ORIENT BELL LIMITED (NSE: ORIENTBELL) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Aug. 05, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Aditya Gupta — Chief Executive Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Suyash Samant — Analyst
Aswath — Analyst
Keshav — Analyst
Moksh — Analyst
Rohit Suresh — Analyst
Gunit Singh — Analyst
Rohan — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, you have been connected to Orient Bell Limited Q1 FY26 earnings conference call. Please stay connected. The conference will begin shortly. Ladies and gentlemen, you have been connected to Orient Bell Limited Q1 FY26 earnings conference call. Please stay connected. The conference will begin shortly.
Aditya Gupta — Chief Executive Officer
Sam it.
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Orient Bell Limited Q1 FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star10.0 on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Suyesh Samanth from Stellar IR Advisors. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Suyash Samant — Analyst
Thank you. Good evening everyone and thank you for joining us today. We have with us today the senior management of Orient Bell Limited Mr. Aditya Gupta, Chief Executive Officer who will represent Orinabad Limited. On the call, the management will be sharing the operating and financial highlights for the quarter ended June 30, 2025 followed by a question and answer session. Please note this call may contain some of the forward looking statements which are completely based upon the company’s beliefs, opinions and expectations. As of today, these statements are not a guarantee of the company’s future performance and involve unforeseen risk and uncertainties.
The company also undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statement to reflect development that occur after a statement is made. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Aditya Gupta. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Aditya Gupta — Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Suresh. Good evening and welcome Everybody for our quarter one FY26 earnings call. As we saw in the last year, demand continued to remain subdued in this quarter as well. High tech end competition has forged a renewed focus on cost saving. There was some reduction of freight internationally resulting in better exports during May and June. However, the three month moving average of exports is still below FY25. Government project execution, gas cost, geopolitical environment and tariff world continue as decisive factors impacting demand across the building and construction industry. At OBL we have continued focus on process and our mission to make time buying easier for the end consumer.
Multiple initiatives have been successfully launched for enriching and enriching the customer’s buying experience. Some of these are launch of an AI based visualization tool to aid our dealers convert walk in. This tool has already crossed a million plus views on Insta and double usage in the activated shops restructured OVTB which is the Orient belt type boutiques operations under two national heads with an objective to drive display of radiation and influencer services to our 385 tight boutiques. A flatter sales structure with greater empowerment on ground and of course new products from our own units and trading partners.
All these have helped us almost maintain Q1 on volume versus last year. However, trade discounting has increased leading to a lower ASP. OVL has registered on net sales of 142.5 crores compared to 147.3 crores in Q1, a drop of 3%. Our gross margins for Quarter 1 FY26 have further improved by 50 basis points and now stand at 36.5%. Tight control on working capital has also helped improve our cash conversion cycle to 33 days versus 35 days in quarter one of last year. Consolidated EBITDA for quarter one FY26 stands at 5.6 crores and EBITDA margins have improved by 60 basis points over last year.
Netbet position also stayed constant at a comfortable 9.5 crores with healthy cash balances. We are still on course towards investing in brand building and continued our TV campaign covering core markets of Northeast and Tamil Nadu. This is helping us grow our brand awareness course. The focus on customer experience and brand building continues to help drive electrified mix which also gained by 2% over last year to reach 58% of our sales. While sales of GVT increased by 1.6% over last year too and now stands at 40.1%. This is now similar to our district year. To summarize, OBL has improved on cost quality, brand awareness, financial health, working capital and gross margins while maintaining volumes and investing for the expected upturn in industry.
With this I would like to open the floor to question and answer. Thank you.
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin with questions.
Aditya Gupta — Chief Executive Officer
Just one more thing. I just wanted to add something. Please.
operator
Yes sir.
Aditya Gupta — Chief Executive Officer
We also pleased to welcome Mr. Anu J Arora who joined us today as the CFO. Anu Julie is based at a corporate office in Delhi reporting to me. He’s a Chartered Accountant with over 23 years of diverse industry experience spanning manufacturing, retail and hospitality sectors. So Anuj, welcome. Anuj is here on this call today. Welcome to you Anuj to Orient. Well thank you so much. Aditya would. This is my previous experience. I try and basically deploy all those process improvements and controls that I have done in my previous organization so that we do a sustained growth in OBN as well.
