Linc Ltd (NSE: LINC) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated May. 08, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Rohit Deepak Jalan — Whole Time Director
Narayan Dujari — Director Finance
Sanjeev K Sancheti — Founding Partner
Analysts:
Vaibhav Pachisia — Analyst
Resha Mehta — Analyst
Himanshu Upadhyay — Analyst
Suraj Khaitan — Analyst
Shaurya Yadav — Analyst
Rohan Patel — Analyst
Rakesh Wadhwani — Analyst
Aradhana Jain — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, please stay connected. The conference call will begin in next few minutes. Thank you. Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Link Limited’s Q4 FY ’25 Results Conference Call hosted by SKP Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the management’s opening remarks. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr Vaibo from SKP Securities Limited. Thank you and over to you.
Vaibhav Pachisia — Analyst
Thank you hello,.
Operator
We cannot hear you.
Vaibhav Pachisia — Analyst
Yeah. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, please go-ahead.
Vaibhav Pachisia — Analyst
Yeah. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I’m pleased to welcome you to Link Limited’s Q4 FY ’25 and FY ’25 results con-call. We have with us today Mr Rohit Deepak Jalan, Whole-Time Director; Mr Henk Dujari, Director of Finance and CFO; and Mr Sanjeev from Uruitus Advisors LLP, the company’s IR advisors. We’ll have the opening remarks from Mr Rohit Jalan, followed by a Q&A session. Thank you, and over to you, Mr Jalan.
Rohit Deepak Jalan — Whole Time Director
Thank you. Thank you,. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today for the investor call of Link Limited for the 4th-quarter and full-fiscal year of 2025. We are delighted to share that FY ’25 has been a record-setting year for our company with revenue and profit-after-tax reaching an all-time high. These milestones underscore the strength of our strategic initiatives and the enduring resilience of our business model. In-quarter four FY ’25, our operating income reached INR15,393 lakhs, representing a robust 9.3% year-over-year growth and a strong 26% increase sequentially. For the full-fiscal year, we closed at 54,348 lakhs, reflecting a healthy 7% annual growth. This performance was primarily driven by the sustained momentum of our Pentonic range, our key growth driver alongside significant gains in the e-commerce and modern trade channels. Our operating EBITDA for the year came in at INR6,440 lakhs with an EBITDA margin of 11.8%, an improvement of 74 basis-points over FY ’24. This was enabled by a favorable product mix with the higher-margin Pentonic brand expanding its revenue-share from 34.3% to 35.6%. This not only reinforces the success of our premiumization strategy, but also reflects the strong brand loyalty we continue to build amongst consumers. From a strategic perspective, we have taken purposeful steps to future-proof our business and unlock multidimensional growth opportunities. Our portfolio diversification is progressing steadily as we expand beyond pens into high-growth adjacent categories such as markers, highlighters and pencils. These extensions are closely aligned with emerging consumer needs and enable us to address a wider range of usage occasions, thereby positioning us to capture a significantly larger share of the writing instruments market. We are also actively exploring opportunities across the broader stationary market, increasing our total addressable market from INR6,640 crores to INR38,500 crores. We believe our strong brand equity, extensive distribution network and innovative strengths position us well to gain market-share over the long-term. Aligned with the above strategy, we are consistently innovating and expanding our product pipeline. Building on our recent launches, including markers, highlighters, mechanical fences, calculators and several more, we are excited to launch a new wave of product in the coming quarters. These include premium gel pens, more ranges of markers and highlighters, designed for both school and office use and other essential stationary items such as catch pens, brush pens, fine liners, crayons and so on. These planned additions reflect our commitment to building a more resilient and diversified product ecosystem under the Link and Pentonic brands catering to a wider range of consumer needs. We are also seeing early traction in the export markets, which have remained resilient despite macro and geopolitical headwinds and evolving trade dynamics, including tariff-related friction in select geographies. Our ability to adapt pricing strategies, maintain supplier reliability and offer innovative innovation-led differentiation has helped us sustain momentum and build strategic relationships overseas. Our strategic moats, deep distribution, brand-led trust and continuous innovation remain our core differentiators, enabling us to play across both the mass and mid-premium ends of the market. To reward our shareholders and reinforce our commitment to value-creation. The Board of Directors has proposed a dividend of INR1.5 per share, implying a payout ratio of 23.5% subject to shareholder approval. As we move forward, our focus remains unwavering to drive innovation, deepen market penetration and enhance operational efficiency. With a resilient business model and a clearly articulated growth strategy, we are poised to capture new opportunities and deliver sustained value for all stakeholders. Now, I would like to hand over the call to Mr Dujari to provide update on financials.
