Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome to Shivalik Bimetal Controls Limited's Q1 FY26 earnings webinar produced by ElevEase. I'm Shankhini Saha, Director of Investor Relations from Dickenson, and I'll be moderating our call today. So joining us from the Shivalik's management team today are Mr. Kabir Ghumman, Managing Director, Mr. Sumer Ghumman, Whole Time Director, Mr. Kanav Anand, Head of Sales and Marketing, and Mr. Rajeev Ranjan, CFO. Please note that this conference is being recorded and that some statements in this call may be forward-looking, based on current expectations and subject to risks that could cause results to differ materially. You can download Shivalik's investor presentation and press release from the links in the community chat or from the company website or the NSE. I'll now hand the conference over to Mr. Kabir Ghumman, Managing Director of Shivalik, to begin with opening remarks. Over to you, Kabir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Shivalik Bimetal Controls' Quarter One FY26 Earnings Call. My name is Kabir Ghumman, Managing Director. With me, Mr. Sumer Ghumman, Whole-time Director, Mr. Kanav Anand, Head of Sales and Marketing, and Mr. Rajeev Ranjan, Chief Financial Officer. For FY26, we're executing against a clear strategy to build a durable, high-quality growth engine. First, we are shifting from standalone precision parts to assembly-level solutions, backed by an in-house R&D, advanced tooling, and pilot prototyping, tightening our role inside customer platforms and shortening time to commercialization. We are also planning a Centre of Excellence and R&D facility to accelerate product innovation and high-value, technology-intensive components. These moves complement our process moat, electron beam welding, and diffusion bonding, which gives us control of quality, cost, and lead times. Our performance highlights this quarter underscore this strategy.
EBITDA grew 32.5% with a 452 basis points margin expansion to 25.26%, driven by mixed cost discipline and operating leverage. Shunt resistors now contribute about 49% of standalone revenue, reflecting their scaling relevance in our portfolio. Within shunts, India grew 19.12% year-on-year to INR 20.29 crore, supported by smart metering and industrial demand, while Rest of Asia rose 62.81% from a lower base, offsetting softer exports to the West. Working capital efficiency improved with inventory days down 20 to 177, and net working capital days down 29 to 212. Our balance sheet gives us room to invest with discipline. ROCE stood at 24.65% for FY26, and we carry net cash of INR 77 crore, supporting forward integration, automation, and capacity de-bottlenecking without stretching capital.
So in short, platform-led solutions and expanding shunt business segment, improving unit economics, and tighter working capital are positioning Shivalik for a sustainable and profitable growth as FY26 unfolds. With that, we can start the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thanks, Kabir. We'll now begin with the Q&A session. As a reminder, please raise your hand to join the question queue. Here's a quick reminder on how to raise your hand. If you're on desktop or laptop, look for the reactions button at the bottom of your Zoom window. Click on it, then select Raise Hand from the options. Your name will appear in the queue, and I will call on you in order. If you're on tablet or mobile, tap on the More dot dot dot button at the bottom right of your screen, then select Raise Hand from the menu. So we'll start with the first question from the line of Nikhil Poptani. Nikhil, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah, hi. Am I audible?
Yes, go ahead, please.
Yeah, thank you for giving me the opportunity. So my first question is, like, on the macro, like, the macro situation has been very tough recently. So how are we planning to grow in FY26 based on our current order book, and how has the order book grown in the shunts and bimetal segment during the quarter?
The order book looks. Hi, this is Kanav here. Can you hear me?
Yes, yes, sir.
Yeah, the order book for Shivalik in the current year looks good. It looks positive. Of course, as you rightly mentioned, the external conditions are tough. They are very dynamic. But being in the kind of components and the products that we are in, we have a long-term strategy in place with the customers, and the present year looks robust for Shivalik.
Yes, sir, but on the quantitative matrix, like, how has the order book grown? Like, has it grown 5%, 10% year-on-year basis or something like that? If you could just guide us on that portion.
