Note: This is a preliminary transcript and may contain inaccuracies. It will be updated with a final, fully-reviewed version soon.
Westlife Foodworld Ltd (NSE: WESTLIFE) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated May. 07, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Chintan Jajal — Lead Investor Relations
Akshay Jatia — President and Chief Executive Officer
Analysts:
Percy Panthaki — Analyst
Krishnan Sambamoorthy — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Westlife Food World Limited Q4FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Start and zero on your touchstone phone. We would like to remind you that certain statements made by the management in today’s call may be forward looking statements.
These forward looking statements reflect management’s best judgment and analysis as of today. The actual results may differ materially from the current expectations based on number of factors affecting the business. Please refer to the Safe Harbor Disclosure and Earnings presentation. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Chandan Jajal. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Chintan Jajal — Lead Investor Relations
Thank you. Rutuja. Good evening everyone and thank you for joining us on Westlife Food World earnings conference call for the fourth quarter and full year ended 31st March 2026. I am Chintan Jajal, Head of Investor Relations at BestLife Food World. From the management team, I have with me Mr. Akshay Jatia, President and CEO, Mr. Sourabh Kalra, Managing Director and Mr. Sadhus Doshi, Chief Financial Officer. As always, we will begin today’s session with Akshay sharing his perspective on company’s overall strategy and outlook.
This will be followed by Sourav taking us through the key operational and financial highlights. Post that we will then open the forum for questions and answers. Throughout the call we will be referring to earnings presentation and financial releases which are available on the NSE BSC as well as Investors page of our website. With that, I now request Akshay to commence the session. Thank you. And over to you Akshay.
Akshay Jatia — President and Chief Executive Officer
Hello and good evening everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I hope you had the opportunity to review our Q4 and full year FY27 FY26 results. This quarter our performance was anchored in strengthening our everyday value platform and on ground execution. Our focus was primarily on driving guest count growth by making everyday value accessible to everyone. Despite the challenges, we delivered a steady performance underpinned by improving guest count trends and sustained profitability. For the quarter, same store sales growth stood at 1.5% while overall top line grew 9% year on year.
What is particularly reassuring is the underlying improvement in footfall trends with positive growth across footfalls across all three months of the quarter. Similar momentum is continuing into April as well, setting the base for a good start to the new fiscal year. That said, these are still early days and we would refrain from calling this a sustained revival until we see a few more quarters and months of consistent momentum. Our consumer proposition is very clear, accessible everyday value combined with iconic McDonald’s experiences delivered with consistency and backed by strong economic discipline.
We are encouraged by the early evidence of this strategy translating into sustained guest count traction. At the heart of this performance is our unwavering focus on everyday value. Value at McDonald’s is trusted, predictable and habit forming. Our 99 everyday value meal continues to witness strong traction and has driven encouraging dine in footfall growth across all our regions. Building on this proposition, we are leveraging McCafe as well to drive a daily habit of coffee consumption in India.
Our coffee is already loved by millions of people and to further amplify this last quarter we launched a monthly coffee subscription program to drive repeat visits and strengthen McCafe loyalty. We continue to focus on deepening consumer engagement to keep the brand contemporary and culturally relevant. During the quarter we rolled out two merchandise led campaigns featuring a zipper and a tote bag aimed at driving Gen Z engagement and sustaining brand buzz within the cohort. These engagements were driven primarily through leveraging digital media and we are encouraged by the strong response and brand affinity that we generated.
I’m also delighted to share that last quarter we achieved a major milestone in our sustainability journey. We were ranked 6 globally in the restaurants and leisure facilities sector according to the SNP Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment and were included in the Sustainability Yearbook for 2026. This recognition was awarded to only 6 companies out of 126 in our industry globally, reflecting our continued commitment to embedding sustainability to be at the core of our long term growth strategy.
Looking ahead, we remain focused on disciplined and prudent network expansion aligned with improving demand trends and strong capital efficiency. We opened a record 48 restaurants this year, taking our footprint meaningfully higher across both existing and newer markets. Going forward, we plan to further accelerate our expansion and by opening 60 plus restaurants annually with all new stores fully equipped with digital modern design and McCafes, reflecting our confidence in the strength of our industry and the opportunities that lie ahead.
Before I hand it over, I’d like to reiterate that our philosophy remains rooted in profitable and sustainable growth with a clear focus on stakeholder value creation. We are building westlife for the long term through cycles, with discipline and with our consumer proposition firmly at the center of every decision we make. With that, I’ll now pass it to Sourabh to take you through the operational and financial highlights for the quarter.
