DOMS — earnings call
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Prepared remarks
Moderator · Conference Operator
MR. ANIRUDDHA JOSHI – ICICI SECURITIES LIMITED
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026
Moderator · Conference Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the DOMS Industries Limited Q4 FY26 Conference Call, hosted by ICICI Securities Limited.
The presentation, which DOMS Industries Limited has uploaded on the stock exchange and their website and the discussions during this call, contains or may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning DOMS Industries Limited business prospects and profitability, which are subject to several risks and uncertainties, and the actual results could materially differ from those in such forward-looking statements.
As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes.
Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch- tone phone.
Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Aniruddha Joshi from ICICI Securities.
Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Aniruddha Joshi
Yes.
Thanks, Aaron.
On behalf of ICICI Securities, we welcome you all to Q4 FY26 and FY26 results conference call of DOMS Industries Limited.
We have with us today senior management represented by Mr. Rahul Shah, Chief Financial Officer.
Now I hand over the call to Rahul bhai for his initial comments on the quarterly performance, and then we will open the floor for question-and-answer session.
Thanks, and over to you, Rahul bhai.
Rahul Shah
Thank you, Aniruddha bhai.
Good afternoon, and a very warm welcome to everyone.
Thank you for taking the time to join our Q4 and FY26 earnings call.
Joining me on this call is the team from Marathon Capital, our Investor Relations Advisor.
I hope that everyone had an opportunity to go through the investor presentation and the results release that has been uploaded on the exchanges and our company's website.
To begin with, let me take you through the highlights for Q4 and FY26 performance.
I am pleased to share that we have closed the year on a positive note, delivering steady performance across key metrics.
Our revenue for the year grew by 21.6%, surpassing our full year guidance.
Some of the key drivers aiding the growth were
First, new product launches across categories with attractive ergonomic and user-friendly designs that resonated strongly with consumers and gained strong traction.
These new launches include pencil boxes and well-designed school bags in time for the BTS season, exciting new range of pens and mechanical pencils, stamp pads in the office supply segment and a number of differentiated SKUs in scholastic stationery, scholastic art, hobby and craft, and kits and combo packs.
The new range of paper stationery products with fresh designs were also well appreciated by our consumers.
Secondly, we witnessed sustained growth across all our product categories.
Growth in certain categories, which were aided by capacity additions during the year, outpaced the growth in other categories.
Nevertheless, through improvement in our product offering and increase in ASPs,
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026 we were happy to state that other categories, where no substantial capacity additions were made during the past year, also delivered positive sales growth.
Thirdly, the demand scenario in the domestic market continues to remain buoyant and was a key contributor to growth, underpinned by strong entrenched distribution network, robust brand equity and a well-diversified product portfolio.
At the same time, exports also delivered steady double-digit growth despite global uncertainties, including trade tensions, geopolitical conflicts and regional instability, reflecting continued demand for our products in international markets as well.
The love, trust and acceptance that our consumers have shown towards our brand and products is unparalleled.
Building on this bond, we continue to focus on strong consumer engagement through active participation in events, conferences, exhibitions in India as well as globally.
I'm pleased to share that our social media community has scaled significantly.
YouTube subscribers have now crossed 4 million and Instagram followers are over 170,000, reinforcing DOMS as one of the most admired brands in stationery and art materials.
Coming to the details of our financial performance - firstly, on Q4 performance.
Revenue for Q4 FY26 grew by 18.7% to INR604 crores, highlighting a sustained growth trajectory, primarily led by buoyant demand scenario in the domestic market with higher growth coming from office supplies, hobby and craft and back-to-school, aided by increased capacities and new launches.
Our consumption margins remained broadly stable despite raw material volatility linked to the West Asia crisis intensified in the later part of the quarter.
The consumption was primarily of lower cost inventory built as a part of our strategic stocking.
EBITDA for Q4 FY26 grew by 14.4% to INR100.9 crores with an EBITDA margin at 16.7% in Q4 FY26 as compared to 17.3% in Q4 FY25. The moderation in EBITDA margin is partly due to the onset of the seasonal slowdown in the baby hygiene segment, which impacted fixed cost absorption.
Further, the increase in contribution of e-commerce sales in the baby hygiene segment also led to higher advertising and marketing and freight expenses.
PAT for Q4 FY26 grew by 13.5% to INR58.2 crores and PAT margin for the same period stood at 9.6% compared to 10% in Q4 FY25. Coming to our performance for the financial year.