Thank you so Much. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we are now. We can take Q and A now.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Okay, sir. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may please press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use hand first for asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Ashwath from Arihant Capital. Please go ahead.
Aditya Gupta
Yeah. Sir. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is in terms of. In terms of our volumes and if you could also give us our utilization levels for this quarter.
Aditya Gupta
We are not able to to hear you. Lot of background noise is there.
operator
Please use your handset.
Aswath
Is it any better?
operator
Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Aswath
Yes. My first question is on the utilization. Could we have. What is our utilization plant and the AE facilities. I’ll join back the queue. I’ll join back the queue.
operator
Yes, sir. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Keshav from HDFC securities. Please go ahead.
Keshav
Thank you for the opportunity. We wanted to get a sense on the demands. How has been the demand in July and when you expect the demand to pick up? Like the real estate cycle has been strong which we have been talking. So what is stopping the demand to pick up? And lastly, is it something like unorganized would be gaining market share. How are you reading the market situation?
Aditya Gupta
Thanks, Kishan. The demand was. If you talk about export. I talked about a couple of things which are impacting us. One of them was export volumes. So we saw actually that May 25th was better than May 24th. That is the last month for which auction data is available. Checks in moldy sellers that June was also better. But from July onwards again there is some pessimism in the market because of the U.S. charitable and uncertainty. Almost 7 to 8% of our tile exports. Indian tile exports land up in the us. So we don’t see an immediate recovery in demand.
One silver lining is that more and more units in Malbi are taking shutdown. So our data is that you know in the last three months approximately 39 units have taken shutdown. So to some extent you know the supply is stretch correcting. Though there are some new units also which have come out. And that will also add to our capacity.
Keshav
Okay, got it. But what is the take on the domestic demand? Why is it not yet picking up? If the real estate cycle was strong. So how should we read that is yet to play out. Have play out. How should we read it? Or is it more possibly pushing the volume?
Aditya Gupta
So see movie is also struggling. So I think demand is not as strong as what we thought it would be sense in quarter one across allied sectors. I think I saw some recovery in cement in quarter one. A good recovery, double digit growth. So I think that augurs well for quarter two and quarter three for tiles. Because times basically happens come in the later part of building and construction. Moldy continues to dump stocks as they have been doing in the past. So overall demand in quarter one has been sluggish.
Keshav
Okay, got it. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Primal d’ Souza and retail investor. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hello, good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is, could you please evaluate on Orient belt entry into engineered stone segment. Also do you have any plans to tap the high value potential Gulf market in the future?
Aditya Gupta
So two questions. One is about engineered stone. So we don’t have that product today. What we find is that bulk of engineered stone is going to export that too into the US market. And also not very sure that you would get into this category. However, we do sell an increasing amount of large flats, 6ft by 4ft, 2 and a half feet by 8ft. The volumes of which have been growing nicely. Your second question was about the UAE market and all. So we have historically not been into exports. Export is not a branded play at all.
Exports from India are typically, you know, price like the exports, not. Not brand legend oil and off late for the last two years and all. If you are following this sector closely, you will see that lot of Chinese ceramic players have opened units in the Gulf area and which has further impacted the export potential to cut.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, sir, thank you.
Aditya Gupta
Thank you.
operator
Thank you, ma’. Am. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question please press star and one. Now participants who wish to ask questions may please press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Ashwath from Arihant Capital. Please go ahead.
Aswath
Yeah. Hi sir. Am I audible now? Is it better?
operator
Yes, sir.
Aswath
Okay. So my question is on our margin we have taken a slight hit on margins compared to the industry leader. So I wanted to understand the scenario on the relative basis as I mean are we taking a hit on our PSP or what is exactly happening? Hello.