Narayan Dujari — Director Finance
Thank you, Mr Jalan. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate for your presence at FY ’25 Link Limited Earnings Webinar. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being with us today as we walk-through the financial performance for quarter-four FY ’25. I’m pleased to share that during the quarter, our operating EBITDA witnessed a robust year-on-year growth of 14.8%, reaching 1924 lakhs and delivering a healthy margin of 12.5%. PAT for FY ’25 increased by 11.2% Y-o-Y to 3804 lakhs, translating to a PAT margin of 6.9%. Operational discipline continues to be the cornerstone of our strategy, enabling us to generate 5693 lakhs in cash-flow from operations over the full-year. We also ended the year with a net free-cash position of INR1869 lakhs, an outcome of — an outcome that underscores our unwavering focus on financial prudence and maintaining a resilient future-ready balance sheet. Looking ahead, we remain committed to delivering sustained medium to long-term growth as outlined in our Q2 FY ’25 earnings call. This outlook is underpinned by our well-aligned strategic initiatives and strong business fundamentals.
Now I request to — request to open the floor for Q&A. Thank you.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press R&1 on their touchdone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 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. You. We’ll take our first question from the line of Resha Mehta from Green Edge Wealth Services LLP. Please go-ahead.
Resha Mehta
Yeah. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. So one is since Mr Bishi has a stake in the company, does that in any way kind of restrict us to onboard any other licensed brand across any brand basically which is outside the table of Mitsubishi so.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Hi, Risha. No, there is no such restriction. We already are representing Delhi, which is a stationary giant since 2019, right? So we don’t see any restriction today or even in the near-future.
Resha Mehta
So be it for or any such similar product, right?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So, if it is particularly about, we want to ensure that we don’t onboard anything that’s conflicting with our existing our portfolio. So we will be cautious about that. We had the distribution of LAMI in the past, which were again writing instruments, but they were more in the premium segment.
Resha Mehta
No, but I’m saying there is no restriction as such right in terms of a contract. If there is a pen brand, which probably makes sense in a different price and segment, are we — can we actually do it is my question. Is there a legal agreement which bounds us?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
No, there is no legal agreement that binds us and it’s our strategic call.
Resha Mehta
Right. And any royalty we pay for the Uniball sales?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
No royalty is being paid-for sales.
Resha Mehta
Understood. And you know, the presentation talks about we are planning to get into new products, right. So can you just break-up the addressable total — the total addressable market of INR38,500 crores that you’ve kind of quoted there?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So I don’t have that immediately the breakup, but we can share that information with you offline. Yeah.
Resha Mehta
Right. And these new products that you know like markers highlighters and art materials, etc., that we are planning. So how would be the sourcing or initially would it be outsourced? And then eventually once it achieves scale, do we intend to kind of get into in-house manufacturing? And also how — how do we see the path for the margins for these new categories?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So see the margins would be pretty much in-line with our current existing margins. The markers, they are all our capex. So we have invested in our designs. We — the malls are owned by us. And we are initially outsourcing, we are getting job work done through OEM vendors or good factories who supply good-quality products to several other brands.
Resha Mehta
Right, right, right. And so basically, yes, it will be at around 11%, 12% margin, so we don’t see any margin dilution is what I understand from this.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
And also just able to and also the decision to do talk work or to do in-house is always dependent once we reach a minimum scale, then we volume. Yeah, volume then we start doing it, but the moles and the design are always-on.
