Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to NIIT Limited quarterly results conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please press star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vijay Thadani, MD and Vice Chairman. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Thadani.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. Being a busy results season, the fact that you decided to spend your time with us, we truly appreciate, and we are looking forward to a very educative conversation for us, as well as hopefully we'll add some value to your thoughts. We are here to discuss the results for the quarter ending December 24, which is the third quarter of the financial year for us. I have with me our full management team. I have our CEO, Mr. Pankaj Jathar. Pankaj actually started the briefing last quarter. However, he had a very bad sore throat, so in between I had to step in to complete his briefing. This time he's in good shape, so he'll take us through the results for quarter three. I also have our Chief Financial Officer, Sanjeev Bansal.
Some of you may have met him, but we also requested him to give some color on the financials, which he will, and then I have our full management team here, and Kapil Saurabh, who leads the investor relations, Saurabh Taneja; two of them are also participating in this call and would be happy to take on follow-on conversations after this meeting, so, as usual, we will start with some prepared comments, which Pankaj will share, after which we'll open it for Q&A in which all of us will participate. Over to you, Pankaj.
Thank you, Vijay, and thanks for stepping in last time. This time, hopefully, I should be able to carry it through. Thank you, everyone, for joining the call. I'm happy to be presenting NIIT's results on this call. On this earnings call, I shall be discussing the operating performance of the company for Q3 FY 2025 and also outline the plan for Q4. Starting with the Q3 financials, revenue for Q3 was at INR 981 million, which is up 8% quarter-on-quarter and 15% year-on-year. While this is the fourth successive quarter of double-digit year-on-year growth, the revenue this quarter is slightly below our expectations. Speaking of the product mix, there was all-round growth in Q3, and revenue from technology as well as BFSI and other programs grew on YoY as well as QoQ basis. Revenue from technology programs is up 10% QoQ and 7% YoY.
Revenue from DFSI and other programs is up 4% QoQ and 35% YoY. Technology is to DFSI and others mix is at 65%-35% versus 70%-30% last year and 64%-36% last quarter. The learner mix, I'll just talk about that, we saw growth across both early career and work pro learners on a YoY basis. Revenue from early career program was up 22% YoY. Revenue from work pro programs was up 8% YoY.
Early career is to work pro mix was at 55%-45% versus 52%-48% last year. We ended the quarter with an EBITDA of INR 92 million as compared to INR 21 million last quarter and INR 78 million in Q3 last year. I will come back and give some more color on the above further in my comments, but meanwhile, I'd like to invite Sanjeev Bansal, the CFO of the company, to take us through some of the financial metrics.
Thank you, Pankaj. Good afternoon. So I'll give you an update on depreciation and other increments in other items. Depreciation was INR 61 million as compared to INR 57 million last quarter. Net other income for the quarter was INR 143 million, which is predominantly contributed by treasury income. It's down QoQ primarily due to the mark-to-market impact of change in yields during the quarter on fixed income investments. Tax was INR 33 million with effective tax rate of 19%. ETR is slightly higher on QoQ and YoY basis due to the higher profit in subsidiaries.
Minority interest was INR 6 million, representing share of profit of subsidiaries not fully owned by the holding company. And loss from discontinued operations was INR 1 million. Apart from that, considering all the financials, the PAT was INR 134 million during the quarter versus PAT of INR 118 million last quarter and INR 144 million last year. PAT is up 13% QoQ and down 7% YoY. EPS was INR 1 per share in Q3 versus 0.90 in Q2 and 1.1 last quarter. Thank you. Over to you, Pankaj.
Thanks, Sanjeev. Let me talk you through the balance sheet metrics. The balance sheet metrics remain strong. DSO was slightly higher at 68 days compared to 59 days last year and 56 days last quarter due to increased billing volume in Q3. Consistent with the investment cycle that the company is in, Capex for the quarter was INR 100 million in platform and software licenses and a few other similar things. Cash and equivalents at the end of the quarter was INR 7,395 million versus INR 7,201 million in Q2 FY 2025 and INR 7,179 million last year. While continuing to invest in growth, the company has been focused on adapting its expense structure to convert fixed assets to variable costs to address increased volatility in the environment. In line with this, headcount was reduced by 58 year-on-year and 15 quarter-on-quarter to end at 720. Here's some commentary on the business.
