Control Print Limited (522295) Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Kaptify Consulting Investor Relations team, I welcome you all to the Q1 FY '27 post earnings conference call of Control Print Limited. Today on the call from the management, we have with us Mr. Shiva Kabra, Joint Managing Director; and Mr. Jaideep Barve, Chief Financial Officer. As a disclaimer, I would like to inform all of you that this call may contain forward-looking statements, which may involve risks and uncertainties. Also, a reminder that this call is being recorded. I would now request the management to detail us about the business and performance highlights for the quarter ended June 2026, the growth perspective vision for the coming year, post which we will open the floor for Q&A. [Operator Instructions] So over to the management team to give their opening remarks.

Yes. Thanks, Vinay. Good afternoon, everybody. I am Jaideep Barve, the Chief Financial Officer of Control Print Limited. Welcome, everybody, to the earnings conference call for the first quarter of FY '26-'27. We appreciate that you have taken out time from your busy schedule to attend this call. Mr. Shiva Kabra, the Joint Managing Director of Control Print Limited, also joins me on this call. For the first time joiners, more information about our company can be opened by visiting our website. Just for information, the detailed presentation has already been put up on our website as well as in the Investor Presentation notification on the exchanges for this call. Let me provide you some highlights on the performance of CPL on a stand-alone basis for the first quarter. On a stand-alone basis, the total revenue in the first quarter is approximately INR 107 crores. Just for information, the total revenue for the last 3, 4 financial years was INR 460 crores, INR 395 crores, INR 347 crores and INR 295 crores, respectively. Out of the total revenue, the operating revenue for the stand alone financial sequence is approximately INR 105 crores. This was approximately INR 100 crores in the Q1 of the previous year. Coding and marking continues to be the most significant business segment. It contributes about 95% of the total operating revenue. The business outlook for Coding and Marking for the next 3 quarters is promising. New customers are getting added to our portfolio. We are having new solutions in printers, inks and cartridges, and we are also hopeful of improving the contribution margin. Pipes for daily cable FMCG, steel metal and wood are our top-performing business verticals. We continue to be market leaders in cement, plywood, sugar and dairy. The business outlook remains poor for the Track & Trace division. New solutions have been developed, acquisition of new customers is another plus point. We are getting good traction in the core packing activities in the Packaging division. Pipeline is being generated for the laminates business as well as for the copacking activities. The management of this division is strengthened and operations are more tightly controlled now. The mass lab has now been operating as a PP and a safety division, along with masks, hats, flash suits, helmets, gloves, blankets, et cetera, are also sold in this quarter. New customers are also being added. On a standalone basis, the cost of goods sold is about 42% of the operating revenue for the first quarter. This was 44% in the first quarter of the previous year. Manufacturing costs remain at 3% of the operating revenue. This is in line with the prior period. Depreciation is also approximately 4% of the operating revenue, which is consistent with the earlier periods. On a consolidated basis, the operating revenue is INR 115 crores in the first quarter corresponding to INR 111 crores in the first quarter of the previous year. The cost of goods sold is approximately 43%. It was 42% in the prior year. On an overall basis, management still remains committed to improve the revenue as well as optimize the procurement costs. We are also looking closely into the economy efficiency and effectiveness of the operations. This, we feel, can definitely lead to reduction in the operating costs and increase in the profitability. The way forward for our control business is to consolidate the Coding and Marking business. We'll aim to increase the installed base, provide broader solutions. Recently, an increase in the prices has also been implemented. We would be developing new solutions and also capitalize available market opportunities in the Track and Trace segment. We expect an increase in the packaging business, both in India and overseas, through the sale of machines, co-packing and laminate sales. We are also considering a distributor model for the packaging business. All our overseas subsidiaries will be continually monitored with focused targets. Business plans have been mandated for execution for them. With this, I leave the floor open for questions from the audience. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take the first question from Samarth Singh.

Am I audible?

Yes, you are.

I just have 1 question. Yesterday, Mr. Shiva made a statement regarding the V Shapes business. He said it is not a demand issue, but rather than an execution issue.