Resha Mehta
Yeah. Yeah. Right. And since they will be launched under Pentonic brand, safe to assume that it will not be a very mass, mass-market kind of a product range. Would that be a fair assumption?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So Pentonic, see our starting price segment is INR10. So we won’t be having any product going below 10. So 10 is — I would still say it is a mass segment. And we only plan to go. So we have products at INR20, INR30, INR40 price points. So the direction is mass to mass premium.
Resha Mehta
Yeah. Got it. And if we talk about exports, can you just talk about like who would be your customers here and do we appoint distributors in each country? How does basically the distribution work-in exports? And also with this tariff situation, right, so how — what would be our exposure to the US up and how is the demand from the non-US countries kind of shaping up in the current geopolitical environment? Thank you.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Sure. So exports model basically is we appoint or we rather work with exclusive distributors in all the countries we have a presence and so mostly I think almost 90% plus you know we are selling our own branded products and we work with exclusivity like I mentioned. Some of our key markets would be Brazil USA and Myanmar, although it is you know, badly affected and some countries in Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, in Middle-East, Iraq, Syria and some more Southeast Asian countries.
Resha Mehta
And what would be the exposure to the US market? So US are total base, how much would be US?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
It is just below 10%.
Narayan Dujari
So between 9% to 10% — North-America is between 9% to 10%.
Resha Mehta
And have you seen any preponement of orders or shipments or things like that, especially in Q4 or even as we speak in Q1? And how — you know-how is the demand kind of shaping up there in the US?.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So US, you know particularly, I think still there is lot of uncertainty between you know, all the business owners and we have not seen any major impact in the last one month since this tariff situation arose. And we don’t expect a major, major difference because our sales to US is purely in our own brand and zero private-label.
Resha Mehta
Yeah, right. And also what — what would be the kind of margins that we enjoy in exports? And also in your presentation, I don’t see China as amongst the top-10 exporters of pens globally. So is China a very marginal player in pens export?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So China used to be — I mean, if you look at the last year when China was among the top-10 both exporter and importer, but somehow in this financial year, there is a slipped out of that. These are government data. So probably the Chinese imports has cut-down that also gives a huge opportunity for companies like to aggressively look at mice-leveling opportunities in these markets?
Resha Mehta
Yeah. And why would you think that challenge
Operator
Request you to join back the queue please as we have other participants for the. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Himanshu from Buggle Rock PMS. Please go-ahead.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Hi, Manshu.
Himanshu Upadhyay
Yeah, hi. Am I audible?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Yes, please.
Himanshu Upadhyay
You all. Yeah. So my first question was for — if you look at, there are three global brands, Uniball, and POSCA, okay. And with this new manufacturing capacity, do we expect new brand introductions to also happen or it will be the only new product launches in Unipol brand. And what is the thought on launching new brands in India? Because even if we look the recent strategy prep presentation of Mitsubushi, they don’t talk about these jet stream and POSCA in India, but the focus remains China, US and Europe. So some of your thoughts will be helpful. Thank you.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Sure. Hi, so Himanshu, actually see the company name is Mitsubishi company, right? And they have, you know, several brands, I think Uniball is more like an umbrella brand, but they have more than what you mentioned. So apart from Uni, POSCA, Jetstream, they have Signal, they have air, so there are multiple brands. Each brand they follow certain product strategy and technology behind each one of them. So all of these are clubbed under Uniball. So with the joint-venture that we are planning in India, the products could be either under Signal or under jet stream or on the. So is more like a marker brand. So right now we don’t have any plans for marker range, but we are looking at the pen categories in the first couple of years.
Himanshu Upadhyay
Okay. And any dipstick study you have done on what type of potential positioning and marketing you would like to have for the new products from this JV because earlier we were to launch by July end of ’25, I think now it will be Q3. So any thoughts on where we are in these products or on the positioning and marketing and potential type of products.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So see, at the moment, the products that are imported from Japan, the price segment for those products are 50 rupees and above and the strategy for the joint-venture is to introduce same quality of products at slightly lower-price segment, which is going to be just below INR50 MRP. And secondly, our project is on-schedule and it is planned for quarter two operations and launch itself.
