Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Limited (CROMPTON) Q3 FY2026 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Crompton Consumer Electricals 3Q FY '26 Earnings Call. From the management today, we have with us Mr. Promeet Ghosh, Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Kaleeswaran Arunachalam, Chief Financial Officer; Ms. Swetha Sagar, Chief Business Officer, Butterfly Gandhimathi; Ms. Natasha Kedia, Head, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications; Mr. Rajat Chopra, Business Head, Home Electricals; and Mr. Shaleen Nayak, Business Head, Lighting, Solar Rooftop and Wires. Thank you so much, and I open -- I mean, I'd request the management to give the opening remarks. Thanks.

Thank you, Dhruv. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for joining, and good evening. Welcome to this earnings call. And as you've already know: Kalees; Swetha; Shaleen; Rajat and Natasha are with me here. I will make some initial remarks and then we can follow that up with Q&A. Throughout Crompton's 85-plus year history, as you are aware, we have deliberately entered categories where we can build meaningful leadership through scale, distribution and a trusted brand. Our track record from fans and pumps to lighting, appliances, kitchen and now solar shows that focused plans plus disciplined execution, leveraging our strengths, coupled with strong unit economics and thoughtful capital allocation delivers results. Today, I'm delighted to announce another important strategic step. Crompton is launching a range of residential wires. This is a large and attractive market. There is clear adjacency with many of our products, and we have a strong right to win in this market. We will leverage Crompton's brand equity, pan-India distribution and deep dealer relationships to pursue meaningful scale and leadership. This expansion materially increases our addressable market, enables us to become an end-to-end home solution player and supports our long-term objective of delivering sustainable shareholder value. These products will become available to consumers in select markets in the next 6 to 7 weeks. On another front, one of the big activities and events for our business has been the B(E2) transition in our ceiling fans category. This was effective 1st of January 2026 and was a major industry inflection point. We transitioned seamlessly as the world's #1 ceiling fans brand, managing this technology shift at scale required decisive cross-functional execution. Our 2-part approach comprised responsibly managing and liquidating legacy 1-star inventory and ensuring future readiness through targeted engineering and R&D. We delivered this smoothly, seamlessly, and I am delighted to say with no hiccups.

Promeet, sorry to interrupt you. Can you please speak up? We're getting...

Speak up more. Okay. All right. Okay, guys. Sorry, I've got a gruff voice, so you may not be able to understand everything I say. You can always ask later on. Okay. All right. Moving on to financial performance. Beginning with the Q3 performance. Sequentially, we have witnessed strong improvement quarter-on-quarter. Consolidated revenue was INR 1,898 crores. EBITDA grew 18.5% Q-o-Q and EBITDA margin expanded to 10.3%. This recovery was led by volume and margin improvement in ECD, complemented by continued industry-leading margins in lighting. We continue to gain share across categories. Our progress in BLDC fans is particularly encouraging. We are also now the second largest water heater brand in GT nationally. Along with this encouraging sequential trajectory, our year-on-year growth has also witnessed positive traction. Revenue grew about 7%, driven by ECD growth, about 8% and lighting growth about 7% Y-o-Y. ECD performance was led by strong solar pump execution, volume growth in LDA and improvement -- continued improvement I dare say in SDA. Lighting growth was supported by ceiling lights and accessories together with new product launches. Commodity cost. This is something you hear very often in the consumer durables business now. Over the last quarter, commodity cost inflation persisted. Pricing actions were taken during the quarter, and we expect that further actions to defray cost increases will continue to be taken going forward. We anticipate this and for -- while -- we anticipated the commodity cost increases and for a while now, we have been qualifying alternate raw materials without compromising quality and continue to offer industry-leading warranties in our products. We calibrated brand investments due to seasonality, maintained tight cost discipline and strong execution across channels. PBT, prior to exceptional items, was INR 156 crores this quarter with a margin of 8.2%. Butterfly delivered a steady revenue of INR 245 crores with a growth of 3% Y-o-Y, led by premiumization in gas stoves and GST-driven demand for cookers. Both of these areas registered double-digit growth. EBITDA margin, an area that we have been focusing on for some time, expanded by nearly 100 basis points Y-o-Y to 8.2%. This was aided by gross margin improvement and cost optimization. Overall, the net profit of Butterfly grew 44% Y-o-Y this quarter. We remain confident of our ability to scale the businesses that we are entering by delivering resilient performance in all our core categories. I now open the floor to Q&A. And as is required, I'll ask my colleagues around the table to step in and answer questions that might arise. I'm hoping that this 1-page readout addresses all your questions, but nevertheless, we remain open.

