Note: This is a preliminary transcript and may contain inaccuracies. It will be updated with a final, fully-reviewed version soon.
Somany Ceramics Limited (NSE: SOMANYCERA) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated May. 15, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Abhishek Somany — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Analysts:
Navin Agrawal — Analyst
Sneha Talreja — Analyst
Keshav Lahoti — Analyst
Rahul Agarwal — Analyst
Love Gupta — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Somani Ceramics Limited’s Q4, FY26 and 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 management’s opening remarks. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by by pressing Star then zero on your touchton phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over.
Navina Agarwal Head Institutional equities and SKB securities Ltd. Thank you. And over to Mr. Agrawal.
Navin Agrawal — Analyst
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. It’s my pleasure to welcome you on behalf of Somani Ceramics and SKP Security to this financial results conference call. We have with us Mr. Abhishek Somani, MD and CEO Mr. Srivatha Somani, Head Pathway and Mr. Selish Shraj Kidawat, CFO. We’ll have the opening remarks from Mr. Sumani followed by the Q and A session. Thank you and over to you Mr. Somani.
Abhishek Somany — Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I hope I’m audible because I could hear a little bit of disturbance at the organizers end. So just to take you through the quarter and the year and I’m sure there will be many questions later for the current scenario specifically due to the ongoing geopolitical reason. So as far as the quarter is concerned the domestic demand saw gradual improvement during January. In fact on account of increased domestic demand reducing the pressure on From. Reducing the pressure from exports.
So there was a little bit of a recovery in January and Feb. Obviously March was a very aberration month because of the various circumstances which played out overall if you see the exports did increase from last year it would have touched about 18,000 crore but for the industry. But it got stopped at 17 and something because 17,000 and something crores because of the March outage where nothing really went or sailed in March. Gas price as you all know has increased very significantly. Which we can talk about that.
I’m sure there will be a lot of question answers around that. As far as we’re concerned sales growth has been about 6% in Q4 and 5% for the entire year. Slightly better than last year. EBITDA improved quite significantly 2% in Q4 and about a percent in the entire year. So battery utilization was largely flat from approximately 80% to 79% so that is largely flat. Of course in the quarter it improved to 82% but otherwise it’s been largely flat. Max plant. That’s good news there that we almost did a breakeven at Matchplant Correspondent quarter last year, same quarter of Q4 the loss was about 9 CRS.
So from that we’ve been able to break even Max. So that’s as far as capacity utilization is concerned for the year to at about 79%. Sales came in with a 4.8% growth and a 6% growth like I mentioned 5% and a 6% growth like I Mentioned. EBITDA for the year is 9.3 and for the quarter was 11.4. If you see the tile volume we have increased our GVT sales by 3% and there’s been a reduction in the ceramic and PVT by 3%. Correspondence Sanitary ware has done fairly well. We’ve grown by an 8% for the entire year and we have closed the figure at 320 crores up from 296.
And this year we’ve taken a very aggressive target, a very aggressive double digit target. Gas pricing overall before the war broke out was pretty much constant. There was no major changes in the gas prices. Rupee here or rupee two basically based on the rupee dollar conversion and after that obviously it has gone up very significantly as far as our business is concerned. Our brand spend has been about 2% for the year. We got rid of the superstar and therefore it’s slightly lower because of that reason.
Working capital we’ve done fairly well. It’s marginally lower by four days to nine days. We’ve had a very good data collection. We have. That particular figure is at 40 days down from 51 days and 38 days on a standalone basis the net dealer addition has been very strong this year we’ve added net new additions of 200 dealers across India taking the total dealer showrooms to about 3,100. So that has increased in a very significant way. Now for the guidance. Now the caveat is that no further shocks geopolitically but otherwise our guidance is to improve EBITDA margin from here by at least a percent and a half or more.
Brand spends will also go up a little bit although in percentage terms we will maintain it as we have taken aggressive growth on our top line growth and the value of growth input cost increase currently has been passed on to an extent and we can talk about that in the Q and A. This is as far as our highlights are concerned. I would leave a lot more time, which we normally wouldn’t do. We would give you a complete synopsis of where we are and what we are. But I’m sure there will be a lot of Q and A for you for the current situation.