Yes, Samarth, can you please continue with questions. Yes. You said that Shiva mentioned that it's not a demand issue, but it's more of an expansion issue. Is that your question?

So my question was if you could just drill down on that in terms of the demand. If you could talk about who the potential customers are. Is it like one customer, many customers? What geographies are these customers from? What industries and use cases would they be? If you just sort of give us an understanding of -- I'm just trying to understand whether you're still trying to convince clients of the use case or there's a large market now that can be serviced. It is just a matter of execution -- executing on the same.

Okay. So this is Shiva Kabra. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Can you hear us?

It's my phone. Yes. Yes, I can hear you. Okay. So going back to the demand question, so what happens, initially, we purchased CP Italy. Obviously, we're bullish about the [indiscernible] sale team, and we made sales around go back in the machines. Now what's happening [indiscernible] back with. Okay. So we sold some stock. But it didn't go up to the expectations, is what I would say, or we have to produce it in-house because our operators or the operator in CP ITALY are in power. [ Opening system ] one product continuously, it works well. With the change of product, giving multiple products, it has to be adjusted -- the system has to be adjusted each time. As you've got an operator who is willing to work with and there are other operators [ because the steep building ] the system's not reliable enough as of previously. So what happened was the [indiscernible] to sell the machines and not get the repeat business because customers feel that it is too difficult to use or some banks backing doesn't open [ or maybe 100, 100 times, or it opens ] [indiscernible] 95 or 100 times; or even worse, one package leaks and then there's some products built on the rest of the pack in the same carts or sorry, in managing that. So what we've been really focusing on is improving our own co-packing and improving the machine so that we can meet those types of customer requirements. And if everything runs smoothly, like I said, there are many customers who have approached us and we'll be able to move more packaging business. But yes, there's a low income that's there. [indiscernible] It's quite price-sensitive. So in the pharmaceutical is the best market, but it has a lot of gestation period. And we've also got good customers there. And because of our cases, it's a longer gestation period type of business because of the qualification that goes. And I think that if you ask me, cosmetics and nutraceuticals are the 2 biggest target industries in terms of the fact that there's a -- price is not an issue. And there's a pure use case kind of not only like aesthetic benefit but also functional benefit for those types of brands and that they can now properly control their dosing and also -- and then of course, there's an individual value for each product and so on. So yes, so what's happened is even right now, it was an interpack earlier this year, and there's a lot of customers interested. I just want to make sure that the product is something that is successful because what happens is if you create a poor reputation in the market and this is what happened in V Shapes prior to our purchase. They did sell. Like their peak sales in 2021, there was like more than EUR 12.5 million. What happens is a bit more than 70 machines in the market, but most of them are not running because the system was too fibbly. Honestly, that each machine is slightly different from the previous. Like when you add thing. It's been a challenge, but we're trying to fix it. But I don't think that if we fix the issue, the problem is going to be that customers are not interested in the product. So just that was yesterday's -- I don't know how if you're aware of the AGM questions from yesterday. So I think the question was talk about V Shapes. So my specific -- what I see for the future of that business. So I said the demand is there for that product. It's just that we're not able to execute well enough or confidently enough. And therefore, if the demand was an issue, I would agree that, yes, we need to relook at that entire investment. If the demand is not an issue and we can see that if we can execute is going to be a large profitable market potential at this thing, [indiscernible] let's go. Then the focus right now is on improving execution. Hope this answers the question.

Just one follow-up on that, Shiva. So as of today, where we stand, we are still trying to perfect the machines or we have sort of closed that gap now and now we just need to sort of execute in terms of sales and just getting the product out there.

So right now, actually our own internal production in India and in Italy for the co-packaging. That's quite stable because we have people making those are much more trained, right, the technicians. So they're aware of what's happening. When we sell the machine, I think if the person is making a single product and making -- I'm packing like 10 grams of honey and I'm making that same packing again and again. There, I think it's very stable. It's a good product. But if I'm going to change from a 10-gram pack or a 20-gram pack of honey, then I'm going to pack something with a different viscosity or 6, 7, and it's too difficult to exist, to do the waste is become too high. And it's not like it can't be done. Like [indiscernible] but it's also because we do make 100, a lot of drugs. So the experience that those guys have is quite different, right? So that's the situation right now. But obviously, we make it work and run at anytime. So [ 100% ]. It's not -- we're not truly is challenges if that's what your question is.