Aditya Gupta
For a short time and what I understood from a question was that this question was on margin. You said that our margins have been sluggish. Is that what you’re saying?
Aswath
Yes. Yes.
Aditya Gupta
So you are talking about EBITDA margins. I think this is basically where the scale comes into play. The market leader has had much better margins than us and by only time. This is something which plays out in the every industry. The market leader with the benefit of volume and synergies and economies of scale will have a better margin. Just like to point out to you that gross margin historically have been among the best or maybe the second best in the industry. What hurts us is that the operational leverage is not there. The scale of operations is not there.
So if you see this year also our gross margins have improved. So that piece is not really a worry. The bigger piece for us is to get into aggressive volume growth.
Aswath
Okay.
operator
Your voice is breaking.
Aswath
Is it any better now?
operator
Yes, sir, sure. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question please press star and one now. Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Moksh from Arum Capital. Please go ahead.
Moksh
Hello sir, I wanted to ask. Our marketing spends are currently at 3.7% for this quarter. So how are they for the next nine months? Are we planning to increase the marketing search to 5% or we are trying to maintain it.
Aditya Gupta
Can you repeat the question please?
Moksh
Yes, yes. So our marketing spends are currently at 3.7%. So are we planning to increase our marketing spend at maybe 5% for the next nine months or the trends will continue?
Aditya Gupta
I wouldn’t go by a percentage guidance. Percentage is totally dependent on the denominator. So what I would tell you is we have continued investing in branding. We had spoken about this, I think almost one and a half, two years back. And we have been on TV and we also been aggressive on digital and also very aggressive on all our tools. We have taken building OPL brand as a criteria for us. So we continue to do that. Whether it will be, you know, 3.7% or 4% or 3 and a half percent may be difficult to say.
But ballpark, to give you a sense, I think we will be in. And. We’Ll continue to invest in Berlin.
Moksh
Okay. And around what amount are we planning to spend this year?
Aditya Gupta
No, we don’t have that guidance. A lot depends on how the, how the market shapes up and how the demand shifts up.
Moksh
Okay, and what are some levers for your margin improvement? Because I think we are increasing our marketing spends and demand is not that visible for us. So our margins going to stay at for this capacity utilization, this margin going to stay where we are here or is there some scope for margin improvement?
Aditya Gupta
There is as capacity Utilization increases. See, first quarter is always a historically weak quarter for the industry. So as capacity utilization increases, margins would definitely improve. With just one caveat that how gas prices behave is something nobody knows. But at constant gas prices we will definitely see better margins with as capacity utilization improves.
Moksh
Okay. And we saw some shutdowns. I think you mentioned 39 units closed in Modi in quarter one. So are we seeing other trend of shutdowns increasing? Like what do you see? What are you seeing? The current industry scenario in Mordi.
Aditya Gupta
So when I was there last month, generally the move was what pessimistic and not very positive. I heard for the first time in many, many years talks about some Molby units going into npa which is something which one has never heard before. So overall people are cautious. I have not heard, you know, what those 20, 30 odd units which are supposed to come up in H1. One has not heard of many new units being announced for H2 or for, you know, next financial year. So I think there is a question, there is caution in the air.
People are like wanting to wait and watch how the market turns.
Moksh
Okay. And so is the trend of smaller playing players shutting down and the larger plane is being gaining market share. Is there, is this what the industry scenario like goes on or the bigger players, bigger players also shutting down their capacities?
Aditya Gupta
So, so you are talking specific to moldy. So, so yes, units which are shutting down are typically capacity. The units with bigger capacities are able to, you know, get some efficiencies and sell at lower prices. But smaller units are facing the world of the, of the demand. Okay.
Moksh
And, and that is due to. Because demand slowdown domestically and also because of exports not being that export demand not being melted. So it’s like a double RAM for the industry, is it the scenario?