But overall we are happy. This whole situation, the old saying that somebody’s loss is somebody’s gain. I think as far as the industry is concerned, the branded players, the organized players are to gain from this disruption, provided there’s no further disruption in this regard. So we are to gain from this disruption because a lot of the capacity in Morbi shut down and everybody is now buying from the same source of gas, unlike earlier times where they were buying LPG and propane and that over in cash and various other sources.
So this is again a positive for the industry. And the other positive for the industry is that our pricing has been narrowed between the small scale unorganized players and the branded players. So overall, I hope this discipline continues. If it does, then there will be definitely better days for the tile industry. So that’s the highlights for from last year. And I would now leave the floor for Q and A.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchdown telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and do. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles participants. You must star and one to ask the question. The first question is from the line of Sneha Tal Reja from Nuama Wealth Management.
Please go ahead.
Sneha Talreja
Hi, good evening sir and congratulations on people. Strong balance sheet improvement. The first question is related to receivable days itself coming down and working capital coming under negative. How sustainable is this improvement and where can we see the numbers in 27
Abhishek Somany
So receivable days? Once you get it down, then you start monitoring a lower number. So we hope that receivable days remain around the same area. It may increase a day or two, but we would want to manage it in the same area. As far as working capital is concerned, a lot of our stock, which you may not see going down here, but a lot of the stock from our outsourced vendors have gone down substantially, which makes a lot of difference in the number of days. So that puts less pressure. And even from our own plant point of view, a lot of the old stock, the over 180 days stock and et cetera, some other stock which Was not so saleable, got sold during March.
So that’s again a big relief. And again once the stock levels are at particular level we start monitoring and learn from mistakes. So we should be able to control this. I don’t know from a sustainability point that. So it’s a question mark because currently we’re seeing that there’s been a delayed response to price increases in April. So April was a better month for us but nothing great from the point of view of such large price increases. People take time to absorb labor was also not there. So let’s see the net is that the tile is a product which will not go, will not be fungible with another flooring or raw material.
So there will be a pent up demand even if it’s a delayed demand. So we are running plant at 100% capacity. In the interim it may go up. But finally, let’s not forget that one month or 40 days of stocks have gone out of the Indian market. So that will come back. And like I said, this is not going to be replaced by a marble or a stone or a wood or anything else. So good days to come in future.
Sneha Talreja
Understood sir. Secondly, when you of course mentioned the April month and how is it going at this point of time with price increases, what I wanted to understand was can we break up Jan and February March? Just want to see how was the demand panning out in Jan and Feb Excess crisis. You did mention some amount of improvement happening. Just wanted to understand how would have been the volume growth in Jan Feb.
Abhishek Somany
Yes. So if you remember even in the last call I mentioned which was in January, that December being a very very heavy month and we pushed a lot of material in December. Jan normally would have taken a dip but we grew at decent single digits in Jan and also in February. So from that point of view we did see some uptake for us in March also we didn’t push too much material first. We wanted to move the material of the vendors first from our non joint venture vendors because there was a chance of they increasing their prices in April and that would be on us.
So therefore our focus was to remove that stock in March. Also we did not really overtly dump material. So Jan Feb decoupled from March we saw decent growth considering December was a very heavy month.
Sneha Talreja
Understood. And lastly on gas pricing, could we get your north, south and west pricing for Q4 and how is it at this point of time?
Abhishek Somany
Neha, Q4 would not be of any significance because from 9th of March it shot up. So like I mentioned that if it was not for the war. Then the Q4 prices were pretty much tender to Q3 other than the rupee dollar small movement. Right. So there was no significant increase had it not been for March. So if you can clarify, what do you want me to tell you? I mean the current price, the gas prices.
Sneha Talreja
Yeah. I mean both would be actually appreciated even if considering the March impact or just a per MSM pricing that you are getting at this. I mean for SEM prices that you have in north, south and west
Abhishek Somany
For Q4.
