphoric acid value addition and also our ability to buy rock from other sources at a competitive price. So our understanding of mining, our understanding of rock market is definitely helpful to secure the entire volume at a most competitive price. So I don’t look at how on a standalone profitability basis, an integrated basis makes of expense for the company.
Arjun Khanna
Sure. Very helpful, sir. Sir, the second question is on the retail piece. You also did allude to it. What would the turnover be of this business, say, in the 3rd-quarter and in nine months? And in terms of year-on-year, how are we looking at scaling this up going-forward?
Sankarasubramanian S
Don’t know as per the segmental we don’t put out the separate top-line and profitability, but what I can say is that it has grown significantly on Q3 alone, the top-line growth is 20% and in terms of bottom-line growth are — there also we have seen significant improvement. So the category see more than the absolute profitability. In fact, the bottom-line in retail that we capture only the retail margin. We don’t capture the entire margin because that remains with the respective experience in terms of captive products only for the third-party to entire margin closer to the retail business. There has been 17% growth in the profitability as well. So looking at the revenue and part of the data one is our ability to scale-up the new products. So we have seen in the last few quarters whatever new products in crop protection, our specialty segments are organic, the ability of retail to connect with and communicate with the farmers and scale-up the volume has been tremendous. We have given enough confidence for us to enhance the number of centers from the current level. The last-time also we spoke about increasing the centers, doubling from current levels and we are on that path. And we’ll be adding significant number of stores in 4th-quarter as well and we also plan to add numbers in the next year as well. So strategically, I think retail is the upside of retail is still able to play-out.
Arjun Khanna
Sure. Sir, what would be the number of stores as on 31st of December. And would it be PVT positive as a whole?
Sankarasubramanian S
Absolutely. 84 years. And you said we are looking at doubling it over two years to maybe 1,500 plus by FY ’27.
Arjun Khanna
Correct. Perfect. Thank you so much and wishing you all the best.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ensure that management is able to address questions from all the participants, please limit a question to two questions per participants. For follow-up question, we request you to rejoin the queue. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sumia from Avendus. Please go-ahead.
Somaiah V
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity, sir. The first question is on the volumes that we have done, 11% growth. So could you help us understand how much was contributed from our core regions and how would we benefit from the Northern market expansion? And also if you could give some color on the Northern market expansion, which are the regions and how we are planning it for the next one year
Sankarasubramanian S
See this quarter, basically rubbi season activity is more in the Northern market compared to the South market, especially in the month of November. And as I mentioned in my earlier communication, as part of our strategy to increase the availability of in the market, we started sending shipments to the state of Madhya Pradesh, Utra Pradesh, Rajasthan. The volumes almost 3.1 lakh tonnes have come from and center. If I have to compare the earlier last quarter corresponding period, around 1.6. So almost we can say we have doubled our numbers as compared to last year corresponding quarter. So this is a strategic call we have taken to ensure that we move to Northern market for our NP NPK and position ourselves as a pan-India player on the, especially prosthetic business and also we have significant presence through single super phosphate, also through specialty nutrients. And this year we launched Nano. So we have a complete range of product portfolio. So while we have been focusing on primary markets of Andhra,, Karnataka and Maharashtra, we started focusing on these secondary markets. Our aim would be to scale-up the volume in the coming years and be a pan-India player for the entire nutrition segment ranging from SSP to specialty?
Somaiah V
Got it, sir. Sir, also could you give some color on the global phos acid market, how you’re seeing in terms of supply-demand dynamics also on drop? Is this a year where there is good amount of supply and the demand is kind of normalizing compared to last year or you see still things to be on the tighter front because phos acid prices have kind of slightly gone up now. Now we are at INR1,000 odd level. So just wanted to understand your thoughts on the supply-demand.