Broadening of our go-to-market that the company deployed over the last year has resulted in consistent recovery in the business over the last year. This is the fourth successive quarter of double-digit year-on-year growth. As you know, business was impacted last year due to a virtual freeze in hiring by large IT services firms. The swift actions that the company took to broad-base the GTM has resulted in the following. For technology programs, we expanded coverage into GCCs and into tier two GSIs. Increased focus on upskilling and reskilling with a number of advanced programs such as enterprise architects, cybersecurity, AI and ML, and GenAI, digital architects, and engineering managers as well. For DFSI and other programs, we increased penetration into large private banks where we work with top four private banks for training both early career and working professionals.
Broad-basing offerings for Indian enterprises include solutions for enterprise-wide adoption of GenAI. These actions resulted in a sustainable and profitable growth platform for the company. The company continues to build on these actions. However, I do wish to reiterate that the environment remains challenging and volatile. For tech programs, while we've seen that hiring sentiment in tech is improving, actual hiring has not picked up as yet. This impacted our growth this quarter.
We expect this improvement in hiring sentiment to start to have a positive impact on our growth in the next few quarters. For DFSI and other programs, while banks' hiring was robust this quarter, we saw some tapering of the growth towards the end due to recent regulatory actions. While this had a marginal impact on growth this quarter, we expect to see a larger impact in Q4. In other words, we are seeing two opposing trends.
In tech, we see a positive upswing in hiring, while DFSI is likely to see some plateauing, creating a netting impact over the next couple of quarters. Revenue in Q4 will likely be lower than Q3 because of seasonality and the netting impact of the tech and DFSI trends that I just mentioned. The company has been investing in expanding its customer base and in initiatives to improve visibility. We plan to continue to double down on these actions and recover the growth trajectory over a couple of quarters. Recovery in hiring would add to the growth run rate. Just to reiterate, we continue to see the tremendous growth opportunities ahead of us. Each of these market dynamics creates an opportunity to strengthen our business.
We believe the current dynamics are short-term trends and medium to long-term opportunity remains intact given the strong need for skilling to build Viksit Bharat, a strong edge that India still has in technology skills. Immense reskilling opportunity that GenAI presents and a massive opportunity in new sectors such as ER&D, EV, and new age manufacturing. Coming to our guidance, we now expect revenue to grow at 25% year-on-year in Q4. This would imply about 20% growth for the full year versus earlier expectations of 25%-30% growth. Over the medium to long term overall, we continue to see a large opportunity ahead of us and remain committed to our stated long-term goals. Vijay, I hand it back to you.
Okay. Thank you. I think after this brief, I'm sure there are a number of questions, so we would like to open it up for Q&A, and all of us are available here to ask any questions or answer any questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question comes from the line of Faisal Hawa with H.G. Hawa & Co. Please go ahead.
My question is that as the new CEO now, what is that one insight about NIIT and its present business that you have from which you feel that you can now build up a much larger business? Second question is, what are the three steps that you have taken to double sales roughly in two to three years from today? And third is, what is the use of the cash balances that we propose? Because we seem to add cash every quarter, and this cash balance is not being effectively utilized at this point of time, which is depressing our key ratios.
Right, so the second question I understood clearly as to what is our plan to use up the cash or use up or utilize the cash, and the fact that we are adding every quarter to that, and so that is one question you had, and the second question which you had was, what are the two or three steps that we have taken to double our revenue over the next few years? As you know, we have a very ambitious goal which we have gone to market, gone to the public on, and I think we remain committed to that goal, and your question is, how are we planning to do that?
So let me answer the second part first, right, the cash, and I'll ask Pankaj to start to answer the first part after I finish the second one, and then I'll contribute to that in case there's something more to be added. So as far as the cash is concerned, you would recall that we had said a lot of this cash came out of the proceeds of the divestment that we had done, and we shared a part of that cash, a large part of that cash with the shareholders already. And we said that the balance is for building the NIIT for the future, and that would be A, towards organic investments as well as inorganic activity.
On organic investments, while we have been investing slowly, I think as Pankaj mentioned, during last quarter, it was our desire to push the accelerator, but given the environment that we faced, I think we pushed that part of the investment to this quarter, and this quarter onward, you will start seeing that investment cycle in terms of operating expenses, which is one utilization of cash. The second is in building capability, which is a continuing investment which is happening. The third was in organic or inorganic. I think we have been examining the inorganic opportunities. We have very clearly defined the areas in which we would like to participate in. We have clearly defined the value that we expect the inorganic opportunity to add, and the idea was also to create sustainable value. We have been looking at a number of targets.