Chintan Jajal — Lead Investor Relations
Thank you Akshay. Good evening everyone. I hope all of you are doing well. Coming back to the results, the fourth quarter reflected steady execution amid challenges with our performance driven by improving guest count momentum, disciplined execution and sustained profitability margin. Throughout the quarter we remained firmly focused on sharpening our consumer value proposition which Akshay also spoke about while consistently delivering the great customer experience McDonald’s is famous for across both dining and delivery channels.
For the quarter, consolidated revenue stood at 6.6 billion rupees growing 9% year on year. For the full year of FY26, revenue stood at 26.3 billion rupees translating into 5% year on year growth. The quarter ended with a positive same store sales growth of 1.5% at the system level driven by mid single digit guest count growth which is the real heart while the west continued to outperform. I’m especially encouraged by the progress in the south where same store sales growth also ended the quarter nearly flattish and a meaningful improvement versus the previous quarters and that too on the back of GC momentum which was marginally positive from a channel standpoint.
On premise sales grew 9% year on year while off premise sales increased 6% year on year. Growth across both channels was supported by positive comparable guest count primarily driven by everyday value means and sharper digital engagements. Importantly, the MED delivery platform continued to gain scale and salience, witnessing strong growth across day parts and demonstrating early evidence of a robust and sustainable growth engine now moving to profitability. Our continued focus on execution discipline and cost optimization helped anchor our margin performance.
Gross margin for the quarter remained near historic high levels of 68.1% improving by around 60bps sequentially. Restaurant operating margins improved by approximately 70bps year on year. Our operating EBITDA remains broadly stable year on year despite higher advertising and promotion spend and continued growth investments. Cash profit after tax should act 487 million rupees representing 7.4% of sales. FY26 witnessed continued inflationary pressures across key commodities, notably cocoa and coffee.
However, the impact was mitigated through supply chain efficiencies and our full year like for like gross Margin stood at 67.7% improving by around 140bps year on year. Restaurant operating margin grew approximately 100 basis points year on year to 20.3% while operating EBITDA remained stable at 13.2% for the full year. Cash pack was at Rupees 2.4 billion representing 9% of sales. Our digital sales contribution stood at 76% increasing over 100 basis points year on year. Primarily driven by higher engagement across McDonald’s app, McDelivery platform and self ordering kiosks.
These continue to enhance frequency, personalization and operations throughput at scale. Cumulative app download have now crossed 52 million with approximately 3.5 million monthly active users growing at a healthy double digit rate year on year. Our network expansion on the network expansion, we continue to follow disciplined and prudent approach. We opened 21 new restaurants in quarter four, taking our total tally to 478 restaurants across 78 cities. New store performance remains encouraging supported by improved site selection and a stronger execution rigor.
On the operations front, we continue to closely monitor LPG situations and have taken proactive measures to mitigate operational risk as much as possible. Prior investment in store modernization capability upgrades have translated into greater resilience in this current environment. All our restaurants are operational with less than 10% of the restaurant operating on limited menu. To conclude, Q4 reflects the strength and resilience of our core business fundamentals. Our continued focus on everyday value, disciplined execution and structured profitability.
This positions us well as demand trends improve gradually as we move forward. Our priorities remain clear. Driving guest out led growth, strengthening our consumer value proposition, building brand affinity, scaling digital capabilities and expanding our network responsibilities. With that, thank you very much for your time and we are very happy to take whatever questions you have.
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 STAR and one on the Touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to only use handsets while 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 Devanshu Bansal from MK Global. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Yes, hi, good
Akshay Jatia
Afternoon. Good evening everyone. So, congratulations on good store openings as well as good gross margin performance. Sir, Q4 was impacted by supply. Can
Chintan Jajal
You be a little louder?
Akshay Jatia
Yeah. Am I audible now?
Chintan Jajal
Yeah. Better.
Akshay Jatia
Yeah. I was saying Q4 was impacted by supply side
Chintan Jajal
Disruptions. There was some preponement of Navratri as well. So wanted to check if you could help us better understand the normalized SSD
Akshay Jatia
During the quarter. This would help us better project the underlying consumption trends.
Chintan Jajal
So as I spoke, when I was giving you the review of quarter four, we had high mid. We had mid single digit guest count comps. Needless to say, there were other pressures beyond Navaratri also like LPG not being available in a few restaurants, 10% of our stores were impacted pretty much from 10th of March onwards. So I think but all of this in the big picture is all fair because last year also something would have happened. So what we would like to believe is if we take the same store bucket, what has he done this year?
