H2 going to be important for volume & value sales for Allied Blenders & Distillers: Managing Director

New Delhi, Nov 16 (PTI) Allied Blenders and Distillers Ltd (ABD), a home-grown spirits company, which has plans to launch three new brands in its luxury portfolio in the second half, is looking at the October-March period as "extremely important in terms of both volume and value sales", its Managing Director Alok Gupta said.

The company, which reported a 32.2 per cent increase in net profit in the latest September quarter earnings, now expects "further improvement in margins" with a focus on premiumisation driving its market share, Gupta told PTI.

"Our outlook for H2 is consistent with our guidelines. Our volumes will grow 10 per cent. Value will grow mid-double digit. We see further improvement in our margin on the back of our backward integration and our luxury portfolio, now rolling out both in India and beyond India," said.

Moreover, ABD is also expanding its global footprint, and has expanded to 30 countries and expects to be present in 35 countries by the end of this fiscal year, being the largest exporter from India in the segment.

ABD, which has six brands in the premium portfolio, Zoya with two variants, Blended Malt Scotch Arthaus, Woodburns, Pumori, Segredo and Russian Standard, is going to add three more brands.

"In H2, we will be launching three more brands. So, with this, our portfolio is complete. And as a result, we will see further positive impact in terms of our gross margin and also in terms of our value growth," he said.

In that, one of them is going to be white and two others are whisky, scotch, and non-scotch.

ABD, which has six brands in the premium portfolio, anticipates a positive outlook in the second half, driven by the festival season in the ongoing December quarter.

The makers of Officer's Choice Whisky had started to build the portfolio of premium brands in January 24.

"The focus has been to build a team. Now, we have a 50-member strong team to look at premium account… Also, we have expanded our global footprint from 17 countries to now almost 30 countries. We will expand it to another five countries within H2," he said.

In the first half, ABD has a market-ready portfolio along with distribution readiness.

"So, for us, H2 is going to be extremely important in terms of both volume and value sales. As of now, their contribution to our overall volume is negligible. But I think we are now ready in H2 to be able to move forward," said Gupta.

According to Gupta, for every 1 per cent volume that will come from its luxury portfolio in ABD's overall volume, it will have about an 8x impact on net sales value.

"Our ambition is that this segment, which is currently about 13 million cases, we expect it to grow over the next 2-3 years to be close to 20 million cases, and we want to profitably carve out a high single-digit market share," he said.

ABD is in the process of building India's first single malt distillery at its Rangapur-based integrated manufacturing in Telangana and expects its own single malt to come out by 2029.

"By then, the distribution both domestic and international, will be fully in place. So, we expect to make further growth out of the global markets," he said.

ABD, which was listed on stock exchanges in July 2024, had reported Rs 3,541 crores in income from operations for FY25. Its revenue from operations was down 3.7 per cent to Rs 1,952.59 crore in the September quarter of FY26.

In the first half, its consolidated total income was at Rs 3,740.81 crore. PTI KRH TRB