Sneha Talreja
Yes, for Q4 as well as the current one.
Abhishek Somany
I mean current is so extremely volatile that I’ll come to that may be a larger debate, a larger discussion. But otherwise if you see if I give you. You know what, let me give you an average Q4 is largely flat as it not been for the March last 15 days. So let me give you the FY26 and FY25 prices because that would give you a better idea. Right. Q4 I’ll go to Q4. Qasar was in the mid 40s range and in Q4 it was 48. Modi was in the again in the mid 40s range it was 46. In south it was 55. In Q5 it went down to 50 rupees in FY26.
So if you see mid 40s and one was 50. So largely common. But if I see the whole year pricing it was 43 from Q5 for the north it went up to 45. For the west it was 48 and 48. For the south this was 51 and 51. So absolutely flat.
Sneha Talreja
Understood. Got that. Sir,
Abhishek Somany
This is. Let me clarify only glass pricing. It has nothing to do with our other fuels which we use. Such as biofuels. Yes, biofuels. Correct.
Sneha Talreja
And what portion of your fuel usage would be biofuel in case you can get that we’ll get to know the benefit. Also
Abhishek Somany
It’s the same as last year. Nothing has changed over two years. It’s identical to what we were using. We’ve not moved any other plant to biofuel. I don’t have the numbers off my cuff as to exactly how much is percentage of the biofuel versus cashes.
Sneha Talreja
Understood. And lastly in case I can. I know I’ve taken time in in terms of more B, what are we currently using and what would be the gas pricing currently only for more B versus let’s say on north plant. Just want to understand that big differential.
Abhishek Somany
Yeah. So the MODI pricing is currently for May the pricing is 74 rupees plus 6%.
Sneha Talreja
Okay.
Abhishek Somany
I think it’s 74.1 or 74.2, something like that. Plus 6% is the pricing for more B. And we are using GSPC gas and we have been using GSPC for the last so many years. We didn’t move to propane or LPG any which way.
Sneha Talreja
And north would be how much? Average means
Abhishek Somany
North would be about 3, 4 rupees cheaper.
Sneha Talreja
Got that? So thanks, thanks a lot sir and all the very best.
Abhishek Somany
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Dhavneet Soundla from Samla family office. Please go ahead.
Keshav Lahoti
Hi sir, my first question is with regards to the current scenario. Is there a particular point wherein we think that it’s probably not feasible for us to, you know, reduce the tire because our margin much, much higher than what it would usually do. And secondly, considering the current scenario as the base if it wasn’t there and how much kind of an upside, we were looking at the 27 number.
Abhishek Somany
So like I said, we didn’t upset on the 27 number. 27 number we should be able to get a decent single digit growth in terms of volume value. Obviously prices have gone up, so very difficult to say how much the prices will stay and when the gas prices go down, whenever it goes down, prices will go down. So difficult to give you a prediction on the value number. But otherwise volume will be in a single, very decent single digit for the tile business, for the sanitary wear and adhesive business would be in very healthy double digits.
Keshav Lahoti
Okay, and about the first thing that is there a point which have you done any study or analysis on? There’s a point wherein it doesn’t work for us to, you know, function the factory because the cost of gas has gone up so hard and we are not able to pass on the cost.
Abhishek Somany
Yeah. So I think what you are trying to understand is where is a tipping point to increase in price beyond the point where, you know, if you’re not able to increase the price and pass it on then we cannot run the plant? Is that what your question is?
Keshav Lahoti
Yes, yes.
Abhishek Somany
The last two years is that the gas, the prices have gone down fairly significantly over the last two years by about 15 to 20%. So about three to four rupees, maybe actually five to six rupees. The prices went down in the last two years. So today even after the price increase we are pretty much at the historic price which was there two years ago. So from that point of view there has not been a very inflationary change. As far as the builder is Concerned or as far as the customer is concerned, he was taking advantage of this over the last two years.
