Sai Silks (Kalamandir) Limited (KALAMANDIR) Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the SciSilk Kala Mandir Ltd Q1 FY27 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, ring the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-down phone. Please note this conference is being recorded. I now have the conference over to Mr. Bharatwaj, Chief Executive Officer. Thank you and over to you, sir.

Thank you, Steve.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today to discuss the financial and operational performance of Saisal Scala Mandel Limited for the first quarter ended June 30, 2026. I am Dharadwaj Rajmadgu, CEO of Saisal Scala Mandel Limited. I am joined today by Mr. K.V. L. N. Sharma, our Chief Financial Officer. On behalf of the management team, I extend a warm welcome to all our shareholders, investors, analysts, and stakeholders participating in the call today. I hope everybody got a chance to go through the financial reports updated on both the company website as well as on the stock exchange. Let me start with the market overview and the broader market scenario. Consumption during the quarter 1 FY26-27 was shaped by adhikmas that fell from May 17th till June 15th, almost one full month inside our quarter. Adhikmas, as you all know, is traditionally treated as inauspicious for weddings, reparations, and other major purchases that contributed to weak consumption trends across our markets. As a result, footfall and expense spends during the quarter remains measured. Customers continue to display a value-conscious and discretionary purchasing approach. This reflects broader weakness in the overall consumer demand across the discretionary retail and consumption space. A trend, we believe, is being felt industry-wide and not specific to science or ethnic wear alone. Additionally, The retail environment remains challenging due to passive discretionary spending and cautious consumer sentiment across markets. We expect this cautious sentiment to ease as we move into the festive and wedding-heavy second half of the year. For the first quarter ended June 30, 2026, the company reported a revenue from operations of 375 crores compared to 379 crore in quarter 1, 2526, which is almost flat. The same store sales saw a degrowth of up to 7.5% during the quarters, reflecting the cautious demand environment I just spoke about. EBITDA margins declined by about 1%, largely on account of the same store sales degrowth, given that the fixed cost base spread over software like-to-like volumes. That said, I am happy to report that gross margins held up well. Remaining close to 42%, despite the challenging environment, which is a reflection of continued pricing discipline and merchandise mix management. We expect the EBITDA margins to improve through the course of the year, supported by SSSG improvement and by the operating leverage that follows as this quarter's new stores mature. The company continues to be debt-free. This reflects our continued focus on financial discipline and prudent capital management even as we invest in continued expansion. Through the original plan back in 2023 during the IPO, we had envisaged adding up to 1,42,500 square feet of retail space. I am pleased to share that through disciplined execution and efficient capital allocation, we were able to approximately add 90,000 to 1,00,000 square feet of additional retail area over and above this original target. Using the same fund allocation. This reflects efficient capital allocation, utilization, and implementation on the ground. And gives us a higher store area. And this higher store area will translate into higher productivity for the company. With this additional retail space, our overall inventory levels are naturally expected to be higher in absolute terms. However, I'd like to highlight that we continue to see a consistent reduction in inventory per square foot, which reflects the growing efficiencies of our cluster-based expansion strategy. As store density improves within a cluster, our inventory planning and replenishment becomes more efficient. I also like to note that the entire inventory is owned by the company as all our stores operate under the company-owned, company-operated model. Our focus during the quarter remained on strengthening our market presence, enhancing customer experience and improving operational efficiencies and driving sustainable long-term growth. We continued our expansion journey, adding approximately 30,000 square feet of retail space during the quarter, taking our total store count to 83. These additions further strengthens our presence in our key growth market, Karnataka, and reflect our confidence in the long-term potential of the organized ethnic wear retail segment. As of June 30, 2026, The company's total retail footprint stood at approximately 8.14 lakh square feet across 83 stores and 4 states. Looking ahead, we are targeting a net retail space addition of approximately 1 lakh square feet for this financial year. As part of our ongoing efforts, we have planned to rationalize one KLM fashion mall store that has shown sustained degrowth despite dedicated efforts towards revival, including downsizing initiative that has been undertaken in the previous quarter. This action reflects our commitment to disciplined capital allocation. Ensuring resources remain focused on our best performing locations. We will continue to monitor performance closely and take necessary actions as warranty. I'd like to take a moment to address how we believe a business like ours should be evaluated. Given the inherently seasonal nature of the ethnic wear retail industry, companies like ours are best assessed on a yearly basis rather than purely on a quarter-to-quarter basis. As seasonal shifts are imminent and structural to how this business performs, our revenue and profitability are closely tried majorly around the fessing and wedding calendar. Events like Adikmas can shift demand meaningfully from one quarter into another without any change in the underlying health of the business. A quarter that looks soft in isolation may simply reflect a calendar-driven timing shift with the corresponding demand showing up strongly in the adjacent quarter. We would therefore encourage investors and analysts. To look at our full year performance trends as a more meaningful indicator of the company's underlying growth trajectory, rather than drawing conclusions from any single quarter in isolation.