[Operator Instructions] So we'll take the first -- one sec. We'll take the first question from Aditya Bhartia.

My first question is on the wires business. I just want to understand what's going to be our procurement strategy around that? Are we going to manufacture or are we going to procure it from third parties? What kind of CapEx and OpEx cost this business may entail? And how are we looking at sales ramping up? What are some of the initial targets that we have set for the team?

Yes. Aditya, this is a business that we are currently beginning on the basis of outsourced product. As you are aware, we do a fairly good job of outsourcing our products. But we've spent the last 6 to 9 months, frankly, doing a bunch of work on the go-to-market as well as the supply chain. What we -- what you should expect to see is that -- by the way, I didn't announce that we entered the wires and business. I announced the launch of those products. So you can imagine there's a slight difference. The products are ready, and we expect that in select markets, near full range of wires of residential wires will become available in the next 6, 7 weeks. I don't want to actually talk about what kind of revenues we expect. That's a forward-looking statement. But we do expect that this is a very large business, about INR 36,000 crores, INR 37,000 crores where we have a right to win. And over a period of time, I would expect us to get a fair share, if not a leadership share in the near- to medium-term.

Understood, sir. My second question is on the solar rooftop business, wherein we had won some reasonably large-sized tenders. I just want to understand the progress around that. Have we started kind of recognizing some revenues from that? And if not, then can we expect something to be starting from fourth quarter?

We have actually started recognizing revenues. And we have, I think, order of magnitude, about INR 18 crores, INR 19 crores that we booked in the solar business last quarter. And yes, we expect tempo to keep ramping up in the coming quarters. Again, we didn't come -- as you might imagine, we announced our entry into the market after some work had been done, and that's why you are being able to see us start to book revenues from the get-go.

Sure. And it's from the state tender order only? Or is it from direct sales to consumers?

Currently, it is from the state tender orders, B2B orders. And this quarter, I am expecting that the other direct-to-consumers will also kick in, yes.

Perfect. That's great to hear. And one last question, if I may.

See, guys, you should ask one question. There are lots of people on the line.

We'll take the next question from Siddhartha Bera.

Sir, first question on -- again, on this wire and cable side, will it be limited to wires? Or do you at some point also plan to enter into cables? And by how -- by when should we expect full pan-India sort of launch of the wires? And would we also look to target the institutional clients or it will be only limited to the retail network, which we have?

I don't know if you're asking about [Foreign Language]. Yes. So we are currently entering residential wires, which is the overwhelming majority of the market. We remain -- obviously, cables will be an area that we'll potentially keep looking to evaluate and enter as we go along. Currently, as I said, we are going to be available in limited markets. Over a period of time, we'll become available pan-India, like our other products are.

Got it, sir. And on the solar side, sir, on the pump side, can you also highlight the revenues and any order book because I could not find that in the presentation. And...

Siddhartha, as you know, we don't disclose that specifically. Allow us to skip that. I think our order book is robust. As and when we are getting an order book, we do make a SEBI announcement around it, and that execution is ongoing.

I think it's fair to say that our solar pumps business has in the last quarter also more than doubled Y-o-Y, right?

Yes. We doubled the revenue.

Yes. To be fair, more than doubled the revenue. But I mean that's the limit of the guidance that we give.

Got it, sir. Sir, last question on the cost side. You mentioned...

Can we limit our questions guys? If you don't mind, Siddharth, I know you can always touch base with Natasha if your questions don't get addressed, but I am cognizant that there are a large number of people who are also waiting.

Next question is from Umang Mehta.

Okay. Sure. So the only question I wanted to ask was on water heaters. So sometime back, management had highlighted that we were #1 on e-com, but #5 or #6 on GT. Just wanted to check, have you gained significant market share in that particular space?

In water heaters, I'm now delighted to say that we are #2 by market share in GT. So yes, we wanted to ramp up our presence in GT and that's what's been happening over the last couple of quarters. It's okay to ask 2 questions, but I would request that people don't go beyond that.