We have had a number of discussions on valuations and other issues. I think now things are beginning to fall in reasonable limits, and we are in a number of discussions, but obviously, in all these things, one can share a piece of news only when it is finalized, and I have said this before, so it's not that we've not been in conversation earlier, so I think at the right time, we would be able to share more details, but that certainly is an objective that we are pursuing. On doubling both organic and inorganic, I think inorganic part I already covered, but on the organic side, what we are intending to do to accelerate growth, I think I'll ask Pankaj to step in, and then if need be, I'll add more.
Thank you, Vijay, and thank you for the question. I will just lay this out simply. There are three legs of our strategy for growth in the coming years. There is the enterprise business, the consumer business, and the third leg is what Vijay just articulated about the inorganic part of our strategy. On the enterprise business, we have tech and DFSI and others as the two main areas that we are looking to grow in. We are investing in creating products for this market. We are investing in capabilities of sales and delivery in these areas, and we see some of those investments will bear out fruit for us, and that's how we will grow in the enterprise segment. On the consumer side, we have just started. In fact, last Sunday, you would have seen an ad in The Times of India from us.
So that's our first bit of the marketing spend, which Vijay was talking that we are going to start in this quarter. So we are looking at that as a push into the consumer segment, and the third leg of our growth will come from inorganic, and that we will talk about when it is the right time. Those are the three strategies on which we are basing our growth in the future. Back to you, Vijay, if you want to continue.
Sir, if you could just tell me that one insight that you have which you feel that can shape up the business further as a leader, what is that one thing which you feel that NIIT has that can be very much instrumental in driving the growth further?
Yeah. I think among the various impacts which AI and generative AI will have on humanity, one very significant one on which I think there is more or less a strong consensus is that learning will never be the same. Education will never be the same. Now, over what period will this transition happen? We don't know. We would definitely like to be one of the drivers of that because we very strongly believe that AI and generative AI have tremendous potential to transform how people learn. And you see the old model of education where we were always short of teachers, and we were trying to make sure that the teacher's capability is available to a maximum number of students. Of course, it goes beyond a number, then it starts becoming counterproductive.
And therefore, you always have a teacher teaching a class of 10, 15, 20, 30, as the case may be. I think generative AI creates a potential that a teacher can be a personal teacher to each of the students while retaining his identity and generative AI being his assistant, the teacher's assistant, his or her assistant, in making sure that the learning becomes very personalized. This will have a tremendous impact on how people learn, how fast people learn, how fast are they able to deploy. This is an area we are very strongly committed to. I think I use the internal word I use is I think we have a pole position there. We have to now make sure we convert that pole position into a significant sustainable competitive advantage.
I think this is one area where we think we will be able to make a very, very significant difference. Obviously, this is at the back of 43 years of our existence, which has been always eating, breathing, smelling, dreaming, drinking off how technology can transform learning. And I think in this particular case, that significant impact, I think, is here to be felt and experienced. So I think this is the area that we feel the strongest about.
I may add, Vijay, just one other thing, which, as coming from outside, Vijay has been part of the story. He's built this. Coming from outside, what I see as a huge asset that NIIT has is its brand, right? This is the only EdTech company which has been around for so long and still enjoys the trust of its customers and its clients across the board. And that is one huge asset which we have, which no one else in the market actually has. And that is going to be one of the assets or weapons in our armory as we build this business to meet the goals that we've talked about.
So if I can squeeze in another question, otherwise I can come back into the line.
I think you can. There is another one. Waiting, then maybe it's good to allow that other person to speak.
I'll come back into the queue, sir.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Amit Agicha with H.G. Hawa & Co. Please go ahead.
Hello, audible. Good afternoon, sir. Hello, good afternoon, sir. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah. Congratulations for a good set of numbers. So my question was with respect to the headcount. Could you clarify the impact of the declining headcount on the operational efficiency, and what measures are being taken to further optimize the cost structure from fixed to variable?
Okay. So the reduction of headcount is part of our variabilization effort that is ongoing for the company. So the impact on operational expense will be a positive impact. At the same time, the cost goes into the variable side of the business as we execute orders. In terms of efforts, one of the efforts we are taking is, of course, re-looking at our fixed costs and seeing where we can variabilize what across the business and building assets and systems which can help us create efficiencies and synergy across the different teams that we have operating within the company. So there are a number of initiatives under these two heads that we are running to improve efficiency and variabilize costs across the board.