We'll take the next question from Mr. Saket Kapur.

Just to take the conversation forward for where we left yesterday evening. Shiva, sir, the first question is addressed to you. In continuation to what Sameer was asking, you used the phrase there that from -- we are now moving from terrible to poor. So if you could just explain, this is what you meant for the V Shape, CP performance going ahead, that we still have the cooking problem. Rather, I would also, sir, frame my questions in just a more broader way. In the opening remarks, Jaideep said -- alluded to the fact of how the performance was. But if Shiva, if you could just take a few minutes and explain to us how our core domestic business have performed in terms of -- on a comparable basis. If we include -- if we exclude the one-off items, the profitability has also taken a dip. So firstly, if you could just give us some broader picture of where we stand today in the core business and then the health of the subsidiary and the way forward for us. If you could just summarize it in a more precise manner, addressing as you have addressed yesterday to your shareholders, that would suffice many points. And then I will put forward my question.

Okay, the thought question I'll try to address it. Now if -- fundamentally, the difference in the profit before on a stand-alone basis, one is partly down to some foreign change gains or something on the other. And then there's still a slight gap after that is what I believe. I'm not going to the exceptional item or something, but that was a one-off. Like I said clearly, last year, I mean in the AGM yesterday fundamentally nothing really changed in the market between what I feel in the last couple of years and this year so far. My view is that we lost maybe a few [indiscernible] worth of consumers here because this whole Iran thing. There'll be a lot of fluctuation of volume prices. And I think that that's why the extrusion business specifically was very slow. Plus whatever question on El Nino and on water. So no excuse, but I think that from whatever I see in our core Coding and Marking business stand-alone, we are still going to do as well -- not as well, but like I don't see any major as of right now changes as compared to what I'm seeing in the last 3, 4 years post COVID. So I think we should be consistent in that business at least this year and the next year for whatever I can -- from our pipeline. So yes, of course, on a quarter-to-quarter basis, it's difficult to predict, but by the end of the year, we would expect the core Coding and Marking business to be anywhere like that 10%, 12%, 15% growth numbers in that specific stand-alone Coding and Marking business. We did have a couple of cost increases. So what we've noticed is prior to COVID, we -- the prices for our products are very stable for all the imports. I don't know what's happening since COVID. I feel like a lot of cost increases are not temporary anymore. They become very sticky and suppliers are exploiting the fact that these are qualified products on our part. And we are very reluctant to change suppliers. For whatever reason, costs have increased. We've been a bit slow in understanding. And I mean, we're not very aggressive in our pricing. We are a little bit more Japanese in that style that we charge what is the correct price rather than charging what is the maximum price before you feel the binge. So yes, but we have had a couple of price increases, one price increase and we had a surcharge since the Iran war began. And so I think those things should get our margins back up, that couple of percent maybe we've lost. So I think this covers maybe some questions on the stand-alone Coding and Marking business. Now if you can repeat the rest of the questions that you want to address, the way forward of what?

Subsidiaries...

I want you to address us on the status of the health of, firstly, the subsidiary companies today. What is likelihood the road map, give and take the business environment, the sentiment and unknown factor? There is definitely a very strong and a concrete plan with which you and your team is working. And whatever can be explained to us in the most simple way, please do try to elaborate on the same rather than being only conservative on the fact that something or the other cannot be spoken. But I'm just trying to make sense of we, as investors, understanding where our company stands in terms of our investment in the subsidiary part and how much more are we going to invest in the current year to support the operations there.