I will now hand it over and would be happy to take any questions.

Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 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 handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Javyansh Jaju with three Nedra asset managers. Please go ahead.

Thank you for the opportunity. So my question was, what's the state-wise and the format-wise split will be of the 1,000,000 square feet expansion target, which is there for FI 25? And apart from this, is there any new state entry outside South India, or we will be doing expansion more in the same way?

Yeah, Jigal, thank you for the question. So, at present, it's majorly split between our existing territories where Karnataka is taking the front lead in the overall expansion strategy. The format in play majorly will be Kalamandir and Varamahalakshmi. Kalamandir will need the majority of the effort. Additionally, in terms of locations, In quarter 4 or early quarter 1 of next financial year, in that time is where our entry to the new state will be. We are looking at closing down on final location of in 1 and 2 in Maharashtra. And we are also actively exploring opportunities in Kerala. So, but however, these are, these geographical entries will majorly pan out in the quarter 4 and early Q1 of next year.

Okay, and the guidance we have given the previous quarter for the revenue growth and the EBITDA margin will remain same only for next 527.

For current financial years, broadly, yes. There is not going to be any changes. We think that the store implementation is something that we are carefully aligning. For the next financial year also, I think there could be a possibility where we might add a little bit more than the 1 lakh square feet before the financial year ends. At this point of time, the visibility that we have in quarter 2 is close to 26,000 to 30,000 square feet. We've already added 30,000 and this 30,000 will broadly bring it out to 58,000 to 60,000 square feet. And ideally, the target for Q3, Q4 is 40, but there are possible chances wherein in quarter 4, we might be able to add an additional 10,000 to 15,000 square feet, which I will be able to confirm once quarter 2 passes.

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Resham Mehta with GreenEdgeWealth. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. I hope I'm audible.

Yes, I'm audible. Please.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, of course, H1 last year was a very heavy base, and since you're encouraging us to look at it from an annual standpoint, and considering the 1 lakh square feet addition that we are planning for the current financial year, would you like to give any revenue growth guidance for the current financial year?

Ma'am, I think like we already discussed broadly, the revenue guidance for the full year will remain between 12 and 15 percentage like we've discussed in the last interactions as well. The store implementation wise, if we could push the number of stores in late Q3 or first or second week of Q4, then probably that might be able to add a little bit. But broadly, this is how it's going to be. One of the important things that you have mentioned is, as you rightly mentioned in H1, because it's a heavy day, and number two, Dasara came in in quarter two of last year, so therefore that seasonal shift between quarter to quarter is something that we have to be, I wanted to point out, but broadly, YOY basis, it's still fine.

And also, you know, just wanted to understand the price elasticity of demand vis-a-vis poor rainfall. So, if I see, you know, almost 75% of revenues, you know, comes from AP, Telangana and Karnataka, where broadly the rains have been poor so far at least. So, in the past, have we experienced that the wedding and the festive demand takes a hit if the rainfall is poor for that particular financial year or would we say that it's largely insulated?