Sankarasubramanian S
So phosphoric acid globally, most of the countries have started fertilizers for their domestic use. So to that extent there is no significant addition to the global trade of process. But the sources which have been supplying acid respecially to government, we continue to receive to supply. In fact, we have diversified our processed sources or to more than six to seven and derisk ourself from we import from China, we import from Middle-East, we import from and also we get it from our own joint-ventures like Tunisia and we also get it from US. So to that extent and also we have debottleneck our capacity at steadily year-on-year and the surplus acid from also moves to. Said, we are putting up a new phosphorical segment of 400,000 tonnes. We don’t see much challenge in terms of availability of phosphoric acid. Whatever is required, we should be able to tap the market and make it available. And in terms of the rock, we have a significant both for and. Currently, we have 1.5 million tons we consume at. It may go up to 2.3 million, 2.4 million tonnes when we commission plant. But we have stable sources from African countries and we don’t see any major challenge. The current pricing scenario, prices generally track DAP prices and as a country, as a company, we are in a position to negotiate terms in-line with the DAP price moment and ammonia prices, which leaves the residual value for acid. That has been the trend in the past and India was able to negotiate better price terms as super to global prices prevailing in Europe and other parts of the world. So in terms of the pricing, as I mentioned in my earlier communication, there has been reduction in raw price in the last quarter and that will be consumed in the next quarter. And going-forward also, I expect some softness in phosphate, which we could see, especially for SSPUs and also for our main phosphoric acid production. So we are not expecting any challenge in securing raw-material as well as prices. Prices generally track DAP and track DAP and track. That has been the trend. And with our own captive mines coming in, additional coming in, we don’t expect any significant jump-in price for in.
Somaiah V
Got it, sir. Sir, one follow-up on our margin outlook.
Operator
I request you to rejoint yeah.
Somaiah V
Thank you so much.
Operator
The next question is from the line of Ankur Periwal from Axis Capital. Please go-ahead.
Ankur Periwal
Hi. Yeah, hi, sir. Congratulations on a good set of numbers and thanks for the opportunity. First question on the fertilizer margin outlook. We had highlighted during our management interaction earlier around 40-odd percent jump-in overall fertilizer margin. I just wanted to understand the timelines for it and whether the SSP — change in SSP portfolio, the differentiated products that we are making, is a top-up to that 40% jump or is including in that guidance that you had given earlier? Could this
Sankarasubramanian S
In the context of the value addition, we will get once we commission sulfuric acid phosphoric acid plants at. So that number remains intact. And as and when this plant gets commissioned, the improved conversion cost, efficiency and the value addition what we have and our ability to secure drop from our captive, we should be able to achieve this sort of a jump-in the EBITDA margin probably in two years down the line. And that also includes the portfolio of SSP as well. Our overall and deferred portfolios are suffering to when the jump-in SSP may not be to the extent of 40%, but definitely with the value-added products, there’ll be a significant increase in the margin profile of SSPS
Ankur Periwal
Sure, sir. And just secondly, your thoughts on the crop protection business, especially on the export side, the pricing-led competition that we had been seeing earlier and given that we are now — are we now expanding into newer geographies as well or you know the growth focus from crop protection perspective will be largely on India as a market in terms of in-license and combination products and export will be taking a backseat, your thoughts there.
Sankarasubramanian S
No, we’ll be growing in all the three segments, whether it is exports or B2B and B2C. And the main reason we are expanding capacity is cater to all the three segments today. These price fluctuations do happen in any commodity prices and we have also diversified our geographies. So we don’t depend only on Latin-American market that there can be a price competition. But we have our own long-term buyers of our key molecules like. And we also seen that in the recent past, there has been increased demand and offtake of these molecules for it because of the additional space which especially Latin-American growers have resorted to that has created additional demand. So this — and also the destocking which is happening in the ongoing season that is also helping us to get the better price. Our focus will be to see how best we can increase the volume in the export market. Right now, we predominantly focus on B2B. We are also trying to see how do we formulate and sell various technicals. So we are trying to see, can we look at B2C market also? And while we are preparing also for introducing new products and registering new products, we are also in working on creating the market opportunities to participate in B2C, especially in Latin-America. And finally, we are also looking at Southeast Asian countries. And we are also initiating registration in Europe and US. So we will definitely continue to focus in export market. Of course, India is not to be left up. India market, as I mentioned in the last-time call as well, we missed the opportunity and we are bringing back the focus with a wide range of 14 technical active ingredients what we manufactured provides us enough opportunity to scale-up the branded volumes of these captive technicals, which we are growing systematically. We’ve also come up with new combinations and new formulations and we’ll give an aggressive push to the domestic formulation business, which may not require capex, but more in terms of brand-building and product management approach. So we are updating our organization structure to suit the. Our aim would be to grow all the three segments. And whatever the residual capacity is there to optimize the operations at our plants, we will focus on B2B domestic as well.