Our last question was, how does the company plan to capitalize on the projected 15% CAGR in AI talent demand?
Let me repeat that. How do we plan to capitalize on the 15% AI CAGR in demand that will happen? Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. So AI is part of almost every discussion that we have with our customers and on both sides, on the enterprise business and the consumer business. And consequently, AI is also part of a lot of the solutions that we are driving. We have also created a specific AI product which our sales teams are taking to market, which is about educating leaders in an organization on how they can use AI to benefit their business. And we are finding a lot of interesting conversations for this product, and we are finding opportunities here.
There are a number of initiatives we are running with AI, which is creating new business opportunities with existing clients, going to new clients with the opportunity to help them understand how better to use AI within their organizations. We've also created a suite of products which companies can license from us to use AI internally without exposing their data to the outside world. These are some of the initiatives that we have. Some of these are already ready and in the market with the sales team. Some are under production in the product creation phase.
Understood. So we can understand if it's something talking about an agent here, right? Kind of like.
Yeah. I think that also is. That's the right one.
Thank you, sir. That was helpful, and all the best for the future. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Ganesh Shetty, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir, and thank you for the opportunity. So I just want to ask the question regarding the B2C business in the tech sector, how it is shaping up, especially for new-age tech courses for fresh graduates. Are we seeing any intense competition over there which can impact our margins, sir?
Thank you. Thank you, Ganesh. Thank you. Always good to hear you. As you know, one of the main initiatives which the edtech sector was involved in, in addition to various others, was skilling the tech workforce. And there were different business models which have been in play. So obviously, there is a lot of activity, but at the same time, I think there is a huge opportunity. I think the idea is to find that niche space which NIIT can take full advantage of. And I think we understand and we find that our competition also respects that space that we have enjoyed for the last 30, 40 years, and we therefore continue to have a strong say in that particular space. So the issue is as follows.
Irrespective of what you are learning, wherever you are learning, I think the need to constantly upskill, reskill is the need of the hour as technology is changing. Even if you are a technology participant or a worker, you need to constantly reskill and upskill. If you are studying somewhere, then whatever you studied needs to get on top of the most current technology skills, and third, technology has a role to play irrespective of any career or any profession that you're following. All these and domain-specific skills like banking, like manufacturing, like the newer age disciplines which are coming up and newer professions that are coming up all require a mix of technology, domain, and the application of each one of these new technologies into making that domain richer, so we believe that we enjoy a very specific niche and strong advantage in one particular segment.
You will start seeing our presence much more than it has been over the last two or three years. That's why we say we have been in an investment cycle. Our investment cycle part one was to build strong internal capability and get ready. And now we've started becoming visible a little bit as Pankaj just talked about, of which one small visible action was what you might have seen a week before in the newspapers. So I think that's where we stand. But in the coming quarters, you will hear much more as we go forward.
Thank you, sir. That is helpful. Sir, can you please elaborate on getting into new sectors which you have evaluated in the past? And can you please again share us the future, share us the progress from the last quarter where we are?
Sure, so I think we will share with you these things as we go along. At this point of time, we have made specific offerings of making sure that the way software engineering, for example, is getting redefined with AI, we have come up with some curricula in that context. We are building curricula also in the context of how other disciplines are getting influenced by AI. So I think you'll hear a lot about those as we go forward. So we'll keep you briefed every quarter in every call.
Thank you, sir. That's all from me and all my best for the future. Thank you.
A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question comes from the line of Faisal Hawa with H.G. Hawa & Co. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. There is a strategy you alluded with regards to tier two and tier three towns. So does it mean that we will open a lot of centers there, like some smaller centers of 300-400 sq ft? Or does it mean that we will be now doing some kind of far-reaching courses through use of any kind of multimedia, etc.? And is our brand also still recognized very well in tier two, tier three towns as well?
Okay. I think you asked three or four questions in one. So your first question is, will we be extending ourselves to tier two, tier three towns? Yes. The large opportunity actually remains outside of tier one. Tier one themselves have become very big. But I think tier two, tier three towns present a huge opportunity. As the whole NIIT system, perhaps we are addressing the whole nation wherever any learner is. The second part was, will we be setting up centers, independent centers? I think these are questions which will get addressed. We do believe that the future of learning is not pure digital, and I don't think it is pure physical either.