Thank you for the question, genuinely. There are very good potential markets in our core markets, which is agriculture-dependent markets. So, for instance, I'll give you a couple of cities, like one is Rajamandri, the other one is Vijayavada. These are cities which are heavily reliant on. So, there are many cities in the existing territories of in our four states which have impact on direct agricultural income. So, rainfall in nature will have a broad impact on the overall systems of having lesser demand. That is something that in the last couple of years we have seen because of flooding and all of that happened. But on the agricultural side, I think that is also something that we have to be worried about. One more thing that I'm not able to comment very surely, but has a broader level impact is because of the war, the fuel prices rising. Even with respect to the product wise also, the dying cost has increased substantially. So therefore, the entire supply chain also has been something that has been impacting. Despite all of this, our product mix changes is able to absorb some amount of margin, gross margin expansions that we wanted to target, and that is something that we were able to maintain despite these challenging things. But broadly, I believe in quarter two and quarter three. See, things like these rainfall effects will not show immediate impact. These are things that might show impact probably in quarter two and quarter three. I personally believe that there will be some impact, but it's tricky to quantify how much exactly it will.

Right. And as far as margins go, like, you know, you did highlight cost pressures in the entire supply chain. So, would you say that are we still confident of maintaining our margins, at least a gross margin level?

Gross margin, as you see, I think, ideally, we were expecting the gross margins to be a little bit higher. But with all of these things playing out, the gross margin... I think we've lost close to 10 to 15 basis points and broadly the gross margins remain. We aim to maintain the same gross margins till the end of the year. The newer format, which is majorly not Varamaha Lakshmi, which is Kala Mandir that is coming this year is one thing that we have to keep in mind. And these cost pressures that is coming broadly, we will still aim to maintain the same kind of gross margin till the end of the year. But on the EBITDA margins, you should be able to expect better than what we closed last year. I am talking about the full year in perspective.

Understood. And, you know, Telangana in this quarter has seen a very sharp decline, I think almost around 15% odd. So, and how much of that decline would be linked to the, you know, high footprint of KLM in Telangana? And also, if you could quantify the SSSG for this quarter, and would KLM be pulling the overall numbers materially down?

So, our SSG broadly was around 7.5 to 7.8 percentage. This was heavily driven by KLM's degrowth. And since KLM's majority of the contribution is coming from Telangayana, so naturally these numbers seem to be a little higher. And number two, as you already did mention, the higher base in last year is also one of the effects that we have. So, yes, that is the reason why I think despite the continued efforts, this... All these couple of quarters, we decided to consolidate one of the stores, and this store happens to be in Telangana itself. We are aiming that the inventory, whatever is available in this store, will get transferred to the other KLM stores, and the manpower, wherever reduction could happen, will happen, and we will move the manpower to the new stores and upcoming stores that are going to come. So, the effect of this is something that's going to come up in the next quarter.

So, from 19 stores, we are looking to consolidate to how many stores going ahead, or is it just one store for now?

Right now, it is one store. The market has also changed. I think one store is what we have definitely identified, we have negotiated, and we have finalized the date of closure as well. The other store, there is one other store in the radar that we are carefully monitoring it. We have not taken a definitive decision yet, but if... If it comes down to it, we are open to figure out the necessary course corrective plan that we need to take for these stores as well. At present, it's only one store. From 19, we move to 18.

18. Got it. I'm sorry, I missed this. So, 7.5 to 8% is the SSSG degrowth, right, in this quarter?

Correct.

Okay. And then, you know, in KLM Fashion Mall, if you could just comment on, you know, how is the recovery doing? I think we launched two new categories, innerwear and jewelry, while there was pressure on menswear and kidswear. So, how are these four categories doing?

So, with respect to innerwear, I think month on month, YOY, it is showing growth. We are expecting a 20% growth compared to last year in the innerwear category. With respect to jewelry, I think the jewelry that has been added is fashion jewelry. It just started. We started with the two new stores that we opened in last quarter in Kalamandar. In those stores also, we started adding. In KLM, we just started adding this. We will take a face-by-face approach and try to... Put, start putting the jewellery, the fashion jewellery in more and more stores. The concept behind that will continue to be the same, reallocating the existing store space to be able to fit in this category and see how the productivity levels increase. So broadly, the implementation in the jewellery side on the KLM front particularly is just starting, but on the Kala Mandir side, So, because the two new stores opened in last quarter, we were able to add aggressively there.