Narayan Dujari
So it’s not Q3, so I don’t know, there is some, but it’s Q3. Yeah, Q2.
Himanshu Upadhyay
Okay. Okay. And this is a slightly longer question. But if we look at the company, there are four, five things to be done in next two to years, okay. One is get the right product and price point back from Delhi portfolio and positioning and position Delhi as a large brand. Number two, make 20, IN 30 or 40, these three-product price points, product introduced in Pantonic a success and scale-up. And thirdly, scale products we will introduce in unique brand or new products. And fourth, reintroduction of production link because there we have seen a volume has got impacted. And we stated in the last call that competition has increased in that segment, right? So we need to thwart the competition. And fifth, the exports as a growth and we want to introduce new products in Pantonic brand beyond in writing instruments that can be a six. How are you prioritizing your E&P budgets and sales and marketing teams and are we increasing our bandwidth or some thoughts on that and how — and what are your three priorities, let’s say, I stated six because I was confused, but you can give your priorities and how are you rationalizing your resources, okay? So that was the first thing.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Great question, Himanshu. So see firstly, how our team sales and marketing team is structured is we have separate channel verticals, so general trade, modern trade, exports, e-commerce and so on. At the same time, we have a separate brand verticals. So we have a brand team for Unibol, we have a brand team for Ling, Pentonic, Delhi and so on, right? So we have dedicated brand teams and we have dedicated sales channels so we’ve got and of course we are adding you know a couple of more you know people to the team as well as we have you know plenty of you know opportunities and projects. So the priority of to be frank, is of course, not in all brands and not in all channels, but I would say we are identifying gaps and opportunities for a specific brand in a specific channel or multiple channels right so you know for example if you look at Delhi products. So Delhi products are high-quality and slightly premium. And we feel that — and because of the high-ticket value for deli products, we feel that e-commerce channel is going to have highest opportunity and potential for Delhi. So our focus would be Delhi in e-commerce for next one or two quarters. Similarly, you know, some brands are tacked to you know respective channels wherever we see opportunities. And since we have dedicated brand teams and sales teams, they are working collaboratively to deliver results.
Narayan Dujari
Just to also add that when we started the delay for it, we also realized that we need to equally be present on a slightly lower segment. Hence there is a significant amount of bandwidth and focus which has come on now on station products on the Lincoln and turning side as well. And both will complement each other because they don’t cannibalize each other’s market. There is a channel for slightly different because as Rohit said that for July, we look at e-commerce as a large platform, but for maybe for lower products, yeah, the traditional channels.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Correct. Then yeah. So if you look at — if you look at link pens, for example, which are INR5 MRP or INR10 MRP to actually make them viable on e-commerce, you need to bundle 330, 40 units together to make a ticket size of INR350, INR400 rupees, right? So you know traditional channel is more relevant and strategically we are positioning product as per channels wherever we see opportunities?
Himanshu Upadhyay
Okay. Okay. And see one last question, then I’ll come back-in the queue. This 20 to 40 price point we have introduced product, okay, in Pentonic, but the visibility for the product at the store and from our end also, so it seems less, okay. And it is important for us to scale in the profitability what we have done. So where are we in that journey? And what are the marketing or let’s say, sales priorities for those products in Pentronic brand in this year FY ’26?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Right. So INR20 rupee and above you know price points we are actually you know, focusing on these you know price points and going as we move forward, we are having lot of learnings of learnings. But if you look at BRT and GRT, we have done double-digit growth in FY ’25 as compared to FY ’24, right? So maybe of course, they’re not as per expectations, but we are seeing you know growth and we know we — there are gaps which we are trying to fill as much as possible and we persistently are trying to do that.
Himanshu Upadhyay
Okay. Okay. And no new product introduction in this year.
Operator
Join back the queue please as we have other participants waiting for their turn.