I think the mix of the hybrid, the mix of physical and digital is a constant titration exercise which will have to be done both on the basis of what a person is learning as well as the person himself, as to what the person is capable of and the circumstances present, given the circumstances in which this person is and what the person has to achieve. I think the future will be hybrid, but I think we will be able to discuss more as we go along. Will there be a fixed model that I can predict at this point of time or we can predict? I don't think the answer is yes.
It will be continuously a dynamic situation and it will titrate. Not only that, the technology, the way it is unfolding, itself presents newer opportunities and newer ways of doing things. So we have to keep all this in mind as we go along. But we are definitely thinking one or two steps ahead of what in general people are thinking. So I think you should see some forward steps from our side going forward.
So my question is also to Mr. Pankaj as to what are the key learnings that he is getting from Amazon which he would like to get into NIIT also in its present mode. And a lot of people would, and I think most people would agree that NIIT could also do with a lot of startup thinking and more agile. And in that way, I think Mr. Thadani's experience with growing large software companies and industry connects would go a long way. To me, this looks like an opportunity where the revenue of this company could even go to like 2,000 crores because there is so much skilling required in India. And most people, speaking as a parent also, I can say that we are deeply disillusioned with the education even at the school level.
I think the promoters of the company actually know what is the end result wanted. I know of so many of my friends who have done NIIT courses with engineering, and they still say that NIIT did more for us than our engineering college also did as far as jobs in the U.S., etc., are concerned. It beats me to think that why this business has not been a much larger business. Also, I'm much more hopeful that now that the management is really on to growing this business, I feel that this revenue could go to any level.
It's just that I would like to know what the strategy and how we want to execute. It would also go a long way if you could give us on a quarterly basis what your center's growth revenue is for each center and how much of the revenue growth is being contributed by new centers, just like they do it in the restaurant business, etc.
So while Pankaj will answer this part of his learning from Amazon, how he's translating it here, and the other part, I must say that you asked the question, you gave the answers, you also described the future. So I love such questions. Thank you very much. But let's.
Yeah. Sorry, sir. But as shareholders, many times we think like owners, which we are not.
Please take it as a no, no. Please take it as my very, very sincere piece of thanks because you have also told us exactly how we should go forward and give us confidence that we are actually thinking in the right direction. So I truly appreciate it. Truly, truly appreciate it. Thank you. But let Pankaj add as well. He also mentioned that his friends did NIIT courses. I wonder if he also did it or not, but we can discuss whenever we need.
Yeah. As a matter of fact, my wife did, and a lot of those skills are still with her at this point of time, and I mean, my friends are at such high posts in charge job, and I mean, one is in a company which ultimately got sold to NIIT, and NIIT also sold it finally, and they are also into learning solutions, and both of them always said, "We never learned anything from our college courses, and whatever we learned in programming, we learned from NIIT," and we are like 50 years of age, so at 50 years, we say this thing. I think that's the way you that's the time when you look back at life most, I mean, with absolute honesty.
Gotcha. No, sir, thank you very much. I was wondering where's the zing in your voice coming from? So you have been to NIIT. Thank you. So Pankaj.
Thank you. So I'll not take too much time on this, but quickly, a couple of things that I've carried with me from the stints that I had with Amazon definitely is the data-oriented decision-making, right? So that is something that Amazon always has trained everyone who works there to do. So that is something that not that NIIT didn't have data-oriented decision-making, but it's just building that into the way of working, way of thinking. That is one skill that I am trying to carry through and instill it over here. So that's one. And the other thing is just the decision-making process, right, on how you differentiate between decisions that are short-term and long-term and how you empower teams to take decisions which are in their business on their own, right, by building guardrails and tenets for businesses to take those decisions.
Both of these things typically should improve speed of decision-making and speed of execution in the organization. But what I'm also talking about is bringing in new ways of doing things which takes time to see. So those are some of the things that I bring with me from my previous experiences. And there's, of course, a bunch of other tactical things that one does learn from different organizations, not just Amazon, but everywhere else that I've worked as well, which one carries through and experiments with them. Thanks for the question. That was an interesting question and a good conversation as well. Yes. I appreciate it too. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Raj with Arjav Partners. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone.
Yes.
Yeah.
Hello. I just want to get a handle on the EBITDA part. How much will the EBITDA for the full year, FY 2025?