Ankur Periwal
Okay. Great, sir. Thanks a lot for the elaborative answer. Thank you and all the best. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of S. Ramesh from Nirmal Bang Equities. Please go-ahead.
S. Ramesh
Congratulations and thank you very much for the call. So if you look at the volume growth for the industry in exports, numbers range 30%, 40%, 50%. So in terms of the volume growth expectation in exports next year-on this base, what is the realistic assessment of volume growth possible for the industry in your company?
Sankarasubramanian S
Do you want to take that?
Jayashree Satagopan
As Shankar mentioned, you know, the outlook is quite positive. Having said that, from a value perspective, many of the prices — for many of the actives because we still largely do business in actives. And the prices, while they have stabilized, they are at a fairly low-level. So therefore, volume becomes an important play to keep the overall sales at an even yield. So having said that, that is the reason why we thought we put foray into the formulation segment where not only we capture a good decent amount of top-line, but also the margins. So in that regard, the trust that the management is taking, again, as Shankar mentioned, we are putting more money into registration, right? So when there is so much of competition on generic actives, the only way to make money would be to enhance our presence in the formulations market, both in India and abroad. So when you say volume, our growth expectation is a point in both actives as well as formulation. But as a company that is making a more recent foray into formulations, it’s its outlook for formulation growth is on the higher side in exports, specifically that you asked. Does that answer?
S. Ramesh
Okay. That’s fair enough. Yeah, there is a shift. Okay. So the is more on. Yeah. Okay. And in terms of the nutrient business, based on the October new NBS rate, is there any underrecovery in the 4th-quarter and how do you see that being reset in the April subsidy? What is the indication you’re getting from the government?
Sankarasubramanian S
See there are some uptick in raw-material prices like sulfur sulfuric acid and definitely DAP, margin-wise, it is not good enough for us to produce and sell. So we have been representing with the government on this additional that was the cost. And also certain NPK grades like 10, there has been challenges because of very low subsident for cash. The industry we have been representing to government to make those corrections and also consider additional cost we are still to get some pillars on what would be the final number which will come through by March. So if you ask me for the 4th-quarter at this point of time, in certain products, it looks okay. In certain products, there is a fall in margin and we’ll be continuously engaging with and hope to see some corrections happening in the.
S. Ramesh
Okay. One last thought on the minority interest accounted in the consolidated results, I presume it’s mostly based on your Ventures and your drone subsidiaries. So when do you think the drone and Ventures of subsidiary impact on your consolidation numbers turned positive.
Sankarasubramanian S
Yeah. You’re right, Ramesh, most of our subs which are less than 50% is getting counted as a minority interest as far as the subsidiaries are concerned, the larger entity that is into operations is the drone subsidiary. Here, as you know, we had received the orders from the emergency procurement team on defense and the order book is about INR250 odd crores, Dhaksha is awaiting the PDI so that the shipment of these drones can be made. Pending that, they are just focusing on the agri drones business at this point in time, also training of pilots. So we expect in the coming year a quite a positive traction in the drone company operation. Their ventures is nothing but an entity which looks into investing in new ag-tech startup companies like for instance, we had invested in a company called, which is into solar power-related and then X machines which is into small agri robotic applications. So Dair Ventures is just a small investment town, but there are other entities which are subsidiaries globally, which hold primarily registration for exports in the CTC segment. So the main one is the drones company, which we believe with the traction building up on agri as well as some turnaround on defense should do well in the coming year.
S. Ramesh
Thanks. Thank you very much and wish you all the best.
Operator
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of from Investment. Please go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi, and team, congratulations on good set of numbers. And sir, if you can give little more color, say when we are talking of say reaching SSP 10 million 1 million ton. So what kind of a blended will be the same out of that mix area of SSP and urea? And if you can also share how the profitability party, how it’s — is it with this mixture will be having a higher than the SSPN or sitting somewhere in what kind of a range?
Sankarasubramanian S
Let’s say the value-added products, both and Grow plus out of 1 million when we reach, at least I expect 60% to come from these two products, Grow plus and and balance 20% 25% will come from normal SSP with zinc and balance can be positive INR50. So blended margin with this sort of a combination should go to INR2,50 per ton when we reach this ratio of 60-40. Currently, base SSP is 450 and grand rate SSP is in the range of 1,500 to INR800 and the other products are in the range of 2,000 to 2,500. So brand with the increased volume of this surplus and should take the margin up for how much — sorry, can you repeat? Sorry.