Aditya Gupta
Absolutely. See, I just tell you, see follow. The Ministry of Commerce data shows that, you know, in FY17 there were almost zero exports from off time from India. And from FY17 to say about FY25, we are at about last year we were attached about 1500 crores of exports every month. So from 0 to 1500 crores a month in seven years a huge amount of capacity was added in Bondi. And now with last year exports were down. This year I would say quarter one exports would be flattish or slightly down. So all this capacity is now playing out into the domestic market and displacing demand.
Moksh
Okay, and so the consolidation you expect would take a lot longer time because of the eight years we are seeing this kind of consolidation.
Aditya Gupta
Yeah, see so Judy is still out on this but the talk of npa, you know so many units going under NPA in Morbi there are so far not more taker for these units. Okay, so people are not going after adding too much capacity. As I said earlier, people are being cautious.
Moksh
Okay, okay, that was quite helpful from my side. Thanks for all the explaining explanation of the industry. Thank you.
operator
Thank you sir. The next question is from the line of Rohit from Samaswa Investment. Please go ahead.
Rohit Suresh
Good evening sir. Thank you for the opportunity. So I just got one question. Recently we got into a new segment in the tire DCF segment. So just wanted to know our rationale behind getting into the segment. And what kind of capex are we looking forward to in this segment going forward?
Aditya Gupta
We are not looking at any capex immediately. We are getting this manufactured as specifications from partners. We will evaluate our capex on this as the business goes. Anyway this is not a very capital intensive business. The landscape is that we have a large distribution network and customers need tight additives and other warming chemicals and all. And there was a lot of demand from dealers that this is. As more and more ties are becoming vitrified people are. This is a growing market and it’s a good time to get into it.
Rohit Suresh
Fair enough sir. Thank you so much and all the best.
operator
Thank you sir. The next question is from the line of Gunit Singh from Countercyclical pms. Please go ahead.
Gunit Singh
Hi sir, I would like to understand what’s the current capacity utilization?
Aditya Gupta
Just give me a second. So I think capacity utilization would be about 60% in quarter one.
Gunit Singh
So sir, by when can we expect to achieve optimal utilization levels? And like you mentioned economies of scale. Do we see any margin benefits when we reach the optimal utilization levels? And if so can you quantify what the steady state vector margins can be even if we consider the current, I mean scenario and the current gas pricing? So what kind of EBITDA margins can we expect at the optimal utilization levels?
Aditya Gupta
We don’t give out forward estimates on EBITDA or revenue. But considering that there is a lot of capacity which is available in our own units and our associate units and also given the fact that we do not have any major capex which is planned in the future, margins would definitely improve with capex utilization. Our costs are all fixed costs and as I said we have very healthy gross margins. So EBITDA would only go up.
Gunit Singh
All right, so I mean it’s fair to assume that we have a revenue potential of thousand crores. So what are the main constraints that you’re seeing currently, because we are seeing, is that the real estate has been doing well. And so, I mean what are the main constraints for ramping up and by when do you expect to ramp up to optimal utilization levels?
Aditya Gupta
You say real estate is doing well, but at the same time we have most of the building and construction industries not doing too well over the last one one and a half years. So that itself is a quandary. It somehow doesn’t make sense. And I think Tiles is suffering from the same problem. The biggest problem I think we have talked about the demand scenario and also I don’t want to repeat that from an oriental perspective. I think our problem has been that we were historically very heavily dependent on ceramics. There was a time when 65, in the recent past that 65%, 70% of our volume was coming in from ceramics.
And while we have been gaining on vitrified and GBT for the last one and half years. But the loss on the ceramic tiles has kind of eaten away to the benefit that we have had of this GBT growth. Now the way things are, we are ceramic and GBT are kind of similar with the industry peers. So that negative drag on our, on our volumes is now much lesser than what it was say last year or a year before. And we have also added capacity for GBT where we have significant upsides on capacity utilization. You said thousand crores.
I think I would put it at closer to, of revenue capacity is available to us today if I also take into account our associated entities.
Gunit Singh
All right, sir, got it. So I mean, so if we just compare year on year. So you are saying that the conditions look a bit better as compared to last year. Also in your experience of being in the industry for the past many years, decades, can you say that this is likely cyclically amongst, I mean the slowest periods that you’ve witnessed or I mean where would you place the current demand scenario and the current, I mean margin scenario when it comes to your industry?