Okay. Just one more. On wires front, could you share some color on strategy that you are going to kind of deploy in terms of whatever you can share on pricing or influencer engagement, distribution? Some more insights would be really helpful.

Like we announced TechWithHeart, and we had a meeting with a [indiscernible] notice doing pretty well on BLDC. Similar to that, we will have an engagement on which we will have an analyst and a press meet where we will talk about the product range and what are we differentiating with, and that's pretty short term. It's a matter of a few weeks in which we'll hear it. Strategically, we are entering in because there is a right to win. We have a go-to-market. The brand is very, very strong. And as you know, Crompton, whenever we enter into a category, it's to approach towards a leadership. And this is in line with that, and that's what we are going to do in wires also.

Tongue in cheek, I can tell you, Crompton has been selling -- order of magnitude, a lot of wires in the market. But only thing Crompton Greaves did not sell them, right? So going to sell -- Crompton is going to sell by itself. You know what I mean.

Yes, yes, I do. I'm aware about that.

But this is a direct-to-market, as you might imagine. So we've had -- we've identified the channel and some channel partners and select markets where we are first going to start and then ramp up from there.

The next question is from Aniruddha Joshi.

Sir, in terms of fans, just a strategic question. Now the price hikes in induction fans will be far higher than the price hikes in BLDC fans. So do you see probably the category of induction fan may in a way phase out in like 5, 6 years, like CRT televisions or in a way, the very basic light? Will that automatically lead to premiumization BLDC category as well as Crompton also? So that is one question. And then second and last question is, we have entered -- we are entering various categories like mobile accessories, cable wire, solar rooftops, and like obviously, fans, et cetera, is already there. So the distribution network overlap will be very minimal, like mobile accessories would be largely e-com category. So how do you see synergies between all these products working out? Yes, that's it from my side.

Okay. First question about induction motors and BLDC motors. It is not -- firstly, I don't necessarily agree with you. The kind of cost increases in induction motors depends on the technology and the work that you're doing on the inside. And as Kalees actually briefly mentioned, this is something that we've been working on, not just today, but for the last 1, 1.5 years. So I do not think that induction motor will necessarily get priced out in this market, if anything [indiscernible] and there are advantages in BLDC and those necessarily don't overlap. For instance, induction motor fan, the kind of air delivery that it can deliver cannot be met by any other technology, not now and not for some time to come. So, in fact, induction motor, particularly for players like us, remember, we are not the largest induction motor fan company in India. We are the largest ceiling fan company in the world. I think we will be -- we do believe that, that kind of leverage will allow us to competitively offer both induction as well as BLDC fans in the long run. In fact, even in the short run, as you will find out soon enough. What was the second question?

Second question, maybe on the channel strength and other things that you're taking in. I think fundamentally, Aniruddh, if you look at it, we had a clear called-out strategy that TAM expansion is going to be crucial. And we divided this into play to win and play to participate. If you look at some of the core categories that we are looking at, idea is to how do you take your 80,000 TAM to about 200,000. The large category that we are entering as play to win from that perspective, apart from where we are already is what we have announced solar pumps, solar rooftop, where meaningful businesses are getting built. Now wires comes in. So with this, the TAM is already moving into almost 1.5 lakh to 1.6 lakhs. Subsequent to that, there are play to participate categories. Mobile, et cetera, is a simple play to participate category, not a large category that we're looking at it. Also I wanted to tell you that as we speak, while Crompton is extremely strong in general trade, we are the #1 e-commerce player in the segments that we operate in also. So it complements that, and that will help us to grow the play to participate categories also.

The next question is from Manoj Gori.

Sir, if you just give a brief indication about the entry or launch into wires and cables? Probably I just want to understand the thought process, like right now, we are outsourcing, but probably with scale moving up somewhere in FY '27, we plan to invest more into this business, set up your own manufacturing facilities. Secondly, just continuing with the wires, your channel synergies will be the best part for Crompton. But in terms of distributors and all, probably there would be new distributors which you need to get on board. So how things are progressing over there? And second question on the fans, the price hikes that are required to offset the commodity inflation and INR depreciation. So whether industry -- considering the demand environment, whether industry is set to take those kind of price hikes and should we expect margins to remain at normalized levels going forward as well?