This is the number which comes. So I would not like to break it further and be able to say, you know, we will remove Navaratri, we something or the other keeps happening in an Indian environment and it’s the real performance is what comes out. So for us that’s how I would put it as 1.5% is what we’ve delivered with a mid single digit guest count comps which is the number of invoices. And we are pleased that after a long time now we’ve started hitting a momentum which is 8 to 10% on growth and we believe we are poised to continue this momentum.
Akshay Jatia
Got it. Saurabh. Saurabh. I also wanted to check across regions. You indicated that south has turned positive and despite that we are at 1.5%. I wanted to check has there been a dip in SSD in the west region? If you could throw some light there.
Chintan Jajal
So what I talked about south was south has made a significant amount of improvement on the sales side while the guest count turned positive. And that is something which was a problem which we had pointed out in the previous call. So we wanted to let you know about that. Like I said, there were multiple disruptions even in west like LPG etc. So we are happy with what we have been able to achieve in terms of 1.5%. West remains strong. Obviously most of you are based out of West. You can go to the restaurants and see west remains a very strong driver of growth for us.
And what we are seeing is green shoots in west, definitely south also coming in as I’m talking to you.
Akshay Jatia
So you’re saying that guest count has turned positive for the south for the quarter. Right.
Chintan Jajal
On the same store level. The last question from my end, we have taken conscious efforts to ramp up our delivery channel. Plus last quarter we indicated improved relationship with aggregators also and in your commentary you mentioned that the monthly active users are growing at double digits.
Akshay Jatia
Right. But if we see overall growth it is around 5, 6%. So when do you expect these initiatives to reflect into better growth for us?
Chintan Jajal
So on total growth, I think there was a fundamental change we made and we spoke about it last year starting second half onwards. But what we do need is volume growth which means guest counts need to Start come Value is not difficult in a current environment to get but we wanted to really, really focus on volume. So that’s what we did and we got good volume growth on our own channel. 3PO and our dine in while it grew there was a 2, 3% difference and we are happy that dine in grew faster. But normally if I look at an overall and I reflect back our reflect forward, I think we would, I would like to believe we would actually grow at a similar level in both dine in and deliveries.
That’s how we are looking at the business going forward. So 2, 3% here and there keeps happening quarter by quarter. But on the longer term outlook what I would like to believe is While delivery has grown 6%, the guest count was far higher. While diamond has grown 9% the guest count was far far higher. So we would like to balance equal amount of growth coming from both dial in and delivery channels and all of them led by both more volume than value.
Akshay Jatia
Fair enough. This small follow up for your own delivery channel is this monthly active user double digit growth also reflecting into transacting users for you?
Chintan Jajal
That’s correct. That’s correct. For our own channel we see the highest amount of growth coming on our own channel. Obviously the base of our own channel is smaller relatively speaking so it does not really come into the result directly as of now. But we believe it should start reflecting over a period of time.
Akshay Jatia
Okay, great. Sourabh, thanks for taking my question.
Chintan Jajal
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kaivalya Beng from IFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Hi, this is Parsi Pantaki here.
Percy Panthaki
I just wanted to get some insight into your gross margin. What is the reason for the very healthy expansion that you have seen there?
Chintan Jajal
Parasi, we have been able to always make that. There are three, four levers in gross margin and all of them play together. We are always able to maintain and improve margins. I think last year inflation was a little bit in our favor versus what we normally get. It might not repeat this year. In addition to that, if I look at it, we have got supply chain initiatives and we did a cost project internally which has worked out quite well for us. And we have been able to save some amount of gross margin which was able to not only mitigate inflation but also we were shaving beyond that, which is what you see.
Akshay Jatia
Okay. And any price increases that you have recently taken? I believe Domino’s has taken some price increases already and there are some inflationary pressures building up. So what are your thoughts on FY? 27. What kind of contribution of pricing can we assume from the growth?
Chintan Jajal
We have always maintained that year on year we pass on 2 to 4% of price increase. Year on year. We generally don’t talk about when do we do it, how do we do it. Normally we do it in three, four branches. It’s a very small increase which you will not even be able to identify. For now. We have not been able to take any price increase in the last four, five months. For immediate future, we don’t have a plan as of now. We will come back to you. We believe on the inflation, which is we should be able to manage if there is a small price increase here and there, it might happen, it might happen.
For the year, the outlook remains constant. 2 to 4% is what we take so that we are able to manage inflation better.
