This quarter, revenue has been impacted by disruption in the summer portfolio. What is the outlook going forward in terms of demand as well as recovery in July giving us a sense of Q2?
April was impacted badly. We progressed well in May and in June we grew in single digit. The July trajectory is also good. In fact, we grew in double digits in July and we expect the growth to resume. On the international front also, while we have declined in the first quarter but in the second quarter, we also expect to improve on the international front as well. We expect moderate growth in second quarter.

Health and hygiene clearly has been bucking the trend. Are consumers looking at discretionary items or is the focus now only on health and hygiene you think?
Yes, very interesting. The healthcare and hygiene portfolio has grown by 29% in Q1 and it contributed around 43% of our turnover in the first quarter. While the summer brands and other brands including the male grooming all de-grew by 44%. This pulled down the overall growth which contributed around 57%. Going forward we expect good growth from the healthcare and hygiene products kind of sanitizers. In fact, the new launches there in the healthcare and sanitizers and all they have contributed around 5% of the turnover. Like Boroplus Sanitizer, soaps, aloe vera gel, zandu immunity range, chyawanprash they all contributed around 5% of the turnover.

Navratna and others were declining in the first quarter but now in June-July they have started recovering. In fact, the Kesh King range was declining in April-May but cumulatively in June, the Kesh King range has been able to wipe out its losses so it is sales declined and now it is stable, it has maintained its growth and we expect now the growth to come in in the second quarter. Summer brands have also now started picking up while the decline earlier was higher but in June-July the decline has been much lesser.

Margin expansion was led by the benign cost that you incurred in the quarter gone by, lower ad spend as well as other costing during the quarter. How much of this reduction in cost is permanent and what is your margin trajectory for the rest of the financial year?
The gross margins have reduced by 230 bps and EBITDA margins has improved by 480 bps. The gross margin has been mainly because of the benign cost and we expect this kind of margins to continue. On the EBITDA level, we had taken many initiatives, right from reducing on the advertisements which was not required in the April as we were completely off the air in April, in May and June now gradually we are resuming some of the advertisements would continue to do on the previous level in the times to come but on other costs kind of administrative costs and all other cost ads we have taken all round cost reduction initiatives and it has paid well. So even the administrative and general expenses you might have noticed has declined substantially and this would continue. We have internally targeted to improve our costs by around Rs 1800 crore in the next 12 months and we are well on the path and we would continue to achieve it.

The new launches have contributed to approximately 5% of the total revenues this quarter, what are the other launches that have been planned, are there any new segments as well that you are looking to foray into on the back of the changing consumer trends?
Yes, we have made 12 new launches in this quarter and which were all around health and hygiene and sanitizers and all. In the times to come, we are planning to get into the home hygiene products which may include disinfectants, toilet cleaners and bathroom cleaners and other things so that we are expecting in the times to come.

With the rural uptick expected to continue now are you looking at rural specific innovations or manufacturing products now at a lower price point, smaller packs, some sort of changes that you would make in order to cater to this rural demand?
Yes, relatively rural has picked up well, in fact, it is visible in the rural areas compared to the urban but there is no significant down trading on LUPs. Salience has been maintained but we are taking extra initiatives. We have initiated so many things, we have done digital marketing because our focus is more on addressing the consumers digitally without physical touch so while the retail and modern trade has been impacted, we are exploring other channels also. We are doing a lot many initiatives by telemarketing, digital marketing, tele-calling for taking the orders and ensuring that the supplies are done on time.

In fact, the ecommerce business has more than doubled in this first quarter despite such a decline and it is continuing to grow.