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Performance was broad-based with each of the business segments contributing to the growth. The quality and consistency of our results reflect our competitive edge and consumer affinity. Your Company continued to meet consumers’ needs and improve the consumer experience, making meaningful progress on the entire portfolio.
After three years of COVID-led disruptions, FY 2022-23 was in contrast a wholesome year. The year saw a very encouraging start with both B2B and B2C demand momentum continuing from the previous year; however, commodity price pressures impacted the B2C end markets, particularly in the second half of the year. Despite shrinkages in consumer spending, your Company continued the growth trajectory with a strong product portfolio and brand.
It was heartening to see Lloyd regaining market share in the AC segment to be amongst the top 3 players in the industry. We believe that Lloyd is now well positioned to leverage the AC performance to spur growth of other products such as washing machines and refrigerators.
Continued commodity price increases asserted pressures on the margins as your Company took calibrated price increases, albeit not commensurate to the raw material cost increases. Margins in cables division and Lloyd witnessed volatility given sharp commodity price fluctuations.
A healthy balance sheet and strong cash flow generation provided us ample headroom to continue investing strategically in our growth while maintaining a consistent dividend pay out to our shareholders.
We are proud of the Havells culture developed over the past few decades which evolves around customer centricity, entrepreneurship, equality, empathy, and ethics. Being customer-centric enables us to deliver the highest level of service to our set of customers, including our channel partners and end consumers. Being ethical, empathic, fair, and equal to every stakeholder stem from being entrepreneurial, where even the most routine task is done with an ownership mindset.
Your Company continued its strategy of investing in the long-term growth drivers, including brand, omni-channel, innovation, digitisation, and talent. Our brands continue to command top-of the-mind awareness and is trusted by our customers. Our omni-channel approach ensures that brand reaches out to a wide set of customers giving a seamless experience whether it is traditional channel or modern formats. True to our DNA of continuously innovating, we expanded our team of engineers who are working across businesses to boost capabilities and serving consumers even better. Digital continues to remain a priority, as we made significant progress in our digitisation journey, which is acting as an enabler, partner, and driver of the business. Equally, we continue to ensure a great fusion of professional rigour and entrepreneurial mindset in our talent pool. I am glad to share that our success over the years has been deeply rooted in the human capital we have developed and nurtured at Havells.
Our focussed investments have supported us to deliver across cycles, navigating multiple macroeconomic disruptions. We envisage continuity in our approach to build a strong and durable foundation for the next phase of growth trajectory.
At Havells, manufacturing has been one of the key pillars. It ensures superior quality standards while also providing high level of agility towards changing customer needs and market dynamics. Complemented with strong R&D, it allows us to stand out with differentiated offerings, premiumisation, and higher customer loyalty. We continuously aspire to minimise waste, reduce our carbon footprint and ensure that our products are produced ethically and sustainably. Full control over sourcing also ensures right mix of strategic partners along with higher level of self-reliance. We believe this keeps a check on our costs and enables us to tide over disruptions.
Building on this belief, during the year, our new Lloyd AC plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh was commissioned. The capacity expansion is aligned with our growth aspiration of tapping into the larger consumer durables opportunity. With such strategic investments over the past few years, we have built a formidable full-stack consumer durable play.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues are becoming increasingly important for companies across industries. At Havells, sustainability has always been on our topmost agenda. We truly believe that in the long run, the companies which integrate sustainability with their business strategy will thrive and succeed. During FY 2022-23, Havells continued to focus on the aspects of ESG that would work towards building an inclusive society.
We had published our first sustainability report in 2012-13 and through a persistent and structured set of measures in last 10 years of our ESG journey have made consistent progress towards our ESG goals. FY 2022-23 was a landmark year in our journey for sustainable value creation and overall climate resilience. There was a 61% reduction in GHG & Energy Intensity from base year FY 2012-13. Utilising eco-friendly, lightweight, and sustainable product designs to create new products are some of the steps that have been taken to strengthen environmental responsibility. With diversity also being one of the focus areas, we are targeting to run the entire operations by 100% female workers at our newly commissioned plant in Sri City.
We are also happy to announce that we have launched the Havells ESG 2.0 framework, which serves as a launchpad for this decade of action. It comprises of the key performance indicators across ESG parameters that are of material relevance to our company and its stakeholders, now and into the future. The main focus areas that will top the agenda are achievement of emission reduction targets, capacity enhancement of solar-based renewable energy generation, reduction in energy intensity, gender diversity, life cycle assessment etc.
The challenges around inflationary pressures may continue to impact the business outlook in the short term. However, we are positive about the medium to long-term growth and profitability outlook.
I want to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to our Board of Directors, employees, valued consumers, channel partners, suppliers, and our shareholders for their continued support and contribution to our shared success.
Regards,
Product Portfolio