Yes. So again, like I said, Markprint, we've picked up the digital printing part. We also have own digital printing solutions in the controlled. And I don't know if it's on our website. Is everything there? We should pull it up. So we've localized our own solutions. Part of it is, of course, using the technology to absorb from our print and we're selling these solutions actively. So it's a big part of our business right now or our future growth strategy, and we expect to get it off, sales in -- we've already got some sales and expect to -- this to be a big growth area for us going forward. So that's one of the core reasons is to invest in Markprint. Markprint itself is doing well. We expect them to move better. I mean -- so definitely, I expect that business to pick up further. Codeology, we've taken over the print and applied business and we've localized that. And now that's product available for sale. Someone did mention about printing on cartons and the market for that, for printing barcodes, whether linear or 2D on cartons for supply chain tracking. Now that is the single biggest application globally. So out of the $7 billion or $8 billion coding and marking market, about 30% to 40% of it is printing on the outer cartons, both in print and applied or with our Piezo inkjet printers. Should it print barcodes and reach them through the supply chain and use it for warehouse management. Now in India, this is not there as of yet because it's a [ Kiantone ] network. I don't know if it's going to change. I don't know what's happening because we've been working -- I've been working on this application for like at least 15 years I've gone to customers like whether it's Unilever or [ Code Ratio ], Procter & Gamble and god knows whoever. And it's always been interesting, but it's never been like we need to do it, so even though they do it abroad. So I don't know it's normally the retail chains that specify this barcode, but I think BMAT and Reliance Retail and those types of guys don't have enough market share to enforce this on their suppliers. And the smaller suppliers in ways like hand-based labels and all stuff like that, so that's a lot of competition. But the print on apply has no industrial and other applications, especially in export and on the stock. Our competitors do about INR 25 crores to INR 30 crores of print and apply sales each from what I know. And obviously, that's something that we are missing that market entirely. So from this, this is obviously the base here and we ought to expect that we needed to be in this market. So that was one of the main things of the Codeology acquisition. And separately, how we address the British market is something we've not super focused on, but now we're going to focus on it much more intensely. So the third part, which is, of course, the big one is CP ITALY, like I said, it's been a big area for us. We have started streamlining costs. We have reduced some manpower. We are reducing some further manpower. And we are supplementing certain resources. So we've increased our sales manpower. We've reduced a lot of general purpose people in what we can call is like operations and back office and where we continue to do that. And we will increase the salespeople, and we also not really -- we've decreased lumpy people, like the technical team. We're going to see some people in India. So there's more of a combination of work going on between India and there and started using some more outside consultants who are experts in certain areas to help us get over some teething issues. So like I said, I think that once -- the machines are just listed final changes of made and tested, if everything works, then I think we'll be in a much better position to execute some of the sales orders that we have and be confident that it's going to work perfectly. So I think that from all areas, I do believe that things are going smoothly. Like I said, there's differences in those things. CP in India is more for a sales outlet for us. And our natural sales are increasing. That is doing okay. It's -- I'd say like we probably already going to break even this year itself and order book investments we made in the international businesses. The investment, of course, has to be looked at because a lot of times for our international sales, we sell from India directly to those customers, even though these salespeople are based outside of India. So it's a bit tricky to get the exact picture. We don't necessarily bid to our subsidiaries. Yes. Overall, I'd say the packaging industry this year is more of a streamlining activity. It's more stabilizing, everything stabilizing, the quality, growing the sales and being solid and really focusing on expanding their business next year or not. The Track and Trace business, the future core businesses where we were working on some pilot projects. We're going to get a fair idea of where those projects are in Q2 and whether our unique propositions are working as we believe they should in the market and as per the customer expectations. And we'll get a lot more visibility on that set of solutions, again, both like in the packaging, in the thing, we've got like a lot of patents around or the solutions that we're delivering. So I think that if we are successful, we have a very long runway in those types of solutions.

Sir, only to add to it, when we say that if we will be successful, if the sales will happen, when you be leading the team are -- is not confident or not using the phrase, what should investors take home from the understanding? Many -- there has to be some concrete evidence of the business fundamentals that you are working on. So there should be a revision in upward or downward in terms of sale. But if Board does not sit on M&A, do not make good to us whether we are on the track or not. But if just I'm trying to make sense and make myself understand when you yourself leading the entire operation is using the phrase if the sales happen. If -- how -- what should we take home? It can be a variation. You may use or you may say that key, we may be doing, say, X revenue, and that may go up or down by 10% to 15%. But if we use the phrase whether the sales will happen, if they will happen, then we are not confident on what we are trying to sell or what we are trying to do. I'm unable to understand what exactly has been communicated. I hope that I have been able to explain my thought.