So I think tile still being the most cheapest material for the flooring and wall. Like I mentioned, there is no alternative to a tile. So I doubt there would be that situation where it won’t be viable to run the factory. Obviously the caveat is that the, the zoomsday war doesn’t, you know, come up. Like if oil jumps up to a $200 or something like that, that I can’t envisage. But at the current scenario I don’t see the factory shutting even if it had to go up by 10, 15%.
Keshav Lahoti
Okay. Okay, thank you. Just a small additional question. Like you spoke about the bathware and the sanitary wet action. Is it fair to say that since we have certain volumes coming from that segment, we are getting a little bit more traction than probably a pure play tile player would? Or we are actually better able to mitigate this crisis because we have some additional value added thing which is probably giving us a little bit more margin than a proper tile player would.
Abhishek Somany
Yeah, so more from the category gives us better margin and we are able to accelerate that growth because we are growing with the same dealership so I don’t have to make new relations. And only 25% of our current dealers are dealing in San our sanitary wear. So that’s the scope, that’s the headroom which we have to accelerate our sanitary wear business
Keshav Lahoti
And hence the double digit growth expectations.
Operator
Thank you. A request to all the participants. Kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant and rejoin the queue for a follow up question. Next question is from the line of Shruti Mulchandani from Ikki Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Sneha Talreja
Hi. Am I audible?
Rahul Agarwal
Yes, please go ahead.
Sneha Talreja
Hi sir. Thank you so much for the opportunity and congratulations for the good start of Nandeg. So I just wanted to check that. You know we have been hearing that Modi has started to get some gas supply from 1st of May and it’s been 15 days now. So just wanted to check the status of how the plants are running. Is there some uptake in the operating out of Movi? And what’s the average capacity utilization of Mozi that has been. Or do you expect it to increase in Q1?
Abhishek Somany
Yes. So yes, you’re absolutely right. From 1st of May they’ve all got gas. There’s enough gas being supplied to moldy and 74 rupees plus tax which I mentioned to Sneha. The situation currently in Murbi is that whoever has started up is facing a little bit of challenge with labor. There’s a major, major, major labour shortage in Morbi as a result of that. As we speak today, approximately 60, 65% of Modbi is up and running. And I believe by the end of this month the number would reach about 85%. So 85% or more we would start running to capacity.
The balance 10 to 15% I don’t think will run ever. My guess is they would shut down. If they can’t run now where everybody is passed on prices, I doubt they will be able to run their plants because they are extremely inefficient. So every time somebody increases prices, an inefficient plant has to increase that much more which is anyway not being absorbed by the market. So. So if you see what is happening in Morebi, Morbi has increased prices by about 30 35% which means that the organized players have increased prices about 16 or 17% because we were that much more expensive than Mobi.
So in percentage terms our increase is lesser versus theirs. So with that kind of a sharp increase they are having trouble facing demand. Demand is weak currently like I mentioned earlier in the call that people are waiting, general sentiments are down. Plus the labor is not there for putting the tile. Therefore we believe that the demand will come in as a pent up demand like we had after Covid. It could come by this month end or in June but it will come in because tile does not have any alternate.
Plus there has been a 40 day gap which is pretty much an entire year’s growth has gone off the grid which cannot be made up. So I believe that MODI it will be a very testing time for them post July as to whether they will be able to hold their plants running with expensive gas and filing of stock. So if demand doesn’t come back in June in a very very significant way, Mordi will be troubled. In fact as far as we are concerned also maybe a couple of our plants we may have to shut down due to stock.
But overall we are currently running at 100% capacity as we speak.
Sneha Talreja
Okay sir, this was very helpful. So like you said that you are operating 100% utilization. So is this across the plants like in the country or is this specific to Mozi?
Abhishek Somany
No, it’s across the country. There are certain plants which we had taken decisions to shut down in terms of our product mix. So there are a couple of kills which are down which we do not consider in our. It’s there as far as our capacity. But when we say 100 we’re not considering that. So other than those non value added kills, everything else is running across the country at 100%.
Sneha Talreja
Understood, sir. And sir, given that 30% of your capacity of 75 million comes from outsourcing and like you just mentioned, that more weave is troubled and it can face some challenges of demand or the price hike absorption does not take place very well. So will we expect some deterioration in your volume growth in the outsourcing part as well? In fact seven and that can be covered up by your own and JV plants.