Akshay Jatia
And on South India, what exactly were the initiatives or the actions that you have put in, the interventions that you have put in, which has worked? Can you just explain it a little bit in detail?
Chintan Jajal
So south really, we were doing a lot of things. We put a stop to everything and we went back to what we are really famous for, which is everyday valley platform. And what we have done in west, we tried in south first and we have then started to roll out except Chennai. Pretty much everywhere we are doing everyday value platform. And in Chennai we are experimenting in half the restaurant which are giving great results. So this quarter we plan to roll everyday value platform, including in Chennai.
But other than Chennai, the entire south, we have done everyday value platform which is starting to giving us good traction.
Akshay Jatia
And
Chintan Jajal
When you say that you are doing a lot of things earlier which you have put a stop to, what exactly does that mean?
Akshay Jatia
I’ll just clarify for Sourav as well that I think you know everyday value platform and what McDonald’s is known for, which is delivering quality service and cleanliness in every one of our restaurants is what we really focused on. So we went back to the basics. And I think in the south, while we continue to leverage our different menu categories, we focus primarily on our core which is ensuring that customers get everyday value and we offer them the best possible experience in our restaurants. Okay,
Chintan Jajal
Got it. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. In order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants, we request you to please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from the line of Krishnan Sambamurthy from Ashika Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Yeah. Hi, two questions for me. One is on the store openings front you guided for 60 plus openings in FY27, which is higher than the usual 40 to 50 stores that you’ve been guiding for. Can you take us through the rationale and your confidence? How do you, how you have read up this number?
Akshay Jatia
So I think we always committed to this larger number of 580 to 630 restaurants in our Vision 2027. And as we’ve been deploying all our initiatives to further grow our average unit volume, we’ve seen great momentum and we do feel that in our region there’s a lot of opportunity for penetration. And I’ve always, and we’ve always maintained that we will continue to penetrate as we feel is logical. And we feel now from 45 to 50 restaurants, 60 is the number that our market can handle in order to grow sales profitably.
So I think that’s how we came to give out this guidance and we’re quite confident that it will further add to our growth aspirations.
Chintan Jajal
Thanks. The second question is on store closures. While McDonald’s has typically done a great job in terms of store openings over the last couple of years, you had between seven to eight store closures, which is not a very significant number of the overall number, but still higher than the longer term average. My question is what are the reasons for store closures and particularly the store closures for the current year and would this be a feature in subsequent years as well?
Akshay Jatia
So in a retail environment, actually to operate most optimally, you do have to keep reevaluating your portfolio. We call it portfolio management. And across 500 odd locations, there will be locations that either become redundant or are no longer commercially viable. And actually it’s best for the network that you optimize. It’s one of the most effective ways to run a network. So I think in the past we’ve been very prudent. We will continue to be. But as our network keeps expanding, you will see store closures to optimize our portfolio.
And I think the current number would probably be a fair representation of the guidance that we would give. And I think that it’s only for the benefit of our portfolio.
Chintan Jajal
Yeah, just a follow up to that. Because of the Relocate South India business, were more of the store closures skewed towards the southern market?
Akshay Jatia
No, nothing like that.
Chintan Jajal
So like Akshay said, and you also know that we don’t like to close too many stores. We would like to do it for portfolio management. But if you look at it from a portfolio standpoint, we would have closed two, three stores, two, three malls, shut down Some of the places there is a new highway which comes up and all of a sudden accessibility is blocked. So it’s not that we are keen on opening closing more stores as a portfolio. Like he said, we will continue to close six, seven stores because three, four stores automatically comes as some or the other problem occurs in this kind of a network.
1% store have an issue which occurs and there is one or two more closure which can happen due to tenure, etc. Etc. So it’s nothing major which we would like to call. It’s a part of our portfolio management and ways of working.
Percy Panthaki
Very useful. Thanks a lot.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rishi Modi from RDM Advisory llp. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Yeah, hi guys, can you hear me?
Operator
Yes, we can. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Yeah. Firstly I just wanted to understand the 80bps
Akshay Jatia
Y o y improvement.
Chintan Jajal
Your voice is not clear. It’s a little wobbly. If you can be closer and can be louder.
Akshay Jatia
Is this better?
Chintan Jajal
Little better. All right, so I wanted to understand firstly the 80bps yoy improvements that you all have shown on the OPEX front in your slides. What has that led to? Like what’s led to that improvement? If you could help me understand that.
