Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vijay K. Thadani, Managing Director and Vice Chairman of NIIT Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Okay. Good afternoon. Welcome to this call, which has been scheduled to discuss the results for quarter four of NIIT Limited, and as well as the annual results of NIIT Limited for the year ending 31 March 2024. I have with me the full management team, as well as Mr. R.S. Pawar, who is the Chairman, Mr. P. Rajendran, the Joint Managing Director. I also have the pleasure of having Mr. Sapnesh Lalla, who is a Non-Executive Director now on the board, but has been a very, very active participant in the strategy as well as the execution.
Ladies and gentlemen, please stay connected while we connect the management line. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the management line reconnected, so you can go ahead.
Yeah. So I'll repeat for just in case people missed. So first of all, I want to welcome you for this call, where we are going to discuss quarter four results, quarter four and annual results for NIIT Limited, and also discuss the way forward. So, thank you very much for joining us. Let me start by saying that, before I get into the details about quarter four, I need to inform you once again that NIIT is seasonal in nature. Quarter four is a weak quarter, because it is in this quarter that we have a reduced consumption of training in both technology and BFSI. BFSI is because of year-end technology, because a large amount of work that needs to be finished before year-end puts other pressures.
And even for the consumer segment, as the graduates who are going to graduate, are preparing for their exams, their normal exams, at this time. And also to recall that the business saw a sharp decline, much, much larger than normal, in the volumes in quarter four of FY 2023, which is one year ago. And that was caused by a near freeze in IT hiring, with a sharp compression in spending by IT industry. That resulted in our technology part of the training, the training that we used to do for technology segment, to be severely affected. And this was predominantly in Tier 1. So we felt it was a temporary impact, but we have to see that that impact has now lasted for six quarters.
Because in the six quarters, the technology sector has had an unprecedented reduction in workforce, never in six consecutive quarters before. Even during COVID, it was only two quarters. And therefore, it affected our revenues very significantly in the quarter four of FY 2023 and then in quarter one of FY 2024 as well, and continued to affect us for the rest of the year. However, the company pivoted with two alternate strategies, and I think we moved fairly fast and were able to transform and execute to those strategies. One was the pivoted focus, the company pivoted focus from Tier 1 to Tier 2 GSIs and increased penetration across GCCs. And given the hiring freeze, we focused on skilling their existing workforce with advanced technology skills for working professionals. So that was strategy one.
Second was in BFSI, where there was a large demand because they were growing and adding headcount numbers. We increased penetration in large private banks, which is the area that we service, as well as Indian enterprises which were benefiting from the, or which are the cause of the India consumption story. And there we broad-based our offerings, and very recently with Generative AI, that has helped us secure a large part of our growth that we see in quarter four, coming from there.
So BFSI as a major plus India enterprise story, as well as the advanced training and advanced training programs, as well as the Tier 2 GSIs and GCCs, that actually has helped us recover from -33% that we were in quarter one year-on-year to +24% in quarter four end of the year. The advantage of this is also that we have now built the capability to address a larger market segment, as well and have more offerings, which I think should hold us in good stead in the coming year. And when the technology hiring resumes, at that time, I think we will be beneficiaries. We'll get even a higher benefit because that is our natural strength area.
Those are the highlights or the background in which, so let me just take you through numbers for quarter four first. Revenue for quarter four was at INR 743 million, which was up 24% Y-o-Y, as I mentioned, but down 13% Q-o-Q due to seasonality. As I said, this drop was much lower than what we experienced last year, because last year it was also because of the impact of the freeze. This year, the freeze was continuing, so therefore, that could not have impacted us more. EBITDA was INR 13 million, as compared to -INR 95 million and INR 78 million in quarter three. Negative 95 million last year was the sudden shock that we went through, as well as the fact that part of the business was in the investment phase.