How much will be the EBITDA for the? The EBITDA for, yeah. I think the EBITDA for the full year will be the same as what you are seeing now because I don't think in the next quarter we are going to add anything to EBITDA. As you said, the investment cycle has started, so operating expenses will be a little ahead of the revenue that it will generate. So to that extent, I think next quarter we are looking at a break-even or just thereabouts, plus minus a little bit, based on the investments that we make. The stable parts of the business and their margins, that will anyway contribute. But I think the variable in this will be the speed at which we deploy the investment in the consumer part of the business, which is what is waiting.
Yeah. I think you've covered it. So it will be a flat quarter from EBITDA point of view. So what it is till now is what carries through to the end of the year.
All right. So sir, once this business gets stable, how much will be our normalized EBITDA going ahead?
In steady state, this business should generate 15%-20% EBITDA. Some of the stable parts of the business are already generating that.
All right. And overall at a company level, so when can we see this type of EBITDA, 15%-20%?
I think over maybe four to six quarters.
Four to six quarters. So I.
To see 15%-20% at a company level, actually, it is very possible to do it very quickly. But then the growth will get to that extent completely curtailed. Whereas if you are investing in growth and responsible growth, not at any cost, sustainable responsible growth, then I have a feeling the EBITDA will remain subdued during the year, and I think the following year after that, we should start seeing the benefits of that in both growth as well as EBITDA. I mean, at a broad level, we can share that we are in terms of renewing our planning cycle, which I think by next quarter we'll be able to share much more color.
All right. So EBITDA growth can be seen from FY 2027 onwards, right? Hello.
Yeah. I mean, yeah. In FY 2027, in some parts of FY 2027, you will start seeing the stable part of the EBITDA appearing in the total.
All right. And for FY 2026, also the focus will be on growth. So sir, how much growth are we anticipating then?
I think we'll be able to see. We are already on record to say that we are pursuing a growth to become 3X and 3Y, right, which is INR 1,200 gross or thereabouts in FY 2028, right? We are pursuing that, for which the lever have to be the accelerator has to be put. A lot of stuff has been done, and I think we are in the process of doing that. I think next year, this year, given the volatility as well as the challenge that is taking place, and by the way, it's a dynamic situation. Things are changing on a monthly basis in a business which does not respond that fast to needs by design. A student starts a course, he has to take three to six months to complete it, but in between, the situations change and we have to change along with them.
Given that, I think the business has responded well, that we still have 20% + growth opportunity in this year, but we need to accelerate more, like Pankaj himself said, our expectation and aspiration was to move at a faster pace. I think that faster pace we should be able to achieve during next year, and we have to make up for a little bit of lost time also, so I think all these factors will contribute to our plan for next year, but higher degree of clarity we can share with you in next quarter when the planning cycle will be complete, will have gone through the board, etc., so it will be possible it will be more possible and proper to then share with you how we are planning next year.
All right. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you. Truly appreciate your questions.
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question comes from the line of Rahul with Dolat. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hope my line is all right. Essentially, you gave a couple of outlook in terms of what kind of a growth you're expecting and what kind of EBITDA margin you're expecting for Q4 and also for.
Okay. So since I made all these statements, let me make the clarification also. Let's start from quarter four. So first of all, Pankaj did mention in the very first sentence that the revenue was short of the expectation we had. And I want us to go back one quarter ago when we said that we would be growing at 10% this quarter. Two quarters ago, I think we said we'll be growing at 10% per quarter and on a quarterly basis. And by the way, of all the two environmental changes that we saw, one technology hiring sentiment high, but not as much action on ground, that is visible. I think I've read some news reports also saying that it's not visible on the ground. So obviously, it is coming with a delay.
I think that definitely had an impact on this quarter and will have impact on the next quarter because next quarter, little action takes place quarter four. So its subsequent action in quarter four will be there. However, we do see that hiring and its impact on training spend, we should start seeing if not next quarter, the following quarter most certainly. I mean, if not this quarter, this quarter as in the JFM, we should be able to start seeing in AMJ and then JS. So that's one. Banking, which was going absolutely gumbo during end of last quarter, and you read the same newspapers that I do, we saw that there have been some regulatory tightening and banks hiring to that extent has tapered off.
They were going at a very, very fast growth rate and we were very, very well positioned and doing very well, which we continue to do. It's not that they have stopped. It's just that they have slowed down. And that slowdown, I don't think will reverse itself in a quarter. So I do see the impact of that continuing in quarter four. And therefore, if we were to go on that basis, the 10% QoQ, which we should have seen on quarter two to quarter three, was subdued to 8% now, right? But that was towards since that happened end of the quarter. Next quarter, we are seeing the full impact of that. Therefore, I think the impact will be more. Remember, quarter four for last five years, if you will see, has been lower than quarter three otherwise.