Himanshu Upadhyay
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next few from the line of Suraj from SKP Securities. Please go-ahead. Hello, Surraj kindly unmute your line and go-ahead with your question please.
Suraj Khaitan
Hello, am I audible?
Operator
Yes, can you use your handset mode please? Your audio is not clear.
Suraj Khaitan
Hello?
Operator
Hello, Suraj.
Suraj Khaitan
Hello am I audible?
Operator
Yeah. Please go-ahead.
Suraj Khaitan
So what will be the advertisement expense going-forward as the company is planning to launch new products in the coming financial year.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So we approximately budget about 2.5% to 3% of our top-line as the advertisement and promotion budget, which we are continuing to do so and maintaining that.
Suraj Khaitan
Okay. And which spend category is expected to generate the highest-margin
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Bentonic has about 40% GP. Yeah.
Narayan Dujari
40 plus GP in range of products. So it continues to be that way.
Suraj Khaitan
Okay. And what is the average realization per ton going-forward?
Narayan Dujari
We had a 10% increase this year and going-forward, we expect a similar growth in the average JSP.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
So the average was about 6.21 over the last year, which was up from 5.67 from the previous year. So it’s been a continuous increase. So we — and that’s because largely because of the premiumization effort with the company has been taking. So the share of the premium product is increasing every year. And we expect to continue that trend.
Suraj Khaitan
Okay. And can you please elaborate on the e-commerce UVs and how will it work?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So e-commerce JB just yesterday in our Board meeting we got you know the go-ahead and approval for this joint-venture that we are planning. So we are close to now finalizing our agreements. However, we are looking at a 65 shareholding ratio majority being with Link and yeah so you know it’s going to be a small capital equity initially and we aim to focus actually being a futuristic sales channel. We — the strategy behind this joint-venture was to bring more attention and focus on e-commerce and quick commerce channels. And hence, we took this move to find a partner to help us grow this channel, build this expertise.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
Yeah, I think just this is important because you know the company believes that this channel can really grow, especially the kind of price segment that we are in. And to bring a singular focus on that, you know, it was decided that we kind of by hand with an expert here to drive this channel. And really it’s more of a channel acquisition JV rather than — and it can really propel the growth there, which we all know that e-commerce is the future for the kind of price point that we are into.
Suraj Khaitan
Okay. And sir, last question, what is that.
Operator
Request you to join back the queue please as we have other participants waiting for their turn. Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Rakesh Vadwani from Nine Reverse Capital. Please go-ahead Rakesh, can you please unmute your line and go-ahead with your question, please? Since there is no response, we’ll move on to the next question from the line of Shariya Yaddha from Pinpoint X Capital. Please go-ahead.
Shaurya Yadav
Hello. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes. Please go-ahead.
Shaurya Yadav
Yes, sir. Yeah. Sir, pardon me if my question is repeated. Just wanted to know-how we are looking to increase our presence in makers, highlighters and segment, like what is our right to win here? And sir, like out-of-the total addressable market of INR38,000 crores, how much share like we are targeting in next three to five years?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Sure Sharia for markers and pencils we have already launched a marker brand called Swipe and this we have launched so-far in the Western zone only so we got we got a range of you know permanent markers, whiteboard markers, permanent fine tick markers, highlighters, and we have a couple of more upcoming products under swipe brand and under the markers category. If we look at you know pencils we are launching mechanical pencils and also one or two variants of wooden pencils so again these are being launched as we speak and these are all very recent launches from April last month. so if we look at to address your question of right to win, I think like we have been focused on innovation and differentiation in design with you know best quality products I think we brought similar thoughts and inputs to all the new products that we’re launching. So we’ve got Pentonic mechanical pencil, we’ve got a pentonic SF Pencil. So the product differentiation in design, in packaging and quality and even price segments, to be very frank. I think we feel that there is opportunity because we’ve been late entrants and we are confident that with the output and with the product that we have and we have developed, we will be able to make some inroads and gain some share.