Okay. Good questions. Firstly, on wires, what is our sourcing strategy? Currently, our sourcing strategy is outsourced. Remember that this is something that we do quite well. In many of our products for the last several years, we have a reasonably large outsourcing. That's because we are -- one of the competencies that Crompton has is to ensure that the product quality can be very strictly maintained, we can get good quality product at reasonable prices. And so, currently, our greatest strength is our brand and our go-to-market. And we do not, as of now, in the next year, anticipate significant capital investments in this. We will see as we go along and see as we get to scale. Insofar as fans are concerned, yes, commodity prices are concerned. You will remember the last time when we had a conversation, a similar question was asked. And I had told you that for our part, we would want to continue to take constructive pricing actions to defray cost increases. You can see that playing in our -- coming through in our margins this quarter. I do expect that the industry will also be equally responsible in this regard in the current quarter. So, I mean, look, it's very difficult to say how commodity prices will go, but it's -- I am hoping that the industry will be as responsible as we have been in this regard.

Sir, just a follow-up on wires. With regards to your channel synergies. So retailers, yes, it would be the same retailers, most of the retailers. But when it comes to distributors, I think you need to get distributors on board and how we plan to progress wires reach into more number of states and probably how we are planning for that? That's all, sir.

Like I said earlier, we've been planning this go-to-market for some time. So we will have a mix. But given Crompton's position, we do believe that we can build up -- we have the right to have a strong go-to-market.

And Manoj, to add to it today also, if you look at it, we have good synergy on many categories where distributors overlap. So when we are talking about entering into this category, groundwork has already been done amongst the number of distributors that we have, where we have synergies, where we have overlap, which market we need to appoint a new distributor and how do we need to go about it. That planning has been done in detail. And therefore, what we want to say is that, consciously, we are entering in a few states. There is a value proposition with which we are going to test in these markets. As the value proposition gets accepted, there is a national scale up that would happen. As that happens, other things, including supply chain investment required would also follow. Right now, it's a very cautious clear capital allocation on a growth category to expand our TAM with a clear strategy on how to win.

Wish you all the best, sir.

Thank you.

The next question is from Praveen Sahay.

So first question is related to the price hike and also you had given an indication there is some substitute RM to minimize the impact of RM inflation. So can you talk more like last quarter, you indicated around 1.5% of price hike in the fan. So what percentage of RM have you covered with the price hike? And what kind of substitute RM are you taking to minimize the RM inflation?

Yes. Praveen, some of these alternative RMs are very strategic and competitive information, so allow us not to disclose. The way we are working is how do we get our gross margin up considering there is a flagship Unnati cost program that we have been running for many years now. That continues to provide good accrual. That includes technical levers that we use for cost savings and also some of the commercial negotiations that we do considering the scale at which we operate. Subject to that, wherever there has to be price that needs to be taken up to pass on, we have been consistently doing it. There has been a price hike that has been taken in Jan., net price increase of about, say, 1 to 1.5 percentage. We are looking at 2 more rounds of price increase that would happen in Q4 and Q1.

My next question is related to your announcement earlier of a greenfield expansion with the 3.5 billion. So where we are about that?

That is progressing. And I would venture that we would be in a position to give you more details in the near term.

Yes. It's progressing very well.

All the best.

The next question is [ Rachna Kukreja ].

My first question would be on Butterfly. What is the primary driver of gross margin improvement in Butterfly given raw material prices have remained volatile?

Swetha, why are your margins going up?

Rachna, I think we did talk about our change in go-to-market some time back. I think that's what is actually paying us off. So we have 2 parts over here. The first one is in terms of premiumizing our own portfolio. So we did launch our range of Idea First Series in Q2 this year, so which actually started doing well for us and our contribution is right now significant. The second one is, yes, we are in sync with -- sync in terms of taking our price increases in line with the BOM cost or price increases that are happening in the market. So I think it is a mix of both. One is price increase and the other one is premiumization that's led from...

So what I think you see playing out in Butterfly is initiatives that we've flagged over the last 2 quarters. The product mix is improving. We are adding -- not only is the ASP going up, but the ASP of new products that are being added -- the margin of new products that have been added is higher, and that's helping. And also, I want to emphasize, we've been saying for some time that the terms of trade with the go-to-market, we are working very hard to reset those terms of trade. And again, what you're seeing now is improvements coming through from there.