The environment conditions or the seasonal conditions are against us when we go in quarter four. But when you are on a high growth phase, then you can overcome that. Unfortunately, we will not be in that high growth phase in this quarter because of the changes that I talked about. Therefore, while we will see a very respectable and strong YoY growth in quarter four, which will be 25% or thereabouts on a year-on-year basis, on quarter-on-quarter, in fact, you will see a negative, which is to be expected if you were to look at last four years. But if we were on the high growth path, then we could have surpassed that. Then we would have seen a positive quarter-on-quarter. But we'll not be able to see that in this quarter.
If you take this into account and add up the numbers, then the overall growth for the year will come to 20%. In this quarter that we are looking at, we are actually investing large sums of money on growing the consumer business and putting the investments which are operationally determined. That's why to that extent, the EBITDA will be subdued in quarter, and when I was responding to somebody's question on what will be the EBITDA for the whole year, my answer was the EBITDA for the whole year is more likely to be the same as what you experienced in the first three quarters, right?
The total of first three quarters because fourth quarter is not likely to add much to the EBITDA. That is approximately what I said. Is this consistent with your understanding now or with what I said earlier? And then I'll come to the next quarter.
Yes. Yes. So far, please.
Yeah. Then if we were to grow, continue to grow at the rate at which we had foreseen and we still are committed to and wanting to grow to that number, then next year, if we had grown to the 30% or 32% that we wanted to grow this year, then next year we would have had to grow at a similar rate. We are a little behind, number one. And number two, the beginning or the end of the previous year, that is last quarter of this year, is not looking as good. The situation will reverse itself, we are hoping, and that it will. Therefore, we should be back on that path during next year. And we should be consistent and wait for an opportunity when we can scale even beyond that. What gives us confidence that we can do it?
Because last two years, we have had two bumps. One bump was when IT hiring suddenly stopped. But what we did was we actually built new capabilities. We actually broadcast our offerings. We broadcast our customer base. That has come to our rescue this year, even though the situation had not stabilized. I think this bump is again, we are realigning ourselves. I think at the end of this bump, we'll come out stronger. And I believe that we should be on a higher growth trajectory next year. What that number will be and how much beyond the 30-odd% that we need, I think we will be able to share with you as we go later in the next quarter or thereabouts.
Sure. Just to yeah. Sorry.
Go ahead. Sorry. I'm done.
Yeah. Okay. So also to the earlier comment that there is a swing or there is a shift happening while one sector is doing good, the another segment is not doing so great. If you could express how long you expect that trend to play out, that would be great?
I have a feeling the technology spend on training, I think that is recovering. So I don't think that trend will only point upward. So I have a feeling that part will set itself right in the next couple of quarters. If you saw our mix from 70/30 had gone down to 64/36, and this quarter, it is back to 65/35. So there is a recovery which we are seeing. We think that recovery will, in the next two quarters, should move very, very fast. The other contributor to that, which I hope is not the contributor, is that the stability in banking or BFSI space. If the stability does not happen and BFSI hiring remains challenged, then obviously that 70/30 will happen faster. But I hope that's not the reason it happened. I hope the reason it happens is because technology grows faster.
Technology training spend happened fast enough, and so do BFSI and other sectors. We are also examining other sectors, by the way. However, they don't add up to a lot right now, so we bundle them under BFSI and others. But I think over the next few quarters, some of them may become significant, and when they become so, then we will also start sharing it.
Right. Right. Understood. And since we have such a high growth aspiration, and this aspiration we had right from the demerger point, but we have not seen any meaningful progress happening so far. So what makes you think the acceleration could be just around the corner? Is there a resistance on our spending which we had, and that's the pedal we want to press here on that could drive that momentum? Or is there anything else that you could help us build that kind of a thought here?
Yeah. So it would not be very correct to say that we have not experienced it. We have experienced it in between four quarters, but then some external element happened. Remember, we also have the inorganic part, which is the part which has not yet got activated. And I think those may be some opportunities which, as and when they come to fruition, may also contribute to that, build a synergistic capability which may drive us faster.