Shaurya Yadav
And sir, like out of our total addressable market, how much we are targeting? I think on the
Sanjeev K Sancheti
On the pens and the masters, I think it’s too early to give a guidance on the market-share that we are — how much of the market-share? Almost entire.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
I think, yeah. I think going — going-forward in next three, two to three years, I think about 50% of the TAM is something that we would be definitely, you know, addressing. That’s the direction.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
Yeah. 15% out of 38,000. Okay. Okay, okay. And sir, what is the difference between cost of production of fans who is having a price point of INR10 and above INR10?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Difference between cost of production or 10 below 10 about 10%, about.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
And just to answer that question, the price doesn’t meaningfully increase.
Narayan Dujari
So as a percentage, I mean the cost of — let me answer the cost of production varies between link and. Within, INR10 ball pan or a 20 rupee ballpan or a INR40 will have the same manufacturing cost as a percentage. So progress link will have a higher than cost and will have a lower — lower manufacturing cost because they enjoy, you have 40 plus 40% plus margin.
Shaurya Yadav
Okay. Okay, sir. Got it, sir. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Rohan Patel from Turtle Capital. Please go-ahead.
Rohan Patel
Yeah. Thanks for this opportunity. Am I audible, sir?
Operator
Yes, sir. I can hear you. Can you use your hands?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Yeah, yes, please.
Rohan Patel
Yeah, sure. Just hello.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Yes, Rohan.
Rohan Patel
Yes. Sure. Yeah. Hi, yeah. So just in to last participant, you said that you are targeting for next two to three years, a market of kept addressing 50% plus of 35,000 total addressable market. So considering you have an aggressive target, plus you have done a lot of initiatives over the last two, two to three years. So seeing from current base of, say, INR535 crore INR48 crores top-line, how will this shape up, say, in next three years considering also how will the margin improve as we are focusing on high-value premium premiumized products.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So like, you know, our projection of growth outlook for next few years would be in the range of 15% to 20% and if we talk about margins.
Narayan Dujari
I think with every 10% increase in the top-line, we will have around 100 bps increase in the EBITDA margin.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
Yeah. So that is our formula, more or less the formula we adopt. It can vary a little bit here and there, but it is more or less in the same region.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Okay. And what happens is because of operating leverage.
Rohan Patel
Okay. Okay. And do you see the working capital intensity to be same or it can increase?
Narayan Dujari
Or I think as far as working capital is concerned, we will again enjoy operating leverage. So, okay, the larger the top-line will have lesser number of days as inventory and debtors will be more or less say.
Rohan Patel
Okay. Yeah. And just to dissect and put a last question in front. So considering all these initiatives, working capital reducing, increasing the margin, operating leverage, so can we see that all the projects that you are taking would be a ROC credit, like what kind of ROC do you target when you bring up such initiatives and payback Peter for saying.
Narayan Dujari
All the all the projects which we have undertaken will be definitely ROC accretive and we benchmark the ROC benchmark for us is that whatever we are achieving right now, it has to be in addition to that. So that is our very well benchmark.
Rohan Patel
Okay. Yeah. So thanks for the opportunity to answer all my questions you. Thank you.
Narayan Dujari
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much. We’ll take our next question from the line of Rakesh Vadwani from Nine Diverse Capital. Please go-ahead.
Rakesh Wadhwani
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, first question with respect to the average realization. We have done very well with respect to the average realization for the pen — in the brand as well as in the Link brand continuously improving. But at the same time, our volumes are not growing. Any reason for that?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So Rakesh, if we see, yes, our overall volume has seen a drop. So if you look at you know, brand-wise so Pentonic volume has grown close to 10%. Unibal marginal, very marginal growth. The drop-in volume is mostly coming from Link brand. So now some of the — some of the reasons is, you know we are — as we are developing a lot of new products and focus being on higher-margin products, we are actually left or it’s actually a cycle. So there is tail products. So when we analyze, we look at products which are really low in volume, we look at products which have very low or negligible margins. So we are basically discontinuing, you know some of those products continuously. So I think that is one of the reasons for the drop-in volumes.