Unidentified Participant
This blended margin, how much you said you you’re sorry, I missed it. The 2,500, you can definitely take the blended margin. Okay. And second is, if you can give little more color on our business, what is the size and how do we see with this expansion in geography also? Which business?
Sankarasubramanian S
I’m not — I’m not saying special S&D specialty nutrients. Specialty nutrients, we operate on India basis and in Maharashtra, Western Maharashtra, Rajasthan, NPUP, Punjab, these are all the key markets for the specialty UK and in, we have increased our sulfur capacity also. We have put up in new plants. So that volume also will take-in. And in Satan market, we also sell-through our own-retail outlet. We have seen 30% 40% volume growth in specialty and trends in the retail centers, especially in AP,. So we also sell-in other common market through fertilizer channel, whether it is Karnataka, Andhra, or other parts of India. So we are combination of retail network, exclusive markets where predominantly horticles aircrafts and deprecation side and also we sell-through common markets and we look at introducing new products there. We have introduced seaweed granules this year. Right now we are doing it with a third-party product. If the volume scales up, then we need to put up a — and to make our own CV channel. And we are also scaling up volumes on organic with this display-based molesses from there we expect, that volume also is seeing good traction. So if I had to look at specialty fertilizers, I will put it as water solubles then we have this PDM, then we have sulfur then we have micronutrients and other cross-specific grades. All these segments are receiving good traction and our focus will be to scale-up the volume and create capacities. In fact, we are reaching the size and scale. We are seriously looking at manufacturing some of the raw materials to reduce our dependence on imports from China. That provides opportunity because global players of specialty utilants are also looking for India sourcing. They are trying to shift the manufacturing source from China to India. If that happens, that provides additional opportunity for companies like to come up with these raw materials because soluble fertilizers use MAP, SOP and cane, rates are the product. So we are also seriously evaluating as part of our growth strategy to create a back-end value chain for specialty and also be a global of this rate. I strongly believe our water-soluble, high-end specialties, organic and bio will be the next phase of growth and we are currently positioning ourselves for that. So currently, what is the size and profitability? Is that fair understanding earlier you were talking of around 20% kind of EBITDA margin, so absolutely. It has the potential to generate EBITDA margin of 20% 25%. And what is current size currently placing as well? Yeah. And currently how — what is the size? It will be in the range of INR50 crores INR600 crores on an annualized basis. Our aim would be to see how do we double it in the next two years time.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Thank you and all the best.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vignesh Ayer from Sequence Investment. Please go-ahead.
Vignesh Iyer
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. My first question was on the line of sulfuric asset on due to backward integration, can you tell me how much you know, did we save instead of, say, importing the same in this quarter as well as quarter two? And second question is, how has the price of sulfuric acid panned out in, let’s say, last four to five months? I mean, if you could quantify like in January, how much it has increased as compared to maybe September or October 11.
Jayashree Satagopan
It used to be in the $80, $85 range that has moved up to $100 and we do have combination of annual contracts and the spot contract. So if you can say the average around $90 to $100 has been the acid price if they import. On the value addition, what we get-in terms of manufacturing acid, we have two benefits, cost of production versus imported acid as well as the power savings. I may not have an exact number for the quarter, but I can say roughly INR180 crores is the nine months benefit we have realized on account of sulfuric acid value addition. So that is your plan together, right? I mean, why is that? Why is that? We have got sulfuric acid capacity came up in.
Vignesh Iyer
Okay, okay. Got it, got it, sir. Yeah, that’s awesome.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vinesh from Nuvama. Please go-ahead You are not audible. Can you please repeat? Your voice is not audible okay sir, I just request you to rejoin the queue again, please. The next question is from the line of Viju from Antixter Broking. -Please go-ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hello. Hello. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, sir. Yeah.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, my question was in terms of the unique great share to the total fertilizer volume this quarter. So if you could share the number
Sankarasubramanian S
This quarter is around 24%, 54%. Yeah.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for the taking my question, sir. Yeah, that’s all from my side.
Operator
Thank you. As that was the last question for the day. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Over to you.
Sankarasubramanian S
Thank you very much. We will continue to do our best to improve our performance in the coming quarter. Thank you for your interest. Thank you, Ranjit. Thank you all.
Operator
Thank you. On behalf of IIFL Capital, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you,