Understood. And lastly, on the warehouse funds, they have been unutilized for quite some time now, basically from the IPO proceeds. So, are we looking to utilize the same anytime soon?

So, warehouse is one part that we have to see exactly where it is to be located. One or two places that we have identified under due diligence is under process. So, just for the sake of spending of the amount, we cannot conclude on any one place, and then we will have a problem in shifting if necessary. So, other than the warehouse part, the funds are being utilized on time, and in fact, as explained by Bharadavaj in the opening remarks, we have established approximately 80,000 extra, 80,000 to 90,000 extra store area. We are closing one particular area where we wanted to put up the warehouse and discussing with them. Hopefully, we should be able to complete the deal by the end of September. And then that particular part of the amount for veros will be spent at that point of time.

Sure.

Apart from that, I think the entire utilization will be completed. The target being September quarter 2 of 2026.

Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Ashwini Agarwal with Tmeta Advisors, LLP. Please go ahead.

Good evening, Mr. Sarvan Sabhadwaj. My question is that how are you looking at the next three quarters in terms of wedding dates? I realize that Dashera has moved to Q3 this fiscal year as opposed to Q2, but could you give us a broad sense of what's the distribution of wedding dates in Q2, Q3, and Q4 relative to the same periods last year?

So, broadly, Q2, Q3, Q4, if you take all of that book together, YOY, there are like, you know, two, three dates, like I have to put you in percentage perspective, like about five to 10 percentage of additional wedding dates is what is there in quarter two, quarter three, and quarter four, and it is a distributed calendar, like how I've already mentioned in the previous calls as well. Now, with regards to the festive demand, as you rightly said, from quarter two shifted to quarter three, that is one such parameter in terms of the overall revenue that moves. And Dashana is one of the biggest seasons in our Hyderabad, I mean, Telangana cluster. And Telangana does have a significant impact on the overall revenue. So, with respect to the festive, so that shift between Q2 and Q3, but with regards to the wedding dates, broadly it is distributed like how it was in the last year with an addition of 5 to 10 percentage of additional wedding dates.

Okay. And the two stores that you opened in Q1 were both Kalamandir stores based on your opening remarks, but they're pretty large formats in the sense between the two stores is 13,000 square feet. I thought that there was kind of a strategy to also kind of open smaller stores with the Walli format, which you had attempted last year with a bunch of stores. Any comments on how they have done?