Akshay Jatia
So I think that, you know, we’ll just take a look at what you’re referring to. Which number are you talking about?
Chintan Jajal
Just a second. I have the PPT open with me. I think Rishi,
Akshay Jatia
I think this question we can take offline. You can reach out to Chintan and I think he can explain that to you along with our CFO because we like to limit the discussion to more strategic points.
Chintan Jajal
Okay, fine. Second, you mentioned in the Q3 call that the toys issue is a BIS issue. But I was just reading up on it online. It seems that there’s a structural move by McDonald’s globally away from toys to books for some sustainability reasons. So just wanted to understand are toys
Akshay Jatia
Gonna come back for your Happy Meals or if you could just give some clarity on that piece.
Chintan Jajal
So like you rightly said, there was a BISCC and government has also opened up a few countries. Now we are working very hard with the supply chain team to make sure the toys come as soon as possible, including getting the BIS certified factories supplying us toys. We were also working parallelly for Indian vendors to get BIS approved. That’s all Indian vendors be both McDonald’s and BIS approved. So that is happening in the background. We foresee that by next year it will still take almost nine months to one year in our judgment to be able to bring toys back.
But books are already there. We have been since the time toys were banned. We have been using books as a happy meal giveaway in our restaurants. That’s what an update on that is. Okay, got it. Finally, just one structural piece on consumer behavior. Your launch was protein slice thing. So just wanted to understand is there like are consumers justifying coming in to have McDonald’s with the protein slice as a healthier version or people are moving away from qsr, Western QSR fighting health reasons?
Like just what’s your read on the consumer behavior? Is there a health conscious consumption
Akshay Jatia
Wave that is structural in nature or people revert back to
Chintan Jajal
Qsr? Let me come back to you on this point in two parts. The first part is as I talked about that there was a mid single digit consumer the guest count growth which means the number of consumer came were 5% extra and we are seeing the momentum grow even higher. So I don’t think that there is an issue when you talk about health. In fact as McDonald’s I’ve always maintained, and I always maintain this to everybody that if there could be absolute transparent norms where people choose what they eat, McDonald’s would be better than most things people eat.
Sometimes even better than what you eat at home would be my argument. But having said that, I think as McMunans we charted a park in 2016 on on real food real good. The first thing we did was made aloo biki burger which is our highest selling product into a balanced meal that broadly confines to all the parameters which is calories coming out of carb, fat and protein are balanced basis the National Institute of Nutrition guidelines. So we did this in the background. Now obviously you don’t sell by saying healthy aloo dikki.
Right? So it’s a nutritious aloo dicky. This is what we did in the background. Then we kept working on saying can we reduce sodium on french fries. Then when we went out about reducing fat in our mayonnaise. That’s something which has been happening from last 10 years. In the background last year was protein slice. For people who want to have excess protein in their diet. They know that you can always add 5 gram of protein. So it’s a journey which McDonald’s taking not because there is health. Eventually we would like our consumers to choose what they eat.
And in that spirit, minute bun was a choice. This is a choice. We want to provide as many choices to our consumer as possible. Can I request
Operator
Mr. Modi to please rejoin the Q? Yeah, just a quick follow up. Let
Chintan Jajal
Me just check that with the management. When you said 5% customer
Percy Panthaki
Growth you meant 5% unique customer growth or you meant like 5% built up growth.
Chintan Jajal
So obviously we don’t give breakups. Needless to say any business is a Pareto. Some lot of people customer come new, some are regulars. Now on this call we do not give and share that information. But when you see 5% growth in any company there will be a lot of new customers whichever come in the fold and a lot who would have continued to transact with us.
Akshay Jatia
All right, got. Thank you. That’s it from my end.
Operator
Thank you. Participants are requested to please limit their questions to two per participant. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Jogani from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Thank you for taking my question. I have two sets of questions largely related to margins. So first one is with regards to the your guidance on the gross margin front. You have mentioned that in the near term the gross margins could be that 67% plus. So is it largely in caution with the inflation that we are seeing on multiple counts? And if yes, you know that says 100 and approximately 100bps lower versus the current levels. So any guidance on the same will be helpful.
Akshay Jatia
Yeah, it is in line with the inflation which we are seeing currently in the market. There is of course a lot of pressure which is there on the suppliers too when the geopolitical situation. So there will be some inflation. But there are also some cost optimization programs which we run and hence we have given you the indicative number of in terms of the 67% Cox going forward. Sorry, the gross margin going forward.