Abhishek Somany
Yeah. So currently the couple of plants which had gone down and we were not getting material, we’re building our stocks there. But I don’t think we would have that much of an issue because our plants are generally OEM plants and they are OEMG to other large manufacturers. So chances are that they would keep running unless demand has an issue with some other geopolitical issues. But otherwise these plants which we were facing volume issues in April because there were four or five plants which we were buying our material from and they had no material to give us that will come back in May in terms of material availability.
But yes, we are keeping a watch. I doubt there would be that situation for the plants which are these OEM plants for large organized players.
Operator
Thank you Shruti. I’ll request to come back for a follow up question. A request to all the participants. Kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant. Next question is from the line of Keshav Gar from Counter Cyclical pms. Please go ahead.
Love Gupta
Firstly, I wanted to congratulate you for great numbers and rock solid balance sheet and great job on working capital too. So now going by your commentary it seems that going forward we are set for revenue growth in somewhere in the mid-20s. Because if we take roughly 15% price hike and add roughly high single digit volume growth then that’s where we reach around mid-20s kind of revenue growth. So is that understanding correct?
Abhishek Somany
Yes. If the prices remain at current levels and anywhere between 20 and 25% would be the revenue growth. Obviously if the prices if the gas prices towards the end of the year had to crash back to original levels, I can’t predict that in that case the prices will obviously drop. So if you factor that into consideration, then I don’t know what it will be. But at a steady state you’re absolutely right.
Love Gupta
Margins should like you Already mentioned, from 11.5 we can probably go to low teens kind of margin or even mid teens kind of margins.
Abhishek Somany
I am talking about margin improvement from the 9.8%, 9.3% base to improve it by 150 bps and more.
Love Gupta
Okay, understood sir. And sir, lastly sir, now the market leader has announced a share buyback of 300 crore. And for our stock is also at 2015 levels and our balance sheet is far more stronger. We are almost debt free. So don’t you think it’s an opportune time to do a share buyback?
Abhishek Somany
Unfortunately we are consolidating some of our JV compensation only owned subs and therefore there is an embargo from Sebi. We can’t do a share buyback for the next six eight months. But we’ll see after that as to how the war progresses. But currently we can’t do it for that reason and therefore the promoters kept in before the trading window shut to buy some stock.
Love Gupta
Great sir, thank you very much and best of luck.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Keshav Lahoti from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Keshav Lahoti
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Going forward this year should be a good year for organized player as you highlighted, you know Murby is also shutting down the operation and possibly Modi was shutting as well. So possibly the organized player can gain market share. Ideally April should have been a good month because Mori was shut. But your commentary has been. April has been a bit on the slow side. By slow you mean April. The volume has declined.
Abhishek Somany
So April has been slow for two, three reasons. A we did not get quite a large portion of our material which we normally would have bought from Morgan because those plants were shut, our volumes did not cater up. So that was one reason which we had no handle over. Other than that we had a price increase of approximately 15 17% and more be of 30%. So consumers take a while to absorb this kind of price increase. Thirdly, we have dumped a lot of material as an industry, not Somali. But lately as an industry a lot of material got moved to the dealers and the dealers were also cautious.
They didn’t want to get stuck with higher value material in case the war had to stop and the prices had to go down. It was their fear. Obviously an unfounded fear. But there’s only so much you can explain to them. So they also doubled down on removing their stock. So all of these three reasons, April was kind of a. For us it was a little bit for growth but it wasn’t a flat month. But normally April it was. Let’s put it this way, it was like a normal April with a little bit of growth. So I don’t know about my competition, but we had a little bit of growth.
So very happy about that.
Keshav Lahoti
And one last question from my side. It would be fair to assume whatever the gas price hike and other price hikes might be seen because of this inflationary situation, entire hike, entire, you know, cost inflation is passed on so nothing will hit our margin. That is a fair assumption. And secondly, you know, when you take a 10, 15% price hike, possibly if you let’s say the 15% price is taken to pass on the entire cost inflation, in a way the margins get diluted in a percentage. Now maybe not on first basis, how can we rate?