Sure. So the broader idea is Vali stores, by the end of last financial year, we scale it up to 11 stores. And we mentioned that after 11 stores, it gave us an enough visible picture for us to understand what is the entire economics going to work around in the Vali format. So as of quarter four, the Vali format broadly is operating in the same range of Kalamandir and a little better than Kalamandir in terms of the productivity as well as efficiencies in terms of inventory. Now, Valli is still in focus, is still in play. It's just that we are trying to time the Kalamandir stores in Karnataka. So, the focus in Valli is still there. We have not shifted or we are not changing the plans towards that. Probably by Q4 and early next year, we will have the Valli store pipeline that is going to come front. With regards to Kalamandir, as you've mentioned, the 30,000 square feet are bigger size stores. I think... One store is close to 14 and one store is close to 15,000 square feet. Sometimes they have 29,000, some change. These stores, if you look at Kala Mandir's brand value in Karnataka is significantly higher compared to Telangana. And these stores that are currently in Karnataka are all family stores and heavy focus on reliance more on sarees. So we are trying to use the brand value that these stores already have and leveraging that and expanding deeper into these markets. The reason why this store seems to be a little bigger than the current averages are because these store majorly are identified into markets where there are all family stores in and around, and that's the kind of audience that that particular geography requires us to have. And therefore, Kalamandar stores is what is taking that leap forward. If you look at the overall store mix as well. I mean, Karnataka, the number of stores that we have is 14. Tamil Nadu is 14. Kalangana, 28. Kalangana, 29. Andhra, 28. I mean, there could maybe one store plus. So, total, that's the split between the number of store count. So, there is a huge opportunity for us to target in Karnataka, and therefore, we have chosen the Kalamundil format as a format that we wanted to start expanding. With that being said, the Walli silk format is also something that they are actively looking at in terms of store square feet. In terms of Walli, one of the challenges are, because it is a 3,000 to 4,000 square feet store, The rental costs are significantly a little bit higher than the company averages with respect to Wally, because all the other store formats have higher productivity and bigger store size. It works out better. But with Wally, the rent to revenue cost is now shooting up a little bit. So what we have decided is we wanted to add a few more stores, giving a break between about one, two, three quarters, and by quarter four and next year onwards, we will start adding the next wave of Vali Silk stores. But I wanted to take a moment to give you the strategy of how we do the store selection process. The fundamental idea is to look at we start identifying one or two markets and we start expanding between multiple formats as well, not just go with a singular format. The reason being any particular location will have an appetite for one or more formats and not one format alone. Now, because we do this, the entire operational efficiencies with respect to stock management and administrative bandwidth, it will all work out. So, right now, the next interesting place for us to expand will be in Karnataka with newer formats as well as in Tamil Nadu with non-Varamaha Lakshmi format. The goal for us is to make sure we balance Varamaha Lakshmi and non-Varamaha Lakshmi format so that we don't miss out in terms of margins, we don't miss out in terms of capital allocation.

Thanks for that. Just one more question. I mean, if I look at your guidance of 12 to 15% revenue growth for the current financial year, and I map that on to the number of square feet that were put on last year and the number of square feet that you're putting on this year in terms of footprint expansion. It would kind of indicate that our SSG outlook still remains muted. I mean, our SSG will probably be zero or slightly negative, even in Q2, Q3, Q4, because you've added a lot of stores last year, you're adding a lot of square feet this year as well. And in context of your revenue guidance, your SSG outlook seems to be negative. Would that be a fair inference on my side?

Sir, I'll give you, see, the reason why I've mentioned that number is because we have a lot of catching up to do this minus 7%, but broadly we feel for the full year it is going to balance out. You are right in terms of what is anticipated. I am leaving a little bit of. What can I say? Contingency plan because these scenarios such as El Nino, the war, the kind of impact that it might outweigh on quarter two and quarter three could be something that I would have misunderstood or would have not been in my reach. But on the business and operations front, we will still aim to do around 15% only and not 12 and 15. This broadly will classify in at least 2 to 3% of SSSG positive plus whatever additional revenue that comes forward. I'm trying to take a conservative number because of the current SSSG degrowth plus the geopolitical factors that might weigh in. Apart from that, on the business and operational front, I think the only negative thing is because of these factors playing in the consumption might weaken. If that's the scenario that is not going to have a problem, I think we will be comfortably doing a number which is close to 15%. That will put you around close to SSG growth number only, positive SSG and not a negative number.

Okay. Thanks.

Thank you and all the best. Thank you, sir.

The next question comes from the line of Nilesh Doshi with Prospero 3 AMC. Please go ahead.

I have a couple of questions. Both are related to the revenue. See, in the quarter one, there was a slight degrowth in the revenue in spite of the addition of 14 new stores during the period of quarter one 26 to quarter one 27. And you mentioned that because of the big mass and softening of the demand, there was a slight reduction in the revenue. But at the same time, we have added the 14 stores. So I think, is there only the reason is the adhikmas, or really the demand is low in this sector? What is the exact reason, sir?

Sir, there are broadly two reasons. One, we have a higher base in the last year Q1. If you look at last year Q1 versus the previous year, we showed a double-digit SSSG growth. So, because we have a higher base, this year naturally seemed to be shooting a little bit aggressively. That is one reason. And the second reason is combination of two factors, which is one is SSG degrowth, which is coming from Adhikamas Plus. Lower consumption. So these are the two factors why the negative SSHG is panning out. But again, I want to re-emphasize that the numbers that we have to look with respect to companies like ours is the quarterly shifts might move up and down, but the yearly number is something that we should be looking at. And we believe in quarter two, I mean, we believe in quarter three, I mean, in H2. Everything will start making sense in terms of what our revenue guidance versus our actual performance.