This year, we conserved our expenses and also focused on those things which mattered and grew while the investment cycles are still on and will play a role in our future results. EBITDA margin was 2% versus a negative of 16% last year. Net other income in quarter four was INR 166 million, which includes a treasury income of INR 139 million. We can talk more about this in case somebody has a question. PAT was at INR 112 million in quarter four, which is an improvement of INR 205 million over PAT in quarter four last year. In percentage terms, it was up to 219% Y-o-Y, but I think that's not very relevant since the denominator was very small.
EPS was INR 0.83 per share versus -INR 0.70 per share, and this is all about quarter four. In product mix terms, our BFSI and others, and I alluded to that, that training grew 83% year-on-year. And in technology, though we had the rebound coming from advanced technology sector as well, advanced technology training as well as the Tier 2 GSIs and GCCs focus, our technology was also up 5% year-on-year. Our tech BFSI ratio moved from 76/24 to 64/36. Let me move on to the full year. Revenue was at INR 3,035 million, down 11% year-on-year. And as pointed out, the recovery through the year helped us offset the sharp impact of the hiring freeze that took place and continues to be there.
But because we changed our strategy set and, and, that has helped us recover right through from -33% to +24% in the fourth quarter. Another way to look at it is while H1 was down 23%, H2 was up 5.4% on a year-on-year basis. We already discussed EBITDA margin was 2%, improvement of 129 basis points year-on-year. EBITDA for the year was INR 48 million versus INR 10 million for FY 2023. Net other income was INR 594 million versus INR 313 million last year, which also includes a large treasury income of INR 497 million from better than expected return on our treasury and also contributing to that.
PAT improved to INR 384 million versus INR 32 million last year, and EPS is at INR 2.85. Based on the results, the board of directors met today and recommended a dividend of INR 0.75 per share, final dividend of INR 0.75 per share, versus, or this was in addition to the interim dividend of INR 0.50 per share, which was paid in October 31, on October 31, 2023. I must point out here that while declaring the interim dividend, the board had also communicated that that should be treated as a dividend for the year FY 2023, which could not be declared because we were in the scheme of arrangement of the demerger of the two companies.
So, overall, from this story, what you can see is that while quarter four recovery is very, very strong on a year basis, the technology training has declined by 23%, while the BFSI and others have grown up by 39%. So I think this has helped us balance our product mix more in favor of of BFSI and others, and we think that when technology training comes back, we will be beneficiaries of that as well, especially for BFSI. So if I was to summarize, the business has shown resilience and agility. We pivoted focus from Tier 1 to Tier 2 GSIs, as well as increased penetration in GCCs. We got into advanced technology training skills, and in BFSI, we increased penetration in large private banks and broad-based our offerings.
We also achieved operational efficiencies and cost structure through cost structure rationalization, which led us to margin improvements. In addition to all this, we are also seeing early signs of success in training on generative AI and in using generative AI for training, both ways, training on generative AI and AI, generative AI for training. So the company is investing in new products, in fact, offerings to equip our customers with the generative AI skills. During the year, the company introduced new specialized programs in generative AI for its customers and added generative AI components across its portfolio of programs. Any NIIT program that you go through would typically have an element of generative AI, because we, we think that is a very, very significant play in defining how people get trained and how people get skilled.
Company is also using Generative AI in our pedagogy and our platform to improve learning effectiveness and learner experience. We recently conducted fireside chats with senior leaders of Indian enterprises, which was very well received and has also contributed to our funnel for growth in FY 2025. Coming to balance sheet. The balance sheet metrics also remain very strong. The DSO was at 46 days as compared to 33 days last year, but that was also because of increased billing and business that we had in quarter four. CapEx for the quarter was at INR 91 million. Net cash at the end of the quarter was INR 7,185 million, and this is a small increase over INR 7,179 million last quarter, and INR 7,157 million last year.
It's the cash balance is up despite very marginal profit, but also because after paying the dividend for the year. Headcount over the year has reduced by 206, and that's as part of our cost rationalization as well as product suite rationalization that we have been implementing. Coming to our guidance, given the fact that Tier One GSIs stopped hiring last year and have continued to see QOQ decline in headcount, success with Tier Two GSIs and GCC penetration, India enterprise and BFSI have led to recovery. Cost rationalization and efficiency gain have led to positive EBITDA at a much lower revenue run rates.