Aditya Gupta
Yeah, I would agree with that. I think it is a very slow time, much slower than what it has been in the last seven, eight years that I have been seeing this industry. But we all know that real estate has always been a technical industry and we have been kind of facing subdued demand and all for the last few years. The good thing is that new capacity addition in Murbi is something which is, which is really slowing down. So it’s only a matter of time where there is increasing shutdowns of multi unit, the older units and not too much of new Capacity coming in is going to turn the tide in our favor.
Gunit Singh
All right sir, got it. Thank you very much. Join the queue.
operator
Thank you sir.
Aditya Gupta
Thank you.
operator
The next question is from the line of Rohan from RAS Capital. Please go ahead.
Rohan
Sir. Good evening. My question is regarding is, has there been price cuts in this quarter due to the environment that we operate in compared to last quarter and if yes, then we have since seen an increase in the gross margin. So what would be the reason for that?
Aditya Gupta
So yes Rohan, there have been price cuts. As I mentioned in my opening statement our average selling price is lower than what it was and bulk of that is because of more aggressive discounting. To your second question, why our gross margins are better? I think our gross margins are better because of very frugal manufacturing and other competition we have spent on marketing. Yes, we continue doing that. We had TV campaigns on in the first quarter of this year but our wastage and our control on manufacturing costs have been very, very tight which has helped us give better gross margin.
Rohan
Right, okay. And going forward would you say that operating margin will kick in because you said capex also is very low. So if the demand is to pick up in the next quarter or so, what are your thoughts on that?
Aditya Gupta
Absolutely, because as I said Capex, there’s no big Capex which is coming forward which is going to happen this year. We have available capacity and as demand picks up or the even on block margins such as margins directly flowing to ebitda.
Rohan
Okay sir, and just one more question with that going into the financial, just based on your experience and the information you have, what is your analysis of the next few quarters to come from one from an industry point of view and second also how it’s going to impact Oriental and the position we are in. You obviously said what’s happened so far and in model and with Oriental but I just wanted to get an understanding of the industry and Oriental as a whole in the next quarter or so. I was expecting it would only get better from here but just wanted to understand from here.
Aditya Gupta
You know in today’s world to try to predict something one doesn’t is a very very dangerous business. One speed changes everything. I, I think what I felt is that there are some positives which are, which are being seen. I talked about it, I talked about you know, capacity addition at moldy or even the, the established players and all. I think capacity addition has slowed down dramatically. That’s mid term positive for the industry. Indian ties are technically as good as any other country and at a fraction of cost of what other Countries charge. So I think once this tire thing kind of gets cattle, you can several towns, it will restart the flow of time.
I mentioned earlier that May 25 was better than May 24, as per the official data and sentiment is that June was also better than June 24th. So I think a lot of stuff is happening which is a structural positive for the industry and at Orient Bell, because a couple of things that we have been doing, we are very tightly focused on end consumer experience. We have a very tight leash on our costs historically and we are making investments on brand and distribution. So I think we are well positioned to kind of the market turns for the budget.
Rohan
Okay, sir. And also welcome to the new cfo. So is he on the call today?
Aditya Gupta
He is on the call, but he’s not going to take any questions. He just joined us three hours back.
Rohan
My only question was going to be what is maybe the top two things that’s the top priority at the moment for the CFA to come and take charge of? What is your view of that you would like him to take over the top couple priorities.
Aditya Gupta
I haven’t had that discussion with him yet, so I think he’s extremely unfaithful. Kind of have this discussion on this call, but I think next quarter Anuj will definitely answer this question for you.
Rohan
Thank you so much.
operator
Thank you, sir. The next question is from the line of Ashwath from Arihant Capital. Please go ahead.
Aditya Gupta
Your line was very bad. Maybe you can just ask one question at a time and I’ll tell you after it.
Aswath
Yes. Are you audible? Can you hear me now?