Chintan Jajal
Okay. Okay, thanks. And just alluding question to this is with regards to the you know, guidance for the Vision 2027 margins, you know now for this year if you look at the pre index EBITDA margin, there’s actually increase up from seven and a half percent. Now for that Vision 27 number we are you know, hardly one and a half years away from that number. So. So is there any change to the guidance or was still confident that we’ll be able to achieve that guidance. Any change in the outlook if you can highlight.
Akshay Jatia
So just to answer that, firstly from an India to India’s comparison, I think we’re talking about roughly this 7.5 or 7.8 that you mentioned going to around 13 to 15%. I think a lot of the improvement is going to come through operating levels and when we’re seeing such momentum in terms of same store sales growth and guest counts, we’re quite Confident that we will move closer towards what we’ve committed in terms of Vision 2027. The journey is for us to balance comm. Sales as well as new store additions over the next year and first cross say 3000 odd crores in sales.
I think that’s how we are looking at it. And then we will talk about the breakup for the next two years. Sometimes closer to the start of the next financial year to give more color on Vision 2027. Okay, sure. Thanks. That’s all for.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tejas Shah from Avindus Park Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question pertains to the interplay between CCSG gross margin and footfall that you have called out. So clearly the fact that footfall has been higher than sssg. I’m assuming that a lot of recruitment or mix would have gone on the value format side but still we delivered very good gross margin. So we’re just trying to deconstruct that. What worked on raw material side that you
Akshay Jatia
Which worked in our favor this quarter.
Chintan Jajal
See, luckily for us, supply chain is managed on an annual basis. We have got contracts. Sometimes those contracts we are able to deliver higher volumes so cost comes down and then the next protocol starts, etc. Etc. So to me that’s why we gave a guidance saying this quarter we have been able to achieve this, which is true for the year. Our goal, internal goal is to be able to as close of the yearly number as possible to the next year. But realistic guidance is what Sharbun gave you. That’s what we see is sustainable.
Percy Panthaki
Got it.
Chintan Jajal
The
Percy Panthaki
Acceleration
Chintan Jajal
On store expansion target, restaurant expansion target that we have now, you called out that it’s a very volatile environment as we are entering this year. Just wanted to know had we budgeted in this guidance that let’s say this situation has to persist for six months. This guidance will stay intact kind of factoring for the scenario to prolong. Which scenario?
Akshay Jatia
The current raw material scenario of the LPD and other crisis that you called out which is hurting up one part of the demand. I’m saying have in this guidance have we built a scenario that if this persists for let’s say for six months we remain committed to this store expansion target.
Chintan Jajal
We will. Because I think these are things which are not new to India. I think something or the other always comes up in the in a country like as dynamic as India and I believe this volatility is also a friend of businesses. If you are able to Use it effectively. These are all opportunities. So I don’t look at changing that. There are levers in our hand. For example, if goes up dramatically, it goes up for the entire industry and everybody takes up a little bit of price increase because of that. So I think we’ve got more and enough to manage, at least on the cost side of it.
I’m not too worried. Our key goal, like Akshay said, remains how do we make sure that we deliver more comp sales and more growth with new store opening. And as long as that happens, the rest will fall in place.
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Got it. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shaurap Kundan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Percy Panthaki
Yeah, thank you very much for the opportunity. Your value platform initiatives have obviously given you encouraging results with guest count being in mid single digit. Going forward, do you plan to accelerate these initiatives? Related question, is this the 99 value meal, maybe other value initiatives that you have, have they been completely rolled out or you expect to sort of roll them out further into your network?
Chintan Jajal
I think like I said, value is something which is intrinsic to the industry, especially McDonald’s. Globally we do the highest guest count and sales numbers across the globe because we are a strong value player in an omnichannel environment. Right. So there are plays which have not yet played out. You will see us having a lot of exciting stuff coming in the next one to two years and value as the work has just started in our opinion.
Percy Panthaki
Okay, okay. Just trying to ask it another way. There’s a gap between the SSSG that you’ve reported and guest count. So can we expect this gap to further widen or contract or remain the same is what I meant to ask. Basically,
Chintan Jajal
Yes. So obviously we are working hard because in most cases value platform should not mean dilution of so much. But we were very clear we wanted to get volume first. We had been volume starved a little bit in the last two years and we had to reimagine our strategy. I think value, we have got multiple levers in place to pick it up whenever. So we will remain disciplined around whatever we have done and not giving up any further margin than this as far as the product mix is concerned. All right. All right.