Revenue from operations for financial year 2026 grew by 21.6% to INR2,326.4 crores as compared to FY25, surpassing our guided range led by healthy growth, both from domestic market as well as direct export of DOMS branded range of stationery products.
Consumption margins were broadly consistent for FY26 at 43.6% similar to FY25. We are pleased to report an EBITDA growth on an absolute basis of 15.5% for the full year to INR402.6 crores with EBITDA margin at the higher end of our guidance.
The EBITDA margin
May 19, 2026 softened to 17.3% as compared to 18.2% in FY25 on account of higher Uniclan contribution in the overall consolidated operations.
PAT for FY26 grew by 12.2% to INR239.6 crores.
PAT growth was relatively lower than revenue growth primarily due to decline in other income.
This was a result of higher utilization of cash towards capital expenditure, which aligns with our disciplined growth-focused capital allocation strategy.
Despite this, PAT margin for the year remained healthy at 10.3%, reflecting the underlying strength of our core operations.
Coming to our expansion initiatives, we continue to focus towards building the base for our future growth in terms of capacity creation and expansion.
Our capex was primarily towards the development of our 45-acre land parcel, acquisition of additional land parcels, both in Umargam and Jammu for our future expansion as well as procurement and installation of plant and machinery in the existing infrastructure as well as for the commercialization of the 45-acre facility.
The company totally spent around INR292 crores in FY26 towards these objectives.
As a part of the phased development of our 45-acre facility, the first building is on track for completion in June 2027 with commercial production expected to commence towards the end of Q2 FY27. Significant investment were also done in expansion of our moulding capacities, writing instruments as well as in the adhesive manufacturing infrastructure.
Speaking about our outlook - As we enter the new financial year, we do so in an environment of elevated uncertainty and volatility primarily stemming from the ongoing developments in West Asia, which has resulted in significant increase in prices of raw material.
As a part of our operating framework, we have initiated a set of calibrated measures to minimize the impact of such geopolitical disruptions.
Our first priority is to maintain continuity of our manufacturing and safeguard our supply chain.
We are actively working to minimize any margin impact and have started implementing focused measures as the situation evolves.
These include balanced and gradual approach to pricing and continued focus on cost efficiencies.
The overriding principle is that any pricing action must be taken in a way that does not impact our market share or competitive positioning.
Our approach continues to be measured and disciplined drawing on past experience in navigating periods of disruption, where a focused and prudent response has supported sustainable growth over time.
With our strong brand, distribution reach, new products pipeline and capacity investments underway, we believe we are well positioned to deliver on consistent growth.
Therefore, despite the current geopolitical and regulatory uncertainties, we have lined up a capex plan between INR250 crores to INR275 crores for FY27. Thank you.
And with this, I would now request to open the floor for question and answers.
Moderator · Conference Operator
Our first question comes from the line of Aradhana Jain with 360 ONE Capital.
Aradhana Jain
Congratulations on the continued good set of performance.
My first question is the core stationery segment delivered 19% growth this quarter.
Could you help us understand whether
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026 there was any element of channel stocking ahead of the raw material price increases that led to this kind of growth or it was entirely driven by the underlying consumption demand?
And related to that, how was the secondary sales trend versus the primary sales during the quarter?
With this also, if you could highlight which are the specific categories or SKUs where we are seeing those kind of price hikes currently?
And how much is the price hike that we've taken?
That's my first question.
May 19, 2026
Aradhana Jain
Understood.
Last question from my end.
On the office supply side, we've delivered very great growth over the last few quarters.
What are the major growth drivers in the office supplies, which is leading to -- I mean, I know it's pens, but if you could throw some light of how the pens segment has been performing?
And also, if you could help us understand what is our current market share in the organized office supply space, specifically pens and how do we see that evolving over the next 3- to 5-year period?
Moderator · Conference Operator
The next question comes from the line of Percy Panthaki with IIFL Securities.
Percy Panthaki
Just wanted to get a sense in the last such inflation that we saw, which was around the Ukraine war, I think, FY'23.
If you can just tell us what was the total price increases over whatever 12-, 15-month period that you had pushed through at that point of time compared to the 4% to 5% that we have taken now?
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026
Rahul Shah
At that point of time, Percy bhai, one, our dependence on polymers in our total raw material basket was not that very large because we were just about to enter the pen segment that time.