Going forward, we expect to maintain this momentum and see sequential growth to sustain, barring seasonality impacts across quarters, which will be felt, like it is always there. But I think overall, the curve is pointing, the arrow is pointing upwards. There are new products and new initiatives that we have caused, which will lead us to acceleration, next year. We expect the revenue next year to be in the range of INR 380-400 crores. The reason I'm giving a range is that it is also dependent on the recovery of recruitment or hiring in, in Tier One GSIs.
And, we expect to have still very thin margins, which are not reflective of our steady state margins, because there is one part of the business, which is the enterprise go-to-market, which is fairly profitable.... The consumer go-to-market part of the business is still in an investment mode, so the overall impact will be in low single-digit margins. Over the longer term, we see a larger opportunity for us. NIIT has been a strong and trusted brand, and we realized how strong and trusted we were by the response that we received in these fireside chats when we got corporate leaders together.
We also see that as we set up these new learner hubs, where individuals walk in and tell us, "So nice to see NIIT is back." And the differentiated deep skilling methodology that we have delivered over a scalable delivery platform has given proven outcomes, I think is another positive. We have 200+ corporate partnerships. We have more than 30 OEM relationships and strong balance sheet to invest in innovation and growth. So now that much of the irrationality that was prevailing in the market due to startups willing to build, burn cash for customer acquisition and the funding pressure has died down, I think it creates a healthier environment for us to now invest on building the NIIT brand. And we are looking forward to that in terms of the significant business transformation cycle which lies ahead of us.
The focused entity that we are now will allow us to be nimble and agile to address this market. We will continue to look for both organic and inorganic growth opportunities. Just as a last line of briefing, I also wanted to mention that we recently announced the appointment of a new CEO who will take over from first of July, and I think that release is already with you. In case you have questions on that, we'll be happy to answer. I gave a slightly longer than normal brief, but I did want to explain the environment in greater detail, which will, I hope, save us a few questions. But we are now open to questions I mean, on this. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Over to... Yeah.
Yes, sir. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Ganesh Shetye, who's an investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Just, I have one question regarding the details of diversification into other sectors for talent training, which was work in progress. Can you please highlight some of the progress during this quarter or during the year, the FY 2024, sir?
Okay. So, as I said, both other sectors as well as other offerings, both have a role to play. So one of the sectors that I think there is a stronger focus on is the overall India enterprise segment. The India enterprise segment, which is consuming technology, we believe that it is consuming less technology. There is some statistics recently that their spend on technology compared to global metrics, is just half, on a per capita basis, in an organization. Significant amount of digital transformation is required in these enterprises. That opens up a huge training area. People have been hesitating to make these investments, but I think Generative AI is a very easy way by which they can see how organizations can benefit.
I refer to the fireside chats we had, and I think that's our takeaway from those chats as well, that organizations are looking to improve their capability in handling Generative AI in a manner that can make them more competitive and grow faster. That definitely is one, if I may use the word, sector, though it is a customer segment. The second, is I think the whole manufacturing and Industry 4.0 and ER&D. These are sectors where some work is happening, but we don't have something specific to share as we speak. The third area, which is in still longer term, is the whole energy transition that is happening and the renewable energy space and the skill sets that will be required, and we have talked about this before.
Another area that we are working on, but that's too early to talk about some of these things, some of these longer term areas now, but those are the focus areas that the company is looking at.
...My second question is regarding the NIIT Confluence, which we had recently in Goa. This is a yearly conference, confluence which we have. Will you please give some highlights of this event and how this is helping us to building brand and onboarding future customers? Can you please throw some light on this, sir?