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Siddharth from Nafa. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Hello sir. Thanks a lot for the permission for me to raise a question to you. So my question is around that in the recent quarters we’ve seen some slowdown the QSR space as a whole. So considering the recent middle east tensions and the LPG crisis going on. What’s your forward looking outlook in terms of the sssg in terms of existing
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Operations? I would just like to have a view on that.
Chintan Jajal
I think we have been repetitive on this one. We reap what we sow. I think we did not shy away even when we had negative growth. That these are things of our making. And some decisions which we made did not play out the way we anticipated it to play out. We have gone back, like Akshay said, back to our basics. To be able to go back to a model which works globally also and replicate that playbook in India, back to basics, back to evm. And we do not see with that strong platform us not having enough to increase the momentum on the same store sales growth.
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Okay, understood. So is there any revenue guidance if you may possibly, you know give me a idea on in terms of, you know so
Chintan Jajal
We don’t give any forward based margins for sure. Guidance for sure. But like we would as a just spoke, we would like to go to 3,000 crore as early as possible. Right. So we would like to grow our same store sales growth as early as possible towards mid single digits.
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Okay, understood. Thank you. And you know, wish you all the best. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vishal Panmayya from ES Securities. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Yeah, thank you. Question is on the magnificent.
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Is it better now? Yes.
Operator
Sorry but we have lost the line from Mr. Vishal. Participants who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. Now the next question is from the line of Devanshu Bansal from MK Global. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Yes sir. Hi. Thanks for the follow up opportunity. I just wanted to sort of check on this partnership which we have entered
Akshay Jatia
With GeoBP. Is that also leading to this improvement in store outlook that we’re sharing?
Chintan Jajal
Actually we’ve got partnerships with HPCL, BPCL and now GoBP. So that is those partnerships are meant to expand our footprint on the highways. We have done a good job as far as Mumbai Pune highway is concerned. And we see a lot of excess control highway coming in. And we want to make sure that we have strong partnerships so that we can put the network in. But all this was already baked in when we had given the guidance of going to 45 to 50 and then now 60 plus. So it’s not. It will not be basis one partner or one place.
It is holistic. We do want to have more restaurants in airports. We want to have more restaurants in infrastructure led growth including malls and highways. So that’s one part of the portfolio. The second part of it is we want to continue penetrating markets. Specific key markets like Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chennai. That’s not going out of flavor. So if you do stores there. So it’s a balanced portfolio which we want to drive and go. BP is one such partnership in that direction.
Akshay Jatia
And sir, just wanted to check on this. New beverages that have been launched globally under the MEGCAFE platform. Any chances to bring those products to India as well? There’s a lot of noise around.
Chintan Jajal
Yeah, I think Global has done a fantastic job. They will also come as a part of Global Core. We will make the choice when we need to. For now we think we have got work to be done as far as the coffee category is concerned in the cafe it will play. I would rather give you a guidance that we are very closely focusing towards the consumer and we are taking cognizance of this beverage trend amongst Gen Z too. But the first play we see is strengthening McAfee and Coffee credential as the most important play as we go and solidify our beverage credentials.
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Got it sir, Got it. Thanks for taking the question.
Operator
Thank you. Participants who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1. The next question is from the line of Vishal Panmiya from yes, securities. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Yeah, am I audible now? Yes, loud and clear. Okay, so my question was on McAfee. If you could help with McFee’s performance in FY26 in terms of maybe revenue contribution or how revenue per store per McAfee has improved in FY26. That would be. And secondly in terms of strategy for McAfee going forward, while there are many smaller cafes opening up every nook and corner, we also have a big QSR now entering the cafe space. So any change in thought process or strategy for mechanic going forward or in terms of aggression, I think the more the merrier as far as coffee is concerned.
Coffee is a category which I think is underplaying right now in India and it’s got a huge potential to grow. The more people who can work on creating daily habits, the better for us and better for coffee business. I think our job we have cut out. If you look at it, our proposition is differentiated. Probably we do the best coffee in the country at a price, which is unbelievable. And that we do because we want to create a daily coffee consuming habit in the country and democratize the coffee experience.
We want it to continue grow. We see it as a growth lever even for the next two to three years to come. So we don’t really worry about who’s coming, who’s not coming, because coffee scene has been hot pretty much with coffee shops, etc. From the last five years and we have still been able to do a substantial job. I would argue that in most places we sell more coffees than any coffee shop in the trade area. So in most locations. So I am quite confident of our McAfee proposition and I think our job is to democratize and make more people habituated to drink everyday coffee in McDonald’s.