Okay. Understood. One more question, data related. I understand Idea First Series have traction well. I have seen good reviews on Amazon as well. In the presentation also, we have mentioned that the contribution has increased. If you could quantify how much it has increased versus previous quarter? And also overall, in terms of volume, what has been the growth for Butterfly this quarter year-on-year?

Specificity, Rachna, we don't share. I just wanted to leave with the thought that Idea First Series has played a significant role, not only ability to sell premium products through Idea First, but also uplifting the overall brand, where we become a choice for consumer. We have been a #2 player in many categories apart from leadership in gas stove. Now we are challenging the #1 players by meaningful innovation being brought in. So all of us not to share the specific contribution. From a volume growth perspective, largely, it's been a quarter that has been led by pressure cooker, which is what we have called out in our press release also. It's about a single-digit volume growth is what we have delivered.

Okay. One more question.

You can ask.

Can I?

Rachna, we request you to fall back in the queue, please. Next question is from Manjeet.

We will come back to all those who have another question. So not to worry.

Promeet bhai, just one question. I'm curious about this. Every time a leading company in our industry enters an adjacency, the rationale is, obviously, you will leverage your brand and your distribution which are already strong in some category. But what I noticed is very rarely does that company become a top 2 player. And even if they get meaningful revenue share, the profit share is like very miniscule. And I think to some extent, we have seen it with a peer wires and cable leading peer who did it in fans, et cetera, where they never really got any profits. And if I could be a bit this thing, even our lighting business over the decade has not really done much, right, in terms of growth or making good profits. So I'm just curious why this wires and cables will be any different?

Why don't you give it a shot.

Yes, sure.

And maybe I'll -- look Manjeet, I cannot tell you what other people have done and what other people have achieved. I can tell you what Crompton has done and what Crompton is demonstrating today, right? Insofar as Crompton is concerned, we entered an adjacent category of solar pumps 2 years ago, 2.5 years ago. Our business has steadily grown. And not only has it grown, it is very profitable. And in the last quarter alone, where the solar roof -- solar pumps business market has degrown overall, we have more than doubled our sales, okay, which I would imagine you can understand mean significant share improvement in market share, okay? Similarly, insofar as our lighting business is concerned, by the way, our lighting business, we started before our fans business, right? But while I agree with you that our lighting business had a marked time for a few years in the earlier. Now over the last 2 years, it's been an area of significant focus. And today, our lighting has leading growth and leading margins. And leading growth and leading margins, my friend. So especially if you take out non-allied products of competition, sometimes it includes wires also and sometimes it includes switchgear also. If you do pure lighting, in both the areas, we are leading. And I have to say that the -- now that we've started to realize and leverage the benefits of Crompton's position, it is for all to see what that can translate into. So yes, I don't want to comment on what other people have done or not done and how well they have done it or not done it. But we do believe that wires is an area -- another area where we have a right to win. And we'll see where that goes. I don't know if you want to add.

I think just to add to what you said only, Promeet, I think fundamentally, we talked about play to win categories. As Promeet said, I would urge to go back and look at history what we have delivered. While yes, fans is something that followed lighting. Today, we are, not only India's #1 player, we are world's #1 player in fans. Secondly, if you look at pumps, we again entered after that. Today, we are India's #1 company in residential pumps. Subsequently, we entered into water geyser. We are #1 in e-commerce, #2 in GT. Then we got into kitchen. We got Butterfly acquired from a top 6, we are a top 3 player. Then we got into air coolers, again, came from 7 or 8 and then moved into top 3. Solar pumps, already we are touching at about a top 3 player. So if you look at it, in the past 10 years, we have not entered a category to fish around for a very, very short-term duration. Category strategy is very well thought through. It is not something that we come and announce and see that that's what we think about it. It's a long-term plan. And I'm sure you would be aware that for the last 2 years, we have been consciously calling out that there is going to be an addressable market expansion that Crompton is going to consciously work and do it category after category. And some of these calls that we have taken is an outcome of that. As and when we enter new category, it is important that we continue to be a leader in the existing category and further push the bars. So as Promeet said, we wouldn't be able to comment on what competition has done on where and what. We have a strategy on how do we need to pursue, and that's probably what we would be able to do and deliver.