Okay, thank you for that question. We hold this event. Actually, this tradition started in our U.S. operations first, many years ago. We found that L&D professionals who are our customers, or L&D leaders who are our customers, do not have enough platforms to share their own ideas and their own achievements with others in that fraternity. That led us to getting them together, not with an intention to sell them more, but for them to share their experiences. And the process of sharing their experiences and specific pursuits, they also mentioned NIIT, obviously, because we are, they are our partners. And in that process, indirectly, there is overall learning which takes place for everyone, because you learn from each other.
But I think also it strengthens the belief that they are working with the right partner, as well as discover newer ideas that happen. So we typically keep it a restricted gathering, 60-80 people. We meet in a closed-door environment. People exchange their notes freely. They look at impact of, for example, Generative AI and how that will contribute to learning and development. We pitch in and tell them what we are getting ready with, and they critique it, they give us feedback. That helps us also refine our products. So it's a great learning experience for any L&D leader who's participating, but it's also equally educative for us and helps us plan our strategy as well as our offerings going forward. Typically, these events lead us to open some new doors because we would offer...
We would get about 80% of our existing customers, and we will get 20% of those who show interest in events like this, and not yet our customers. Those 20% definitely go back much more motivated to work with us, and that does result in a positive impact. Even the existing customers go back and look at other offerings which they may not be using from NIIT. So overall, it's a very, very positive thing, and it explains, it helps us position NIIT as a thought leader in a few areas. Everybody understands that NIIT is a thought leader in training space, but to get thought leadership in newer ways of training, I think is another interesting opportunity.
In this confluence, we had Generative AI, and I think, some of the stuff which people shared as well as what we shared with them, I think did cause, a lot of positive momentum, impact of which we will see during the year. I hope that answers your question.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you very much for the answers, and all the best for the future.
Thank you.
Thank you.
A reminder to all participants, ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question.
While you are waiting for questions, I can ask Mr. Pawar to talk about generative AI, because he's personally leading this initiative across the organization and is in establishing NIIT as a thought leader. Rajendra, do you want to share something?
I think I'm sure everybody on this call is quite excited about gen AI, without knowing too much or by knowing too much. But I think it could be said that this is the beginning of something very significant. And since it processes language rather than data, and there's nobody who doesn't deal with language, I'm giving a very high level abstraction, it is going to affect each and every person, and hopefully in a positive way.
So we see that we are almost in a position where we were in the eighties, when we were trying to teach IT to people who didn't know. It is almost as fundamental as that, except that people now have digital literacy, at least. So at one level, there is a task for us to look at building appreciation and awareness and basic skills on Gen AI at scale, and that's an opportunity that we are working on, working upon. The second is, of course, a more serious one, that how do organizations take great advantage from Gen AI? And there we currently see some confusion in the marketplace, given the uncertainties of the risks that Gen AI may put. So that creates the need for more technical understanding of this technology and a need to build architecture which protects organizations against possible risk, and so those are then...
Deeper training programs, which will get people to have an understanding of how their language-based interactions with the corporate data and the data outside, how will that be done in a secure fashion? How will that be done without violating principles of privacy, and so on? So right from the basic part of literacy, all the way down to fairly detailed technical work, which needs an understanding of data, understanding of analytics, understanding of cybersecurity, disciplines that we deal with otherwise. So there's a range of programs that we are putting together. That is one dimension just on the curricular side. The other side, and Vijay has alluded to that, is how we learn. I think GenAI holds great promise, not fully realized yet, but great promise of working towards customizing learning to a market of one.
It has been a dream for the world, but we are reaching a position where pedagogically, it will be possible to deal with each learner in a more unique fashion. We have a reasonable understanding of how to do that, and we will be rolling that out during the course of the year, so that we can get much more effectiveness in learning from each learner. Needless to say, the extent of change happening in digital transformation at one level, and Vijay again alluded to the increase. We see the role of Chief Digital Officers becoming quite common in companies, in addition to a Chief Information Officer. So these are very often not technology folks; they are business folks who are being challenged to see how to induct technology into their way of working.