Can you please rejoin the queue?

No, sir, I will rejoin the queue, but my message and what I'm looking for. Yes, let's complete and no more for questions as of now.

Yes. Sure. So Saket, and this is a fair question. Again, my answer is that -- so I don't predict anything. We don't operate on intent, feelings and all this other type of stuff. For purchase orders, I don't talk about it. When I get the payment and the job is completed and the customers, I know that's on control considers like a sale and a success. So withdrew from the packaging business, and I said the slowdown on the sales. Don't know all this stuff. I don't care about the losses because, first, you're going to fix everything. It's going to work perfectly. [ Components ] for the next 10 years, 20 years, past even Shiva Kabra, there's going to be some other person there. Past Jaideep Barve, there's going to be someone else there, and we're making institution. And I don't care about selling machines, which I don't want to work perfectly. So I would be very clear that I can only be relatively confident on the stand-alone Coding and Marking business. Like I said, I know that we should have a steady growth. We should be at that 60% gross margin, 30% EBIT margin on that business if I take out the investments in other parts of the business. This year, I hope -- again, like I said, in the end, I'm not making the value issue. I have worked on a product. I have -- the team has focused on it. We have done what we think is something leading. But in the end, it's the customer who's going to decide whether he believes in this. So I think I have to be very clear like we are shareholders, and I understand where this is coming from. But at the end of the day, like the customers, our reputation, our technical expertise and the development of that employees like I'll have to look at all those factors and I'd have to look at it over a longer period of time rather than saying that I need to make an immediate announcement for the comfort of shareholders. If I make an announcement, and I don't live up to it, then I don't want to lose credibility. I don't want us to sell machines, which don't have performance even if that helps boost sales in the short term but has damaged my long-term reputation. So I would just have to repeat my saying. Like I don't expect the packaging to be a major contributor. They do expect that sales to improve losses to narrow because we have been now getting a pick up in the co-packaging business. So yes, it's sort of -- and -- the second -- of course, we also got a bigger pipeline because we've also been working on these projects for longer. That's one part of it. And I do definitely expect -- like I said, we're working on some pilot trials and there's no point working in for every customer in the market because I've already got 2, 3 key customers. They're giving me the feedback I require. I'm making the changes. We are working with them. I don't see the point of making a lot of announcements if I can't keep these customers happy and they're not finding some benefit in the market and obviously, my reading of what developments I need to do was incorrect.

We'll take the next question from [ Dish Rashesh ]. We'll move on to [ Saloni Aria ].

I hope I'm audible.

Yes.

So Mr. Shiva, most of the big picture and broader questions have already been asked by Saket. I'll just get to the specific segments, specific developments. So I'll start with the Track and Trace division first. In the earlier calls and presentations, we have been updating that we've been in negotiations with 2 of the large pharma companies. And it was at the final stage. So currently, what is the update on that?

So as I a said earlier, so right now, we've done some pilots with a couple of machines. We are putting stuff in the market. And so there's some sort of a -- this is the pharmaceutical industry. I want to explain to everybody. They are very, very specific. So for us to go through the IQ, DQ, BQ and then put the product out of the market and then they have to -- they put it out on control old supply chain, the feedback from the control supply chain, some additional trials will be done. And then these 3 customers will get back to us on what their final thoughts are. So the 3 different customers. So we can have 3 different outcomes. We don't know.

Do we have a tentative time line as to when we can see sales coming from this division? Because it's been long overdue.