So there are a number of things in the play. And I mean, this quarter itself, for example, we could have been with that additional 2% growth, could have been on the other side of 20%-25%. So the next quarter, we will see a 25% revenue growth. So it's not that we have not experienced it, or we are very close to experiencing it. I think as we become stronger and more mature, I think it will start happening.
Sure. Sure. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Faisal Hawa with H.G. Hawa & Co. Please go ahead.
So sir, is there any strategy of doing anything else also, like some tie-ups with foreign universities or some courses which are more to do with developing skills which are now needed apart from the IT services or BFSI? For example, sales is a skill which India lacks big time. So any kind of courses that we would like to pursue, even for children who are less than 10, are we going to diversify in those kind of things also? Particularly, I would like to have some answer on the university tie-up kind of question because we have such a strong brand name. Any foreign university would love to tie up with us.
Yes. See, we believe in sustainable partnerships. And we believe in partnerships which, as you rightly said, we are a very strong brand. And we would like to be seen as an equal rather than as a sub, right? Given that in the space that we operate in, we are a dominant brand. These are considerations we keep in mind. We have not closed our eyes to any situation, but we always look for an opportunity which, A, will create sustainable growth, which will enhance our brand presence, which will, most important, will service the needs of our customer.
I'm not sure whether a university credential by itself adds as much as the ROI of the kind. And I'm not saying this as a generic statement. I'm talking about every university tie-up does not. So we will look at these opportunities cautiously, and we take steps which contribute to a stable long-term and sustainable future. So I think everything that contributes to that, we'll be happy to examine.
Understood.
Yeah. Faisal, I would like to point out that our largest investor, whether through direct investments or through other vehicles that they have, is actually one of the world's largest universities.
Okay. And any other skills that we would like to develop apart from IT and BFSI, particularly in sales or some kind of more intangible skills? Are we coming out with courses for those also?
Yeah. So definitely, we do have, by the way, those as a part of our offering, except we don't offer them in a consumer format. We offer them in the corporate or enterprise format. Sales and Service Excellence is a part of our curriculum, which is very, very strong. And we are very well respected in some domains in that area and have significant market shares. Is that an area we would like to grow? Definitely. The Indian enterprises, see, so far, all this business that we are getting is out of GSIs, GCCs, and large banks. That leaves about a huge part of the Indian enterprise completely open where we can make a very big difference. Where a little part is being done by Sales and Service Excellence, I think there is a huge opportunity.
Generative AI and its impact on how we conduct their business and their lives, I think, will be an important contributor in our offering set. I had shared on last quarter. This time, we have not shared those statistics, but we had made significant moves in that area, and I think we are very strongly positioned. All these will be contributing to the future strategy.
Thank you . I appreciate it .
Manufacturing, ER&D, design, these are all areas, and the soft skills that you refer to, they're not exactly soft, but service skills, sales and service skills, as well as soft skills. These are areas in which we see a potential and are operating already. We need to scale those up.
So sir, did you say that our target is INR 1,200 crores revenue in FY 2028? So three years, three times.
Yes. Actually, that's the clarion call which Pankaj has given to the teams. And it's written on our boards all over the place, 3X, 3Y.
Most of the KRAs for the key departments and heads have been accordingly aligned also?
Yeah, yeah. By department heads. All the 720 people that you saw have been aligned. We, in fact, did a massive communication exercise in last quarter, and communication, not of talking about things, but actually laying out how exactly and what exactly does each person have to do. It's not going to be done by one person. It's going to be done by all of us and more, so what does each person have to do, so I think speed, simplification, synergy. These were three lines which came out very strongly in the 3X, 3Y.
Thank you, so much. I really appreciate your patience and also answering our questions so well. Thank you.
Please come and talk to us more. Your words are very encouraging.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as there are no further questions, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you very much. As usual, it's been a very educated session, very energizing, especially with the questions that you asked and you made us think about answering, and I think it strengthens our conviction in what we are trying to do. Pankaj, the best part of today was Pankaj's throat stayed on, and I'm sure last time was just an odd phenomenon, and this was your first long interaction with him. He's, of course, available to you for any follow-up conversations, and so is Kapil Saurabh. So they are both available to you for any further questions, or so is the CFO, Sanjeev Bansal, myself, all of us.
So please do talk to us. In addition to being shareholders, each one of you is a potential student of NIIT. So I will just say the last line of NIIT, which always used to be there. If you have not studied at NIIT, you are missing something. So we hope that some sparks will light, and we will see the growth that we envision together. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of NIIT Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.