So, I understand that because of the adikmas, people generally postpone the buying, don't stop the buying. So, do we witness any demand surge in the current month or like that?

Currently, we have completed close to 15 to 20 days post Adikamas. The demand is slowly increasing. It is the ashram time that is currently going on. Demand has increased, but not to the levels where ideally I wanted to currently operate under, which broadly signifies a weak demand because of these geopolitical factors. But again, it's just been only like 10-15 days. We are aiming that Sravana Masam, which will start from the 15th of next month, is something which is a very auspicious time for a lot of weddings to happen, and it's going to shoot up in terms of the overall demand-wise. So quarter two is, that's the expectation in quarter two at least for now.

So, generally, when you give some guidance about the revenue growth, it is more than or at least a double digit. What about the SSAG? Will our SSAG beat the inflation rate or will it be near to inflation rate? Because if we achieve the growth of inflation rate, how our profit will move up?

Normally, we consider. An improvement of approximately 3-4% on SSG, which will cover the inflation rate plus any kind of increase in cost. We will cover that and that would be adequate for this. So, approximately 3-4% of SSG plus the additional productivity from the additional stores that will be coming in. It will be the guidance for the entry here.

So the major growth comes only by adding the new stores. Is it correct, sir?

It will, yeah. See, there are three aspects in it, not new stores only. There is a factor of SSSG, which will cover the inflation and give some part of the additional comfort. And there are stores which are under maturity. So these stores will improve their productivity during the period of maturity. As you know, we consider SSSG of maturity of these stores. As having, leaving the year in which it is established, plus one year for the full operations, and then take a, take it as a guidance. So, the improvement in productivity in the stores under maturity, plus the additional stores, the productivity out of additional stores that have come in during the year. These three factors will Contribute to the turnover levels.

And then my last question regarding the bookkeeping. Our employee cost for the current year, current quarter is around 52 crore rupees. But in the quarter four, it was 61 crore rupees. And on a YOY basis, it is again 53 crore rupees in quarter one 26. So why there was a jump in quarter four? Or is it anything, do we have close any store in the quarter one, current quarter? So why it is lower than the quarter four 26?

Last quarter four, we issue bonuses. In quarter three and quarter four, we issue bonuses, which will spike the employee costs during that period. And secondly, during the peak seasons, the Q3 and Q4, we employ substantial temporary staff. For assistance, including if you see in some cases for additional manpower for valley parking also. In various departments, we have to employ temporary staff during Q3 and Q4, where normally the activity will be much higher. In quarter one, it is lesser in that aspect, and so that is how there will be a slight lower figure in the Q1 this year.

Okay, okay. And, sir, only last request from my side, at least. Why Mr. Durga Prasad is not attending any call? Because we want to know something from him also.

We are in the midst of implementing so much of an expansion in various states and all that. And so every year, one conference call he is attending. Last year also, one conference call he has attended. And we will ensure that the next time at the H1 call, he will be there. Thank you. Thank you. That's all from my side.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Mayank Agarwal with Harman. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi, sir. I have two questions, majorly. Am I audible? Mike, hi. Good evening. Yeah, hi. Good evening. So, I understand that Pinesales is a medium to premium brand, but are there any plans to further boost the revenue, like appointing the dedicated business development officer CXO like that? Or offering the occasional discount sale.