So I think that this division is already -- like in the plain vanilla Track and Trace, we are already doing sort in amount of sales, maybe may close to INR 20 crores or something and we're already profitable or at least breakeven. The innovative stuff, which is what our main focus on is on the way. And like I said, we'll get a bit of -- I mean, in the end, each customer has their own process in sight. And then maybe you've gone for some of the most thorough but slowest customers that are there in the thing. But that's good because, honestly, there has been a lot of feedback from them. There's been a lot of improvements in development from our side. I think we're going with a far more mature product over this 1.5 year, 2-year period that we're working on this.

Sir, you said INR 20 crores in this year -- this quarter, we have done. So last year, I'm assuming we didn't do any...

INR 20 crores in last financial. INR 20 crores in the last financial, I'm sorry.

INR 20 crores in the last financial year, okay. And what about this quarter, sir?

It must be in a similar line. I don't know. I'd have to get the exact breakup, but it would be similar, I would think.

Okay. So any specific reason that stand-alone business has not been -- has not performed well this quarter? I know you have addressed this in terms of the cost increase in the geopolitical issues. But any specific increase for -- the reason for such a huge impact on stand-alone sales as in the growth has not been there only this quarter?

Yes. Like I said, I think it's because -- partly because of Iran or all the poly prices changing. The extrusion industry is the biggest sale. So the extrusion is our biggest sale and I think because of -- some of those things especially are more cyclical. So I think because -- I mean your prices are going up and down. I think there's been a little bit of a slower production in that area. And I see going back to normal right now. So I said, over the course of the year, I'm pretty sure will be for normal -- in [indiscernible]

So in terms of the long-term view of the business, obviously, these quarterly impacts on the -- from the geopolitical issues don't matter. But now it's mattering because we have been invested so much in the subsidiaries, and that has been a pain point, basically from a top line perspective as well as on the operational profitability. So the reason I'm asking this is because if, for example, it takes much more longer for V Shapes, and Track and Trace to pick up and the base business itself, which was giving a steady number starts to basically dwindle a little, so I need to understand your thought process on this as to how you are trying to balance it all out from the operations perspective.

So I don't think we're increasing our investments in other businesses as of right now. Like I said, I do believe that the stand-alone business, the standalone Coding and Marking business is steady from whatever I can see because obviously, I get a lot of data and access to the CRM and other type stock because we have owned those. So we are confident of what we're going to do still this year, and there's no major market outlook. Even if like -- we have to understand that today if I'm making like [ INR 5 crores ] worth of consumable sales this quarter because it got delayed. And I got 85% margin on that, we add that INR 5 crores and 85%, like the numbers look different. Would have pushed out to the second quarter, third quarter as it doesn't make any difference, personally speaking. Now the -- so I think the stand-alone business is, like I said, the engine, and we are truly sure that, that engine is not under any effect because so far, people still need date codes and batch codes and all this other type of information. Of course, like I said, there's no guarantee on anything. In the end if the government changes the rules and regulations, that business can be impacted. As of right now, we don't see any upcoming legislation on those areas. So I think that, that business is going to be -- it's predictive and steady, and we retain our market shares and slight increase, if anything.

Sir, we are not expecting to invest any further? So we have invested around INR 65 crores in V Shapes till date. No more investments from us and no more cash burn expected?

I think the update on one of the previous meetings, we're now doing the tech transfer, so we'll be purchasing it so that all the IP is shipped to Control Print. And we have to revalue the IP in Control Print Italy. It's also going to be relevant [ because 100% ] subsidy and whatever. And in a way, it is like, yes, there will be a cash element going there and the IP coming here, but that was just pretty much only the last ever infusion for what we know from our internal calculations.

Right. Because if I see this quarter's number -- just one last question, and I'll get back in the queue, sir. So if I see this quarter's numbers, sir, the trajectory in terms of top line from subsidiaries' perspective as well as the losses that has been incurred has remained the same. And last time I met with Mr. Barve in a one-on-one meeting. So he basically specified that this year, we basically have to do something about it that V Shapes has to pick up because a lot more cash has been invested. And along with that, sir, a lot of challenges have been already faced by the company in V Shapes, like the RM is still imported and standardization is still causing an issue. There are certain execution challenges. So just to get an overall picture on this V Shapes part, sir, when can we actually expect the numbers to materially improve? Because in case of Track and Trace, so the market size, I assume is INR 600 crores. And whenever these things click, we'll reach a certain point, but V Shapes is what is basically providing the company an opportunity to get to the next level. So I'm trying to understand the pain points and what specific strategies have we adopted to really overcome them and overcome them fast. So I'm sorry, it's a long question, but just trying to get your perspective on this.