Percy Panthaki
Yeah, agreed on the quality part. The product is obviously one of the better coffees in the
Chintan Jajal
Market. But in terms of any marketing initiatives, do we need to scale up that part? And also if you could just update on the performance in FY26 in terms of revenue or mix within the overall business. So on the overall business, obviously we don’t break it out. But all I can tell you is the biggest marketing work which we have done is look at it only from a standpoint of how do we make McDonald’s the destination to destroy drink their everyday cup of coffee. And in that spirit, we roll out the subscription in which a Makafee beverage is available if you come ten times in a month only for 55 rupees, which is you don’t have to think twice from a monetary standpoint.
I think if you are able to be get the success we want to in that we don’t have to worry about anybody else.
Akshay Jatia
Lastly, on
Chintan Jajal
Pies as a platform globally, PI does really well in terms of contributing to the meal. Any plans to basically add that to our India portfolio in a bigger way? We obviously had tried in the past, but any plans for future? Yeah. So on the menu, like I said, there’ll be exciting stuff coming in. Typically we’ve got Pizza puff which is a savory pie which we sell right now whether we want to do feed pie or not. I think in the priorities we have, we need to ruthlessly prioritize what will really give us results.
And that’s something which we are working towards and then working with consumers to be able to say what will work. And you will see that happening in the marketplace and you will see exciting news even on menu from us.
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Okay. Just
Chintan Jajal
Lastly appreciated the recent marketing initiatives regarding the shippers and the tote bags. I think it did really well. It was out of stock across all stores. I couldn’t find it anywhere. But kudos to the View for that.
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Chintan Jajal
You should chop to simply he can send you the paper and Tote bag in advance when it comes.
Akshay Jatia
Okay,
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Sure, sure. I will definitely do that. Yeah. Thank you.
Chintan Jajal
Done. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Tejas Shah from Evan the Spark Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Chintan Jajal
Hi. Thanks for the follow up opportunity. So just one question and this is one at industry level and one at level. So at the very broader level QSR industry actually started massification or focus on value segment post Covid revival phase. So do you believe that from competitive landscape we have hit the price point in terms of where it doesn’t make sense to go further below so that a mix at industry levels should not deteriorate from here? That’s one. And it could be this could be conjecture answer also second is actually in our mix also from price point perspective.
Do you think that we have reached to a stage where further democratization won’t happen at least on the pricing part and in terms of rollout also do you believe or do you read
Akshay Jatia
That it has actually reached an optimum mix in terms of where you would like it to settle down at?
Chintan Jajal
I would like to believe that India is growing. Per capita income in India is growing. So what we have currently is a great value proposition for the consumers. The first question will be for how long should we hold this to make sure that we keep unlocking the consumer base of India too, which we want to. To me that’s the bigger question rather than us being able to say this is optimum, not optimum. Because what value means keeps changing immediately after Covid when we created Even the Vision 2027 a large amount of assumption was big burgers will play a big role.
While it’s not all, it’s not exactly played out. It did a great job. There’s a base which we have set up and the base has remained pretty much consistent. So when I look at value I think it’s these are cycles, these are pro mixed play. I think I am very sure that after value will at some point in time we’ll go to core, then we’ll go to premium, then come back to value. These are all cycles which will play out as they have played out in the past.
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Sure. And then from your past read through usually what are the approximate. Also what are the tenure of such cycles?
Chintan Jajal
Cycles?
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Yeah,
Chintan Jajal
She depends on activity. That cycle I can’t predict because when there is lot of information flowing through cycles last one year. Sometimes cycles are seven years. Also when we did branded affordability that a cycle was seven years. Then we became premiumization that lasted for almost four or five years. Then it shortened. Just before COVID it was almost two to three three year cycles. So what will it now be? Depends on what people are feeling and therefore we need to keep very close watch on what the consumer is thinking, what the consumer is going through.
You know there could be fatigue in when every day everybody screaming new new things. There could be a fatigue and people might go to go back to classics for that. We need to always be listening to the consumer and create strategy accordingly. I would not predict the tenure of things. But all I’m saying is, I’m saying nothing goes out of fashion. It always comes back.
Krishnan Sambamoorthy
Totally agree. Thanks and all the best.
Chintan Jajal
Thank you. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Participants to ask a question may press star and 1. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to management for closing comments.
Akshay Jatia
Thank you so much everyone and we look forward to seeing you next quarter.
Chintan Jajal
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. On behalf of WestLife Food World Ltd. That concludes the conference call. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.