Abhishek Somany
I mean we have taken almost an entire price increase. I mean there is obviously something which you absorb as far as projects are concerned. But if you discount the project, which is approximately a 17, 18% business for us where we have been able to pass on about 85% of the cost, but in the retail we have been able to pass on 100% of the cost.
Keshav Lahoti
Got it.
Operator
Thank you. Thank
Keshav Lahoti
You.
Operator
Next question is from the line of Nilesh Sharma from Anantas Tycon Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Keshav Lahoti
Thank you so much sir. And any congratulations for graduate. My question is that you have achieved the max plan.
Operator
Sorry to interrupt you but the audio is breaking in between. Can you please come in a better reception area and speak from the handset?
Keshav Lahoti
Yeah. Okay.
Operator
So can you ask me your question?
Keshav Lahoti
Yeah. So my question is that at Somani Max plant where we achieve the break even. So is it sustainable or is it one of tailwind or more be disruption that supported us?
Abhishek Somany
No, in fact in Somali max we keep breakeven and if you see our inventory going up a reasonable amount is also due to Somanimax because we produced more and we’ve put more material in Sumanimax when we put the new press. So Sumanimax is clearly sustainable. Last year the entire loss of Sumanimax was down by 6 crores from it was 27 crores last to last year and it went down to 21 crores. And we believe what we had said in the beginning of the year that this loss will be under 10 crores or maybe a break even.
We have yet to see that. But substantial improvement in Somanimax and next year, if not next year, next year it will be in positive.
Keshav Lahoti
Okay. Utilization level will be required for Somanimax to deliver EBITDA margin.
Abhishek Somany
Put in that investment of crores to make the utilization level better in Somali max by putting the press. Absolutely right.
Keshav Lahoti
Sorry sir, I didn’t get you.
Abhishek Somany
The utilization Level improve. We had put in that press to make sure that we utilize the money banks to the fullest. So that’s going as per plan.
Keshav Lahoti
Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Participants asked strictly requested to limit yourself to two questions per participant and rejoin the queue for a follow up. Next question is from the line of Anubhav Goyan from Cosmon Ventures. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Hi sir. Congratulations on the margin and the max plan breakeven this quarter. So you said 85% of Morbi should come back by the end of this month. So this means 85% of those 550 units which used to run on propane should be back on gas maybe end of this month.
Operator
Yes.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, sir. And so most of these units who must have made us switch from propane to gas. So our pricing in Morbi will be the same versus them at this 74 plus 6.
Abhishek Somany
Yes, yes. The source is exactly the same. Everybody is getting from a single source which is gspc. And price movement upwards or downwards would be common to everybody.
Unidentified Participant
Okay, got it. So our price is the same. Okay. And so for north plant, can you give some color on what is the pricing currently? Like you mentioned this for Marvi,
Abhishek Somany
North plant is a couple of rupees cheaper. It’s for about four or five rupees cheaper. Because we have different formulas in the North Plant versus GSPC. But it’s largely the same. I mean that 7778 in the. What is it? 74 plus 478 is the price for Murali and about 7374 price is for the top plant.
Operator
Thank you. Anubhav, I’ll request you to come back. Next question is from the line of Varun Jalasuria from 361 Capital. Please go ahead.
Keshav Lahoti
Yeah. Hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity. So I just wanted to understand. For this quarter we did a 2% volume growth. You know, whereas our competitors, we have done a double digit volume growth. Even some smaller competitors have also done higher volume growth. Even our realization has not grown to their extent. So just wanted to understand like you know what happened in our case like why we could not achieve that kind of growth.
Abhishek Somany
We focused a lot of volume growth towards our non JV partners. There was a lot of inventory lying there. I didn’t want them to price me at a higher price. So we focused there. Our inventory we kept for sale in April because prices were further going to go up in April. And this was material which was made at older pricing. As far as realization is concerned, I think Your figures are wrong. We have improved our realization by six rupees over last year.