Yes. So just to answer your question, obviously, when we talk about V Shapes, the idea was to focus on the team there, strengthen the marketing and sales in India, move some cross-border stuff. We made some sales. We had some good initial success. But then we weren't able to sustain it because of consistency or other types of issues. So we said we'll take a bit slow. Now what we've done is we've put -- we start streamlining some costs. Like I said, there's been a decrease in the number of people. There were 3 or 4 people who left and we've added 3 or 4 people in sales or new so overall. I don't know what the numbers are. But the focus has shifted from keeping more people in operations, back office and other stuff, which is not required into more -- into strengthening our sales and marketing network there. We are closely interacting much more with India. We have a person that we've got in India who is basically spending a lot more time in Italy. And hopefully, he gets this blue card soon. He will be based there. So we've got a very sharp guy, too. So he's helping streamline all the business process and operations there and improving the coordination between India and Italy and in the future, North America and Taiwan and everything else like that. So we're working very actively on that. Like I said, we are also not through with some of the streamlining of expenses and manpower, so we are also working for that. It's not a sure result in this year because even if the severance pay, it's like about 1 year of salary or whatever is. So in the end, even if you reduce your lower cost in the longer term, it's still -- the expenses will be there for this year. And like I said, I think as we are focused on improving our product execution, that's going to make the difference. We are working on the material manufacturing here. We've had some hiccup with Puna in the Northeast of where making an expansion in existing factory or facility in Guwahati because the government has claimed that the funds have run out of that scheme. So yes, but we are still moving ahead with our manufacturing of the materials in-house both for consistency but also for improving our margins, sharpen the materials. And we believe that is another demand obstacle. One is the consistency of the machinery, which we want to improve and the second on the speed, the performance. But the second part is, of course, the cost for pack. Especially in the food industry, this is a modeling. So I think step-by-step, and we are moving forward, smoothening out. But like I said, I think I'm hoping that we see some benefits this year and definitely next year. And like I said, in the Track and Trace, what we want to do is try to do some stuff, which redefines the industry in QRiousCodes and we're going to see if -- how successful we are built not too long from now.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take the next question from [ Badri Narandragi ]. .

[indiscernible] Can I know what is the printer sales for this quarter? And I say for the last 12 quarters, our revenue top line on either, it's in most cool case, it's 19%. So why cost 4% -- 4% growth this quarter? So what is the root cause? Because it's more predictable cash flow we can expect on a stand-alone basis. And I want to know what is the profitability number of our subsidiary, Codeology and Markprint?

Yes. So I couldn't fully hear the first part. You asked about the volume of the printers, which are sold in the first quarter, right?

Yes, yes. This question was that.

So we sold [ buying ] 74 printers in the first quarter. Does it answer your question? The first part?

Yes, sir.

And can you just repeat because I could not hear the next questions properly?

Sir, next question, if you see over last 12 quarters, our revenue growth has been consistently about 10%. So this quarter, it's 4% from stand-alone basis. So what is the root cause because it's more predictable business? It's a predictable business. So how we are seeing next quarter, next quarter, sir? .

So an answer to your question [indiscernible] like in every business, Q4 is the most prominent aspect of any business. And most sales happened in the end of March. So what happens is that the first quarter is always a little bit slower for even our kind of business. And our business was also affected by a sluggish trend in the price and extruded business, where also our consumers are used. As is [indiscernible] like decreasing the momentum of the business in the extrusion and the pipes in the tables, the demand for the consumables versus because the printing didn't happen on that part. But hopefully, we'll catch up with that very soon. The business group, for the next 3 quarters for the Coding and Marking is stable, and we will definitely come up with better numbers than the first quarter.

We'll take the next question from [ Vinit Kapoor ].