The next question is from Parag Khare.

Just a question out of curiosity. We are the #1 company in the world in fans. How about thinking aggressively in terms of exporting these offerings and probably garner more market share outside India? So that's the first question. And the second question is, how confident we are in solar rooftop business where outside Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, we would be able to scale up aggressively and probably gain a strong foothold? So these are the 2 questions, sir.

Yes. Parag, firstly, I agree with you as the world's leading fans company, ceiling fans company, exports are an area of focus. I am very happy to announce to you that in the last quarter, we have demonstrated our focus on this area by actually hiring a very well experienced team on that segment. We've always had a team, but the idea is to take it to the next level. And to that extent, we've significantly strengthened our team in exports in the last quarter itself. And sorry, what was the question? The next question is...

Solar rooftop business.

Yes. Solar rooftop business actually shaping up quite well. Currently, we are executing the orders that we have. But simultaneously, we are also trying to proceeding apace on the B2C offering. And I am hoping that in the near-term, we will be able to formally disclose to you orders that we've got in that segment. I do want to say one more thing. I reiterate the point that I had made earlier. In all our businesses, scale makes a difference. And what we are finding is that, the way we've scaled up our solar business is already making a difference through our margins in both solar rooftop as well as in solar pumps, material difference at the gross margin because now we have the scale. I don't know if we're disclosing, but these are material improvements in the margins of these businesses, which also means that it positions us better to be able to provide a good product in the retail space.

Okay. Sir, any new category or adjacencies in the upcoming quarters or we have done some time now?

I think we have given announcements around where we have entered, what we will do in the future, allow us to let us know close to the quarter.

As you guys are well aware, we do not make any announcements well in advance. And I think that we have clearly been very transparent with you where we are close to launches and actually making those launches.

Good top line growth, good EBITDA margin. Congratulations and good luck for the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next question is from Himanshi Narang.

This is Renu from IIFL. A couple of questions. A, can you -- in case if I missed it, can you mention how is the situation of channel inventory when it comes to fans, both with the company as well as with the channel partners on the new rating fans? And the operating with the channel partners as well? That's the first question.

I think it's fair to say that the channel had a fair amount of free of all star-rated fans, some of which they have sold off in the last month. We, of course, being Crompton have from the day 1, started selling only the new star-rated fans from the 1st of January. And I do believe that the season so far has been shaping up decently. Yes?

Okay. We'll move for the next question from the line of [ Pratham Setia ].

Sir, my question is related to the core business activity of the company because we were the -- rather we are the electric goods company. And now recently, we entered into the solar-related business, solar pump as well as the solar rooftop. Nothing wrong in diversifying the business. But my question is why we -- what are the strong reason to enter into the solar business? Naturally, your answer may be to make the profit. But does the company have the enough bandwidth to compete with the established player in the solar rooftop or solar pump business? And is the -- another reason is that, the electric goods are slow down, there may be a slow growth in the electric goods and that was the reason? Sir, kindly explain.

Thanks for the question, Pratham. We are very much great believers in doing things that we understand well. Insofar as solar pumps is concerned, remember that we've been a pumps company for the last 50 years. And we are also the leading pumps company in the residential pumps company in India, a heart of solar pumps is pumps. And as to whether we are able to compete in that business, I leave that to your judgment. I have told you that we are continuing to grow our business at 100-plus percent every quarter. And we have quickly become one of the largest players in that segment already with a strong profitability profile. Similarly, for solar rooftops, this is, we believe, very much an adjacency for our business. And together with solar pumps, we have significant scale. Now, you may be aware that shortly after we entered that business, we also announced that we have an order book of close to INR 500 crores. So, again, I leave it to your judgment whether you think that we are able to scale up that business or not. But we do see us being able to enter these businesses and not only make profits, but build leadership positions. We are not interested in entering businesses in which we are not going to be leaders.

But our growth in the electric goods will remain constant or will it grow faster?