That time, primary sales used to come from scholastic stationery and scholastic art.
So the dependence was less.
But having said that, at that point of time also, we've taken about 4% to 5% increase across the impacted products.
And what happens is certain inflationary cycles are structural and driven by long-term demand supply imbalances, while others are more event-driven and volatile like what we are seeing right now.
So in such an environment, our pricing actions have always been in a phased manner rather than abrupt price increases.
So similar action we have taken during the Ukraine/Russia war as well as if you see during the COVID disruption, where for some time, the prices had increased significantly.
And what we've seen in the past that whenever we've taken aggressive pricing moves, can sometimes lead to loss of shelf space to new entrants and existing competitors.
Hence, we would want to be a little balanced and gradual in this approach, which we believe will support long- term sustainable growth both in revenues and margins.
Percy Panthaki
And if there is a gap between the cost inflation and the price increase you have taken and there is margin pressure on account of that, what are the drivers or levers that you have in order to sort of at least partially mitigate that margin pressure?
And to what extent you can mitigate, supposing if the overall gross margin is down by X percent, I mean, X amount, will it be half of that, that can be mitigated?
Or is it 75% or roughly what amount can you mitigate of the pressure?
Moderator · Conference Operator
The next question comes from the line of Jinesh Joshi from PL Capital.
Jinesh Joshi
Sir, my first question is on the RM basket.
Can you share what proportion of our RM basket is crude linked?
And secondly, out of the INR377 crores of inventory on the balance sheet, can you share how much of it is the RM inventory?
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026
May 19, 2026
Moderator · Conference Operator
The next question comes from the line of Sneha with Nuvama Wealth Management.
Sneha
You mentioned a lot on Uniclan, that margins have actually deteriorated.
One of the reasons is Uniclan's operations.
So where are we in terms of margins only on the Uniclan basis?
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026 I understand you're partially passing it on and it's an ongoing process where MRPs could be changing gradually or changing the discounting system.
But if I have to make something, where are we currently in terms of passing it on?
Rahul Shah
See you very well know the volatility is still high.
There has been high increases followed by substantial decreases also and again, certain prices starting to increase again.
And it's in a way, always like a catch-up approach that we have to do because once the raw material prices increase and then you take actions in terms of pricing.
So from that perspective, it becomes a little difficult to forecast something on sitting today.
But like I said, we've seen about 15% to 20% inflation and 4% to 5% has already been passed and this 15% to 20% was peak inflation.
After that, we've also seen some amount of decrease in prices also.
But like I said, current focus is maintain the growth.
And more importantly, in this time, we believe maintaining the market share and trying to increase it is a prudent strategy from long-term sustainable growth and margins will definitely follow.
Sneha
Got that.
Lastly, Rahul, anything on the top line guidance?
Are you maintaining the similar guidance of 20% growth for the next 1, 2 years on the top line?
Rahul Shah
Yes.
At consolidated level with the planned capacity expansion and the current demand trends, we expect revenue to grow by 17% to 20% in FY27. It's the same guidance that we had in the previous call.
Moderator · Conference Operator
The next question comes from the line of Mosam Shah with Wealth Guardian.
Mosam Shah
Congratulations on a good set of numbers.
My question is related to capex that you just estimated around INR250 crores, INR275 crores.
Can you just help for what product category we are planning our capex and their timelines and when it will be operational?
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026
Moderator · Conference Operator
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Jayant Parasramka with 3P Investment Management.
Please go ahead.
Jayant Parasramka
Yes.
Thank you for taking my questions.
Just a couple of questions on capex.
So we've increased our capex guidance to about INR250 crores to INR275 crores versus, let's say, a previous call of somewhere between INR225 crores to INR250 crores.
Just to understand, is it because of rising cost of materials over there?
Or are we bringing forward some of our capex?
That's my first question.
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026
Moderator · Conference Operator
The next question comes from the line of Kunal Vora with BNP Paribas.
Please go ahead.
Kunal Vora
Yes.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Rahul bhai, first question, what is the extent of Chinese imports in stationery industry?
And how does the 20% depreciation of rupee against RMB impact the competition in various areas in which you face Chinese competition?
Is there a market share gain opportunity?
And like on the similar lines, does this also have some impact on your capex as you are looking to import machinery for your new factories?
That's the first one.
Rahul Shah
So yes, there is some amount of imports that come from China, Vietnam, a few other countries also in India.