Keshav Lahoti
No, sir, I’m just so. If you speak on Q1Q like compared to competitors we have grown, you know, around 0.2%. Whereas, you know, they have grown around 1.8%. Right. That’s where I’m coming. You
Abhishek Somany
Mean the EBITDA margin?
Keshav Lahoti
Sorry?
Abhishek Somany
You mean the EBITDA margin?
Keshav Lahoti
No, I’m realization per MSM
Abhishek Somany
Realization. Overall, it matters as to what kind of stocks you sold, what kind of product which you sold. So obviously the fact that I’ve sold more of my non JVs and my outsourced material, that’s obviously cheaper material. But overall, if you see in the year I have increased my realization by 6 rupees and my stock is down by about 2.5 million square meters which is down by about 15 days over the year. So it was a strategic move to sell the non JV material first. Because they would have immediately priced it in April and asked me for a higher price for a material which they produced at a cheaper rate.
Keshav Lahoti
Okay. And sir, on the margin guidance you mentioned around 10.8 for the next year, right? That’s what you are targeting?
Abhishek Somany
Yeah,
Rahul Agarwal
Or better.
Operator
Thank you, Varun. I’ll request to come back. Next question is from the line of Anupalak from Anurvati. Please go ahead.
Sneha Talreja
Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted a clarification as to how much price hike have we taken in styles, sanitary wear and faucets in Q4FY26 and Q1FY27.
Abhishek Somany
So in tiles since March when this whole crisis started to now the average price increase is around 16 to 17%. As far as tile is concerned, as far as sanitary wear is concerned and bathware is concerned, put together it’s approximately 8%. We had taken a price increase in bathware in February when the brass prices had moved up very significantly. That particular price increase in February was about 18%. But currently in the month of April, a blended price increase between bathware and sanitary ware is 8%.
Sneha Talreja
Okay. And also last year the outsourced sales volume was $27.6 million. So can you please help us understand as to what would be the guidance for FY28 in terms of the outsource volume?
Abhishek Somany
I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you very well. Can you speak? Ask her once again.
Sneha Talreja
Yeah. So the outsourced sales volume last year was 27.6 million square meters. So what would be the guidance for FY28?
Abhishek Somany
No, I don’t understanding our. Our total Sales volume was 72 million square meters. Outsource.
Sneha Talreja
Outsourced sales only.
Abhishek Somany
Was that
Sneha Talreja
Outsourced? Sorry
Operator
To interrupt. Anu, can you please speak through the handset if you don’t mind.
Abhishek Somany
I cannot understand which sales.
Sneha Talreja
Am I audible?
Abhishek Somany
Yeah.
Sneha Talreja
Am I audible? Yeah. So the outsourced that is the traded sales volume.
Abhishek Somany
Outsourced sales as to what. But as a percentage our outsourced sales. Yeah the outsourced sales is 30%. But mind you Acer and Amora are both now outsourced which is actually used to be a jv. So it’s counted and outsourced. So but anyway with that the outsourced sales is about 35 36%. But one must discount Amora and Acer which were no longer JVs. But entire produce has been bought by us.
Sneha Talreja
Okay, so will it not get impacted because of the gas supply disruption in FY28?
Abhishek Somany
No. So all of those plants have started running. Expected May then all the plants have started running.
Sneha Talreja
Okay,
Abhishek Somany
I did get affected. My volume got affected in April because I didn’t get materials in Modi.
Sneha Talreja
Okay, thank you so much.
Abhishek Somany
Just to clarify, effective May 1st all plants have started. Specifically our plants where we were taking joint ventures by 15 16th of May as we speak most of them have come online. The problem is not the gas right now. The problem for the next 1012 days is more about the labor. April they were shut because they did not have the gas. May they are slowly coming up to full capacity because of labor. So by June it would be 100% up and running. So May also partly we did not get material but June onwards we will have 100% material.
Operator
Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Divyan from Asian Market Securities. Please go ahead.
Keshav Lahoti
Hi current formation markets. Am I audible?
Abhishek Somany
Yes.