I think this will spread technology deeper and wider, and we are looking at ways to make it faster and quicker using GenAI. I'm giving you just the drivers of our strategy on GenAI, and we have, as an organization, embarked on an ambitious plan that started many quarters ago, but we are now beginning to bring it to the market. And we expect that this should give us the kind of recognition and a brand salience for more and more learners at every level in every sector of the economy. That's, Vijay, a general statement.
Okay, Deepan, do we have any questions?
Yes, sir. We have a question from the line of Rahil Shah from Crown Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good afternoon. So with this guidance you've given, INR 380 crore-INR 400 crore, you said next year, so that is, you mean FY 2025, correct?
Yes.
Okay. And so, to go along with it, what is the margin guidance, EBITDA margins expectations?
The margin expectations going forward?
Yeah.
FY 2025. Yeah, as I mentioned that, we are in an investment mode in one part of the business. While the enterprise go-to-market has a very decent 15%-15% plus/minus margin, the consumer go-to-market is an investment phase. And therefore, balancing the two, we expect to see a 3%-5% margin, as we complete the year. I think we will start the year on a breakeven or slightly lower than breakeven basis, but I think over the year we will gradually make up, because the larger investments are in the first part of the year, and the returns will accumulate as we come through the year.
Okay, so 3%-5% is what you're expecting. Okay. And so earlier you had, you know, mentioned in one of the calls that the company's long-term vision is, you know, reaching revenues of INR 1,000 crore by FY 2028. So what are your views on that now, given the landscape of the industry that you see and witness? And along with that, what will be the margin trajectory to go, you know, as you progress through the years? So just your thoughts on that now.
Okay. So on an organic growth basis, I think the kind of growth that we are seeking next year will match well with the trajectory that we had cast for ourselves. Of course, one precursor to that is that we do expect that in the second half, the hiring resumption by large GSIs, because they continue to remain the largest beneficiaries of our offerings, as well as the largest employers of our technology workforce. Having said that, as we have diversified our portfolio, I think our dependence on that is reducing because now the advanced skills, as well as, BFSI and, India Enterprise are beginning to be a larger percentage, but we still need that element. We do believe that that will continue at a reasonable pace over the years.
So if we do that organic growth, I think we will be on the right trajectory at, 30% odd, on an, year-on-year basis. Whereas inorganic is concerned, that is an important component of that, and I think, of our INR 1,200 crore story, because we have, a corpus available to invest for inorganic growth. We are looking for suitable targets. We have been in a number of discussions, haven't concluded yet, any one of them to the, to a level where we can share the details, but I think at an appropriate time, that will happen. The number of targets should increase because there is a lot of turmoil in the industry, and there may be good organizations available or good, good setups available who match with our value systems as well as our vision.
Having said that, there is a lot of destruction, I should say, value destruction, which has taken place in the tech sector, and therefore, one has to be careful that we don't make wrong choices. So it is in that context is that I would like to say. So if you add both of them, I think we would be on the trajectory that we had set down, INR 1,200 crore by 2023.
On the margins, by then, that will also gradually, you know, function similarly?
I think margins will improve. As soon as we achieve critical mass, margins will start improving, and once margin improve, we, as we mentioned, we do expect a 15%-20% margin. This is a business which should be 15%-20% margin with the business mix that we have and the continued investments that we require. So I think that should also happen as we go forward.
All right, sir. Okay, thank you. Thank you for answering, and all the best.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, a reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Okay. Thank you very much, everyone. Truly appreciate your joining this call. This is a busy result season, and for you to spare your time for us, we truly appreciate. We did discuss and clarify all that we wanted to clarify. In case there are any further questions or follow-up questions, Kapil Saurabh will be... Kapil Saurabh, our colleague who handles investor relations in addition to other responsibilities. He and all of us will be very happy to answer those questions. Next week, we intend to be in Mumbai and would have an opportunity to meet some of you. We will also be at an investor meet next week, so that should give us an opportunity as well.
So, looking forward to meet you in person and answer more of your questions, and have a debate and get some guidance on future. Thank you very much once again for your interest in NIIT. Wishing you the very best.
Thank you. On behalf of NIIT Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.