To what extent, what percentage, that's a little difficult to judge.
I honestly don't have an answer in terms of percentage.
But there are a decent amount of imports that happened.
The currency fluctuation probably has made imports slightly expensive.
This gives a good opportunity for a branded company like DOMS to -- with their aggressive pricing decision, you can probably reduce or discourage such imports, which can eventually result in market share gains.
So we are -- in a way, that should benefit the company.
With respect to, in terms of imports becoming expensive for us both on the raw material as well on capital goods, we have a natural hedge.
There is exports also that the company does.
Most of our imports are in U.S. dollars, so are our exports.
So in a way, they should partially offset each other.
Kunal Vora
Understood.
That's clear.
Second one is, would you expect a stronger second half of FY27, considering that by that time, the full benefit of pricing will be there, you'll have higher capacities which you are adding and potentially you'll also have some moderation in commodity costs.
While in the first half, you are taking the hit in terms of margins because the commodity costs have increased and you've not taken the full like pricing.
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026 And again, like on similar lines, would you, let's say, look to bridge the gap?
Currently, you mentioned about 5% price hike against 15% cost inflation.
So would you look to bridge that if the commodity cost remains high?
Moderator · Conference Operator
The next question comes from the line of Nikil Sudhirkumar with Lister Ventures.
Nikil Sudhirkumar
So, my question is mainly regarding the capacity expansion that is right now happening...
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026
Moderator · Conference Operator
Sorry to interrupt you.
You're not quite clear.
Could you please use your phone on the handset mode in case if you are using it in a hands-free mode?
Nikil Sudhirkumar
Yes.
So, with respect to the capacity expansion, so I just want to know what is the capacity expansion percentage?
That is, are we adding another 50% or 100% capacity expansion to the existing facilities?
Or is it like SKU-wise?
So just want to know an idea on that?
And my second question is regarding the distribution channel growth plan.
So, what is the company looking at for the current financial year?
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026 And that's when we will also start cross-selling a lot of stationery products in that distribution network also.
So, both ways, we believe there is still significant headroom to grow our network, both in the stationery store segment as well as in the general merchant outlet segment.
Moderator · Conference Operator
The next question comes from the line of Priyank Chheda with Vallum Capital.
Priyank Chheda
Rahul bhai, just clarification.
You gave a guidance of 17%, 18%.
This doesn't include the plant, the new plant that will get operationalized from H2, right?
Rahul Shah
No, no. So Priyank bhai, this is an annual guidance of close to 17% to 20%, which includes the new capacities coming in from H1 for the new plant.
It will be a gradual - end of H1 from the new plant.
It will be a gradual ramp-up in capacities that will come in the 45 acres.
So that has been considered while guiding for around 17% to 20% growth for FY27.
Priyank Chheda
Just reconciling the capex numbers, it's INR450 crores or higher for the Phase 1 of this plant?
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026 of exports to FILA as well as third party with new capacity coming in over whatever timeline you still want to guide?
Moderator · Conference Operator
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Badal Rawat with Trust Plutus.
Please go ahead.
Badal Rawat
So actually, most of my questions got answered.
So yes, that was related to capacity utilization.
Thank you so much.
Moderator · Conference Operator
The next question comes from the line of Aradhana Jain with 360 ONE Capital.
Please go ahead.
Aradhana Jain
Thank you for the opportunity again.
Just a couple of more questions.
One, the capex that we plan to do of around INR500 plus-odd crores for the next 2 years, would we continue with the stance that all of that will be funded through internal accruals or we plan to take some debt for it because we see that this year, we've already reduced our debt quite a bit compared to last year.
So how would the capex be funded going ahead?
DOMS INDUSTRIES LIMITED · MODERATOR:
May 19, 2026
Aradhana Jain
Understood.
Sir, second, on SKIDO and Seven SpA, if you could throw some light as to how has the performance been of SKIDO, specifically this quarter because of the back-to-school season.
And second, where are we progressing on the Seven SpA JV?
And so how has the performance been?
Moderator · Conference Operator
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today.
I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing remarks.
Rahul Shah
Thank you.
Thank you once again for joining us.
We appreciate your continued support and confidence in our journey.
Should you have any further questions, please reach out to our Investor Relations team.
Thank you once again, and have a great day ahead.
Moderator · Conference Operator
Thank you, sir.
Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference call.
Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.w