I didn't understand the question quite well. So, on the off chart level, I think we have all the people in terms of respective departments, in terms of sale. If you look at in terms of sale-wise, Our 95 or 96% of the entire product offering is full price sale. That's the brand value that we were able to gain over the last 18 years. There are very few retailers in the country who is able to perform full price sale in north of about 90 numbers, and we take extreme pride to be able to be one among them. With respect to the business development and teams like that, I think last year with respect to guidance, we guided around 75,000 square feet. We've achieved close to, sorry, last year we guided close to 80,000 square feet and we have achieved 75,000 and we have downsized 6,000 square feet. That puts us around 69,000 effective retail area. This year, we are guiding close to 1 lakh square feet of retail area, and everything with respect to business development-wise, everything is going on track. And in fact, by end of quarter 4, we might anticipate and we might look at adding additional on top of the 1 lakh square feet of retail area. So, in terms of appointing the right guys, I think there are enough team members in the organization who is able to scale it up and be able to meet the vision of what the company is aligned towards.

Thank you, sir. And just the last thing is, I understand you have got the online retail portals also, but any plan to distribute via the big aggregators like Amazon, Moontra, etc.?

So, Mayang, we fundamentally don't want to get into the marketplace channels. We are not manufacturers of products where we have high gross margins. Marketplaces such as the names that you have mentioned have marketplace commission or marketplace fee that ranges anywhere between 20% and 45%. So we don't have margins like that to operate in channels like that, and we continue to keep our stores in offline mode and standalone as well. So formats and business models like ours, which doesn't involve in manufacturing, can't really use that leverage and be able to scale. On top of it, we have tried models in marketplaces before, but the real challenge is the marketplace fees plus also very high RPOs and very high returns, which will actually eat up this entire margin that we are trying to operate. So we have done that, but we have understood that that model will not work for us, and we continue to operate and strengthen our presence in the offline formats. We are present in the e-commerce, but we are doing a smaller number there, compared to the kind of numbers that we do in the offline.

Okay. Thank you, sir, for the explanation. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Nitin Jain with Fair Value Equity Advisory. He'll go ahead.

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. My question is regarding the revenue guidance that you have given for the year, or rather the explanation you have given for the slow revenue performance in Q1. You mentioned that... Various reasons like geopolitical, El Nino, and Adikmas, but if you look at the other parts of consumer discretionary, like jewelry, they have shown really good growth, like 35-40% growth, and that too on a very high base of last year. So, how do you explain this dichotomy? Like, are these factors not playing out in the jewelry space, which is also related to wedding and consumer discretionary purchases?

See, when you look at jewelry as a segment, there's a lot of investment value and metal appreciation value. All of that is also something that we have to consider. I'm not trying to decode the jewelry business model here, but if you compare us with any ethnic wear or wedding-related purchases, this is going to be a phenomenon across anything in this industry. Unfortunately, we are the only player in this space, and that's the reason why we are not able to give you a relative point of view. More than El Mino, more than geopolitical factors, the real reason of the degrowth in this particular quarter is on account of Adikamas. That's the consumer nature that we have because your average ticket size for us across the company is around 4,000, 5,000 across the board, right? When you come back to jewelry, it's much, much higher. Perceived value that people get in terms of jewellery is the investment angle that is really not going to be possible for a category like ours. So it's tricky for us to compare the jewellery and this, but yes, you could compare the jewellery segment in a given year where there is a lot of weddings, minus... The investment angle. So, I hope that answers your question.

Okay, and my next question is regarding the guidance you have given for the full year. Like my question is, when we gave the guidance in at the end of Q4, factors like geopolitics, adhikmas, and dashira being in Q3 of this year would have been known to us, right? So I'm just trying to delve a little deeper into the guidance.

So, see, I always gave a guidance for the full year. There was never a quarterly guidance that I have done, even in my last earnings call as well. I always wanted to give a full year. Businesses like ours have been and will be continuing to have the impact of quarterly disproportionate weightage in terms of the wedding and the seasonal and the festivity calendar. Keeping all of that in mind, for a full year, the guidance is still same. There has not been much of a difference in any difference in terms of the guidance that I have given in Q4 of last year versus the current Q. It is just the seasons move and therefore quarters change, but for the full year, it remains solid like how I spoke in the last quarter as well.

Okay, that's all for me. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.

Thank you all for taking time to join VIR today and thank you for your continued support and participation in today's call and we look forward to interacting with you in the next quarter. Season's greetings and thank you. Bye.

Thank you. On behalf of CISIL's Kalamanda Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.