Rakesh Wadhwani
Okay. Sir, is — thank you for the answer. Is there further room for that average realization should increase or now the growth will come from the volumes only in the coming quarters or years?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So no, definitely, if you look at the trend, we wish to maintain the trend in growth of the average utilization.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
So just to answer here a little bit, adding to what is already said is see our focus on premiumization is continuous. So that impact will continue to come at least over the next 15 years till we reach the optimal level of premiumization.
Rakesh Wadhwani
Okay. Okay. The reasons are asked because we are volume — we are doing very well with respect to the realization premium, but that effect is getting nullified with the decline in volume in the revenue. That is the question
Sanjeev K Sancheti
That is what transition issue because we are also getting rid of a bit of a tail. So I think once that stabilized, you will start seeing the growth.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
And this also helps in operational efficiencies. So you hence the strategy, economies of scale, basically.
Rakesh Wadhwani
Okay. And sir, with respect to the export, export sales from the last one or two — one or two year has remained in the same range of INR100 crores for the full-year. What is your thoughts on the export or first of all, why it is flat from the last couple of years? And what is your thought for the coming years? How the growth will come from export?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Sure. So yes, for last two, two, three financial years, years we’ve been quite stagnant some of the you know reasons are basically some countries every year basically you know they go through certain headwinds. So in 2023 two of our top-five countries were very badly hit. One was Sudan because of civil war and second was Myanmar because of you know, political situation as well. So we are constantly endea willing to enter new markets, at the same time grow our baseline in existing markets. So despite losing, I would say, a couple of million dollars from just those two countries, we were still able to grow and maintain — maintain the revenue in exports. And we believe that things will get better and at the same time, we are focusing more on stable markets, stable countries and that’s the roadmap for us.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
Yeah. Yeah, but in-spite of some of these challenges, we will see that in the last financial year, we have still grown literally at the same level the company has grown about 7% to 7% around 7%. We have grown on export. Yes, we’re not happy with that. That and hence the company is focusing on more stable market and hopefully going-forward, we will see better here.
Rakesh Wadhwani
So in the coming — the coming years, the sales growth of export will be aligned with the domestic business. Can we assume that?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
We will come back with a more specific guidance on the next year — in the next quarter, but we — our endeavor is to grow the export market slightly faster than other than the Indian market.
Rakesh Wadhwani
Yeah. Okay, okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. That’s it from my side. Thank you. All the best.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Aradana Jain from B&K Securities. Please go-ahead.
Aradhana Jain
Hi, am I audible?
Operator
Yes. Please go-ahead.
Aradhana Jain
Yes, Siragna. Yeah. Yeah. Just a couple of questions. One, I wanted to understand that last year in FY ’24, the contribution of in the INR10 and above was around 62%. However, if we see this year, it has come down to around 52%. What is the reason for that? When we’ve already gone into the whole premiumization space and our average realizations have increased, then why has the contribution of INR10 and above reduced year-on-year.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
I think we will go into this.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
We’ll get back to you, but I personally think that because there was a value increase in the Link segment last — towards the end of last year, we’ll get back to you on that, but probably that could be a reason. But let me get back to more of that.
Aradhana Jain
Sure. Second, on the — I understand that we are coming out with more stationary products in the Pentonic brand, but what is the roadmap in the Delhi brand? Are we also planning to come out with more stationary based products under that particular brand?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Yeah, so you know, with Delhi we are primarily you know, focusing on office, office stationary you know products and little bit of and some categories within school stationery as well and yes we have a couple of new launches planned for this financial year under Delhi brand.
Aradhana Jain
So in FY ’26, what sort of growth can we expect from the stationery segment, which is, I guess, sub 10% as on-date for us. So do we expect the share of the stationery to maybe rise to, 15% 20% or what is the sort of guidance for FY ’26 and ’27 given that we are launching new products under Pentonic, Delhi, so any thoughts on that?
Sanjeev K Sancheti
I have — we are not guiding for the next year as of now. We will obviously come with the guidance next quarter. But for the medium-term, which we said that our overall growth in the company is expected to be top-line to be 15% to 20%, we believe that the growth in the stationery segment should be outpacing the growth of the company. At this point in time, this is all that.