So to give you a sense of the growth in our current businesses, last year, our traditional businesses, which are pumps and fans, those businesses have suffered, not only us, the entire segment has suffered because of an adverse season. But I am a great believer that these businesses will continue to be great profit and revenue growth drivers going forward. And even in this time, to give you a sense, in the fans business, we've been stepping up our BLDC range. And sequentially, I don't mind telling you that our BLDC range has grown materially, 50-plus percent, right, which means that we've also gained market share 5-plus percent. So it's -- even in times where season hasn't been the most supportive, we continue to find pockets of growth. And in our pumps business, for instance, we have now a full product range, including agri and specialty pumps. And while that segment has been degrowing for the rest of the market, we are growing very strongly in that segment as well. So anyway, short point is that, we continue to strengthen our positions in our traditional areas as well as enter areas where we believe we have the right to win.

We'll take a follow-up from Aditya Bhartia. Since there is no response, we request Praveen Sahay to go ahead with his question.

Sir, my question is related to the solar rooftop. As there is a INR 365-odd crores of order book, and also you had highlighted not of a B2C, it's more of a B2B. So can you give some more color like it's a B2B, B2G and one? And the second is the procurement strategy here that you are procuring from a domestic manufacturer or importing how you are doing this in this segment?

Guys, I explained this earlier. The order book that we started with in our solar rooftop business is not INR 365 crores, it is INR 500 crores, right? While this ordering has been with through the medium of the government, the product that we are selling is exactly the same product that we are selling in the B2C business. This is not -- this is -- there is a big difference here. When we do B2B in lighting, then the product that we sell in the B2B lighting is a very, very different business product than we sell in the B2C lighting. This is not that product. We are installing rooftops at homes in Andhra Pradesh in 40,000 -- 44,000 -- 40,000, 38,000, 38,000 homes in Andhra Pradesh. It is just that the government has intermediated in that order, okay? And insofar as the supply chain is concerned, this is a supply chain that we built up also while we were ramping up our solar pumps business. So we have an ongoing arrangement with panel suppliers, with inverter suppliers, with AC/DC suppliers and so on and so forth, right? And as I said earlier, because we are buying products at such large scale in both our pumps and our solar business, that is leading us to be more and more competitive in both our solar rooftop as well as our pumps business.

The next question is from Aditya Vikram.

Yes, I think we are done.

Yes. I think we'll take one final question.

Sorry, am I audible? Sorry, I could not unmute myself.

[indiscernible] for a drink, I agree, guys. I'm just joking, don't take me serious.

No, no. One of the things I have been attending a lot of phone calls, your humility and how grounded you are exceptional. So compliments to you and your team. I hope this continues as it is. So if I can ask a question and I probably won't threat about the new launches or anything else. I just see a lot of volatility in terms of your margins, right? If ideally somebody has to look at the company, right, what should be the appropriate margin? And with you entering into wires and cables, right, what should be the steady state of margin? What is the management looking at is my question, sir? And I would appreciate if you can not give a number, but qualitative input as to where you're looking at and what should be the steady rate. That's the only question.