Keshav Lahoti
Yes sir. Quickly on Capex and debt dependent plans for 27.
Abhishek Somany
Yeah. So CapEx largely going to be on protein. Capex and also some balancing. I think there’s a lot of disturbance.
Operator
Sorry to interrupt.
Rahul Agarwal
Karan,
Operator
Can you please mute your line from your side? Yeah.
Abhishek Somany
So it would be balancing equipment. We are doing some balancing equipment to in the vintage plant also to make it more value added so we reduce the losses there. In fact we come into profit over there. So basically it’s going to be small investments, nothing of significance. So everything will be contained in the 7080 crore rupees of routine Capex and balancing equipment to make our assets more value added towards more capacity utilization. So everything for us as of now it Seems to go as absolutely the right direction.
Where the JVs which were pulling me down should only keep giving me more profits and boost the bottom line and the top line.
Keshav Lahoti
Right? And sir, apart from gas inflation, what kind of inflation can we see for packaging, logistics, transportation employee cost for this year?
Abhishek Somany
So the new labor code you’ve seen we’ve taken a one time five crore rupee adjustment. Plus we also had a new labor increase in Haryana which we again we have been able to pass on as of now. Other than that any further increase, all the products, all the input costs which were related to natural gas have gone up. That is approximately a rupee and a half rupee and 25 to rupee and a half per square feet of input cost. Any other input cost which is related to transportation is yet to be seen. Because petrol diesel just went up today.
I’m only pretty certain that if things don’t improve this will go up even further. But that impact is still not come. So I will not be able to quantify that impact. So currently the gas impact is approximately 5.5 to 6 rupees. And the other input cost is between a rupee rupee and a half. The total increase of approximately a square feet is what what we see. So depending on the plant, depending on the value addition, anywhere between six and a half to seven rupees is the price increase. In in correct scenario all the prices.
Keshav Lahoti
So. So this 15 16% price which we’ve taken covers for the entire 7 rupee kind of cost escalation, right?
Abhishek Somany
Yes, it entirely. But in projects it lightly lowers about 15% of our businesses projects and there we’ve been able to pass on about 90% of the cost.
Keshav Lahoti
Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants. You may press star N1 to ask a question. Next follow up question is from the line of Anubhav Goel from Cosmo Ventures. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir. So just wanted the current pricing for our south unit.
Abhishek Somany
What pricing? Gas pricing?
Unidentified Participant
Yes sir.
Abhishek Somany
Gas pricing current is 78 rupees a standard cubic meter. But we have from next month contracted a long term contract. So that will go down very significantly. That price is yet to give. It would be at least 18, 17, 18 rupee district. So significantly go down
Unidentified Participant
And some margins for this year we can expect from 9.3 FY26 to about 10.5 million percent. Correct.
Abhishek Somany
150bps plus.
Unidentified Participant
Okay sir. Okay. Thank you sir.
Operator
Thank you very much. Is there no further questions? I’ll now hand the conference over to Mr. Samani for closing remarks.
Abhishek Somany
Thank you so much everyone for your time for coming for our investor presentation. I think it is quite a boon this whole scenario which has played out for the dial industry, especially for the organized sector. We are very, very confident these are an aberration. The war has been an aberration. But other than that taking some advantage from that. But more, more so strategically I think we played our part right of putting some investments in our max plant and also now in the vintage plant. Plus putting some investment in our bathware and sanity ware plant to augment that towards more value addiction and better capacity utilization.
I have always maintained and maintaining even now that capacity utilization is the biggest winner and hopefully we will be much better off. As far as the batchelor utilization is concerned this year and with some discipline in the market in terms of pricing, I think there is some amount of consolidation which is going to happen in the industry which at least 10 to 15% of more be not starting forever. So this is very good. Any new plants coming in will be very difficult because with the current rupee dollar and the current uncertainty new plants coming in unless otherwise it’s already new plants will not come for the next 18 to 24 months.
So I hope all this has a benefit towards the organized sector. So until next quarter I would take your leave and wish you a very happy summer holidays. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you very much on behalf of SKP securities limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lights. Thank you.