Aradhana Jain
Okay. Just last question from my end. Any guidance or what is the plan on the capex front for FY ’26 and ’27, given that we have so many things in the pipeline. So are we planning to do a major capex towards anything and what is the status on the modernization facility that we were doing in the facility?
Narayan Dujari
The modernation work which we are doing for a new facility in near Kolkata is progressing quite fast and we expect it to be — get it completed by — we are targeting quarter two, but I think quarter three will be a safe date for the completion, although we are targeting quarter two.
Aradhana Jain
Okay. How much capex have we done?
Operator
I you to join back the queue please as we have other participants waiting. Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Resha Mehta from Green Edge Wealth Services LLP. Please go-ahead.
Resha Mehta
Yeah. Thank you for the follow-up opportunity. So I was asking on the export bit. So what in your assessment has led to China slipping from the top-10 in the global 10 export space.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Difficult you know to say actually this is based out of you know external government you know Dela and it was bit of surprising ourselves.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
So we said this number of times before we actually compared to. This is the data from your complex database, which is a global database which everybody uses
Resha Mehta
HI. No problem. And got it. Okay. And yeah. And what would be our margins in exports? So would it be safe to say that it would be much higher than our company average of 11.5%, 12%?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Yes. So export margins are actually higher than the company average definitely.
Resha Mehta
Got it. And distribution, so if you could just quantify that what is our total reach of that, how much is the direct reach? And also how has been our experience in the non-station stores which we kind of ventured into in the post-COVID era?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Sure. So our active direct reach is roughly around 70,000 to 80,000 outlets. And I would say most of them are stationary outlets. With the non-stationary outlets, the frequency is very, very slow. So we were expecting a monthly you know frequency, but that has, you know, not really happened as per our expectations. So we are we have our team, of course visiting non-stationary outlets based on data that we have so we maintain the frequency you know accordingly but they are just of course they are not, you know not going to be selling big range and big volume, so they are you know, selling a very limited basket, just a couple of SKUs.
Resha Mehta
So of the total 78 minutes, I’ll…
Operator
Request you to get back the queue please as we have other participants waiting.
Resha Mehta
Yeah. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Rakesh Vadwani from Nine Riverse Capital. Please go-ahead Rakesh, we are able to hear you. Please unmute your question.
Rakesh Wadhwani
Yes. Yes, sir. Am I audible now?
Operator
Yes. Please go-ahead.
Rakesh Wadhwani
Thank you, sir. Thank you for the follow-up opportunity. Sir, with respect to the realization increasing continuously, but one point that I’ve observed that the gross margins are not increasing. Just any reason for that? Because in the past, whenever they realize an increase, it was reflected in the gross margin also.
Narayan Dujari
I think the restructuring exercises which we have done will help us in improving the gross margin going-forward. And you are right that till this year we have — we didn’t have much of increase in the gross margin, but the restruction of whatever we are doing is going to come going-forward? And thank you.
Rakesh Wadhwani
And sir, second question with respect to export, are we looking into addition of a new countries or new markets? Are we in discussion with a new distributor which are supplying to new market where we are not there?
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Yes, that’s always ongoing. So there are still some focus or potential countries, markets where we don’t have presence and we are actively looking for distribution partners in them and other remaining countries.
Rakesh Wadhwani
Okay. Okay. That’s it from my side, sir. Thank you and best wishes always.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
Thank you, Rakesh.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, we can take that as the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr Rohit Jalan for the closing remarks. Over to you, sir. Thank you.
Rohit Deepak Jalan
So thank you everyone for joining us today for this investor call of Link Limited for the 4th-quarter and the full-fiscal year. And we are you continuously driving new initiatives, strategic initiatives to deliver maximum shareholder value. And we look-forward to seeing you all again next quarter with much better results. Thank you so much.
Sanjeev K Sancheti
Thanks.
Operator
On behalf of SKP Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect your lines.