Aditya, let me attempt it as best as I can, and then I'll hand it over to the guy who knows much better than I do, namely Kalees. I try, Kalees. Guys, when we look at margins, margins, you can look at gross margins and then you can look at EBIT margins, right? Now we must understand that the gross margin and the EBIT margin structure of different businesses is different, right? If we look at a business like fans, there is high gross margin, reasonable amount of cost below gross margin and you come to a certain EBIT margin. If you look at other products, for instance, B2B lighting, there is a lower gross margin, but very little cost below gross margin, and therefore, you come to a certain EBIT margin, right? So as the mix changes, the gross margin structure will change, right? So it's -- that is a fact of life that we have to kind of deal with, right? Now to answer the question about variability, our fans margin, for instance, fans margin is impacted by, of course, season because at the end of the day, if the season doesn't perform well, perform as per expectations and then the level of competition in the business goes up, right? And as a consequence, there can be an impact on margin. It also impacts a little bit on commodity prices. Insofar as we are concerned, the fans business, we've explained to you before, we are coming away from a period of intense competition. We're also coming away from a period where there is high commodity prices. Now we have done various things in order to defray that. We have, on one hand, being the leader that we are taking price increases and on the other hand, worked on the product. So we are now being able to show to you an improvement in margins, right? Do we expect some of the benefits to continue into the future, the trend to continue into the future? Inshallah, yes, is what I'd say. We'll have to see, right? Similarly, in lighting, the margins have historically been where they have been. What we have done is that we have done a whole bunch of work on 2 fronts. We changed our product mix. We introduced newer products, which are higher margin, right? And also, we worked on our supply chain. So what you are seeing in lighting is the benefits of a material improvement on both, material improvement on both. We have been saying to you for a very long time that we are going to ramp up our ceiling lights business, right? What you're seeing is that we have actually ramped that up quite a bit. Right? And of course, as we ramp up and as we do premiumization, the margins improve. Again, similarly, in Butterfly, we told you that we are going to get into premium products. We told you that they'd be higher margin products, and that is why you're seeing the benefits in the margin, right? Again, I can go on each of the businesses. But short point is, we are continuing to work apace on, not only growing the business, revenue growth, but also margin improvements, right? I'm afraid I cannot give you a more detailed answer, you will appreciate. This is -- it should give you a sense of what we are up to. I mean, last point I'll tell you, we have been saying -- guys, sorry, you got me started now. But -- so sorry, I'm keeping you from your weekend drinks guys, but give you a minute. We said for a long time, we said we are leaders in pumps, residential pumps. We are, by far and away, the leader in residential pumps. We said we would get into agri and specialty pumps. What you're seeing today is our agri and specialty pump business growing significantly faster than the industry. Not only are you seeing it grow significantly faster than the industry, it is now a material share of our pumps business. I'm not talking about solar. Solar is different. I'm talking about agri and specialty in our traditional pumps business, not only is our -- is it a material part of our pumps business today, our margins in that product has also gone up because as we've got scale. Right? So look, at the end of the day, the margin profile is going to evolve going forward. But these are underlying trends that people can read into in our various products.

No, that's very helpful, Promeet. I appreciate you giving such a detailed answer. And best of luck for the new product launches, and I hope the margin trajectory and the premiumization continues as you have stated it out very loud. I appreciate each one of your time and best of luck for the future endeavors.

Thank you.

The next question is from Keshav Lahoti.

Guys, it's 5:30, so yes, let's...

We'll take it as the last question.

The last question if people don't mind. Yes, Keshav.

Yes, sir. So my first question is, as we can see the solar rooftop business execution have started. So this INR 500 crore order, by when it will be executed? And secondly, as it is a government order, will it lead to stretch on the working capital days?

The expectation, Keshav, is that, this order book will be executed over approximately the next 9 to 12 months. As you -- as I already said, this last quarter, we've already executed about INR 19 crores of solar rooftop sales. We -- look, these are government orders, but we have a reasonable payment schedule that has been agreed with the government. So this is -- we do believe that these are -- the working capital will be per expectations in this segment. And the working capital will be as has already been baked into our margins. This is not something that's new to us. We also have a large solar pumps business where we have been making reasonable -- reasonably quick recoveries of receivables from the government. Of course, this is something that you have to keep working at, but it's a muscle that we've learned and are continuing to build.

Got it. One last question from my side. What would be the total impact of the norm changes on fan side? What will be the cost escalation? And what is the commodity escalation happening? And as you highlighted, you have taken 1%, 1.5% hike and possibly more 2 hikes are in store in Q4 and Q1. So what sort of hike you are planning in these 2 hikes and whether it will cover all the cost impact? And secondly, will your margin will be impacted till Q1 as the entire cost pass on won't happen at least till Q1?

Yes, I think, Keshav, we talked about this earlier. This is not only going to be a price hike. There is going to be a cost improvement that we are working through Unnati, coupled with mix is also going to play a significant role. Now in terms of cost of BEE 2.0 is concerned, some of these things, we are probably ready ahead of time, and we could mitigate a large part of the cost increase that needs to happen on account of BEE as compared to the industry and segment as a whole. Yes, commodity is going up. That's the reality. But that's where we talked about baking in 2 price increases, one that will -- one that has already happened subsequent to that, one more in Q4 and one more in Q1. We think that should help us to largely offset coupled with the other cost initiatives that we discussed.

So Keshav, we -- a lot of people asked us about 9, 12 months ago when we announced [indiscernible], right, getting ready in advance for the BEE transition, of course, also the next BEE transition, but certainly this transition. And I think it's fair to say that we are quite well prepared from a cost point of view for this BEE transition, which happened earlier in Jan.

Thank you. I leave the floor to the management for any closing remarks.

No, nothing more. Have fun guys, and have a good weekend.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.