Aditya Gupta
Yes. Yes, I can.
Aswath
Okay, so. So I’ll just go one by one. Number one is in terms of what is our strategy for year two and tier three markets since we have decent capacity in ceramics. And as far as some channel checks are concerned, as far as some channel checks are concerned, we have had. We have had talks of ceramic being still in demand there in tier 2 and tier 3 markets. So is that true? 1. And what is our strategy going forward?
Aditya Gupta
What we asked for strategies specifically on ceramics. So what we have done is this year is we have. We have decided on a few sizes on ceramics, which we are much more aggressive on. We are aggressive on these sizes in terms of new product development, we are aggressive in terms of filling up distribution gaps. We are aggressive on pricing on this. So that has. Volumes have done better than what we expected in quarter one. So this strategy seems to be working for us. And you are right, this is more of a tier two play and.
But not just Tire two I think tire two and tire three play. And we are expanding our distribution, we are expanding our display for 20 in these areas.
Aswath
Yeah. My second question is on the dealer inventory right now and what is your outlook on what is happening right now? Any update?
Aditya Gupta
I think you had asked this last time. Also the dealer inventory is my senses is lower than what? Two things are playing on dealer’s mind. One is that there has been steady erosion in the selling price by manufacturers so they don’t want to keep. Second thing is they also seeing a very rapid change in now there are so many ties, so many sizes which are available that the dealer is finally very difficult to predict which one will sell and all. So the way is Shivaji himself is like trying to reduce his inventory. You have full body tiles.
You know, we are selling full body tiles in three different technologies, for example. And so is everybody else in the industry. So very difficult for the dealer to kind of what will sell and what will not sell. Okay, so they are, they are just squeezing down on energy, you know, buy. Buy stocks and then not pay the manufacturer till they have sold the company.
Aswath
Okay, sir, and any quantification on the ASP or if not a number, has it been stable, has it grown, has it grown over the quarter or. And what is our outlook on the GM going forward?
Aditya Gupta
See, as I said, we have, we have had sluggish volume. So that 3% which you see is largely coming out of. Almost everything is coming out of ASP and ASP has gone down because we have, we have been kind of matching the market on discount.
Aswath
Okay, sir, got it. And we have done decent spends in the southern market, if I’m not wrong on our marketing chant. So have you seen any traction in volumes in that market?
Aditya Gupta
We are seeing some traction, some slow traction is there, but it is even taking time because south is. South is one market where the downstocking of dealers is more visible. But we have seen traction.
Aswath
Okay, and so going forward on our marketing spends, would it be on similar lines or what would our strategy be?
Aditya Gupta
We did 2012% of revenues, so I think we are committed to kind of spending in that range. Difficult to give out because I don’t know what the denominator will turn out to be, but we are totally committed to investing in building up bland obs through tv, through digital and through digital media and through our digital tools.
Aswath
Okay, got it. And sir, in terms of now, given this work capacity, assuming that this does not go down as soon, how do we, how do we see to tackle this problem altogether? Do we continue with the ASP front or do we ramp up our volumes? What would be our outlook ahead? Now see.
Aditya Gupta
There is an industry level issue on capacity. There is not much which OBL can do about it. Our internal strategy is to ramp up our volumes. We are differentiating our products. We are strengthening our brand. We are strengthening our distribution network. We are just strengthening our product. I mentioned sometime back how over the last few years we have kind of moved from a 35% vitrified listing to almost 55 60% vitrified sale. So all of this is happening. Our products are much more current than what they used to be. Our marketing is more visible. I investment on displays are bigger and better.
So all of these things are just to drive good volume. Ultimately we have to gain market share from competitor.
Aswath
Okay, sir. Thank you.
operator
Thank you, sir. As there are no further questions from the participants I now hand the conference over to Mr. Aditya Gupta. Sir, for closing comments.
Aditya Gupta
Thank you everybody. Thank you for being part of the call and look forward to hearing from you all in the next quarter. Thank you.
operator
Thank you, sir. On behalf of Orient Bell Ltd. That concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.