As committed, we have mentioned previously also, we expect to have a double-digit growth this year, and we are very much aligned to our estimations.
Yes, sir, that's great to hear. Now, sir, my second question would be on the price realization. We have seen an uptick in the price realization for shunts as well as shunts. So what has driven the price realization growth in the bimetal segment?
There are several reasons for that. Rajeev, do you want to take that or?
Yeah, of course.
Okay.
So in this, you see, our price realization for both the segments is a little bit different. So in shunts, the realization is a bit higher compared to the bimetal. And in this result also, you can see there is a growth of gross margin of approx 215 bps due to this product mix. The one major factor for increasing or improving in the gross margin is the components versus parts. So whenever we are supplying more in components, then we are having a higher realization compared to the parts. So as the composition is changing, our gross margin is improving a little bit.
Yes, sir. Rajeev, sir, I understood that the product mix is changing in the shunts segment. But what led to the price realization growth in the bimetal segment?
So bimetal segment, after a certain—you see, the same concept is working in bimetal too. And in this quarter, we have grown in bimetal by a certain percentage, which gives us a margin improvement. And in fact, if you see the operating leverage, which is working because we are not implementing or we are not putting any additional CapEx burden on the product.
Okay, sir, that's great to hear. I will get back in the queue. Thank you.
Thanks for your questions, Nikhil. Our next question will be from the line of Akash Vora. Akash, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your questions.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. So my first question would be on the domestic bimetal side. Sir, I think in the earlier con calls, you have alluded that that is an area where we should comfortably grow at around 15-20%, considering that the figures which your peers, kind of ABB, Siemens, Havells, these players are also growing quite well in India. But that somehow hasn't reflected in our numbers. I would like to understand why, and then I'll come on to my second question.
No, I think, Akash, we do expect our domestic bimetal business to also rebound, as we have seen it for our export business. As you rightly said, our customers like ABB, Siemens, Schneider, and so on, they have grown. But they have multiple verticals within which our materials are at the moment going. They're still kind of subdued. The markets are relatively slow than our previous estimations. But as I mentioned earlier, we expect this to rebound, and we would see at the end of the year that the domestic bimetal will also witness growth as anticipated earlier.
I mean, do we stick to our domestic bimetal growth guidance of 15%-20% this year? Would it be possible?
I mentioned double-digit last time as well, and I'm going to stick to that as well for the domestic market as well.
Fair enough. Coming on to my second question, which is related to shunts. So on shunts side, I'd like to understand what's our split for India shunts sales of around INR 20 crore. How much is from smart metering, and how much is from automotive?
Roughly 70%-75% of our domestic shunts is coming from metering applications, and that about 25%, about 20% would be automotive.
Okay. And just to follow up on that, I mean, so in shunts, sir, I think I was just observing the trend. So we have lost quite significant business, let's say, in the last four - five quarters in the Americas, right? So while we have also gained some in other geographic locations, but it's not as much how much we have lost in America. So how do we plan to cope up with the same, and what's the situation there?
As you know, America remains a very, I would say, currently we're in a dynamic situation with them. The markets are kind of relatively difficult to predict what's going to happen in America, but our strategy with our customers has been more to kind of diversify our portfolio to other parts of the world to kind of minimize any threats that the company might have with the current situations that we are all hearing about, and what we are also seeing is a lot of our forward integrated activities are helping us to kind of move our materials directly to end users, which were earlier going back to the U.S. and reaching the end users.
So basically, a lot of our revenue that was going into the U.S. has been pulled out and going to the direct OEMs or distribution centers of our current existing customers because of our ability to forward integrate into components and added value assemblies. So that's why you'll see that revenue is kind of moving towards that graph is moving away from North America and getting into other parts of the world.
Okay. And my last question on margins, sir, if Rajeev sir could answer that. So basically, will we be able to hold these kind of margins for the rest of the year? I mean.
Yeah, yes, Akash. So this is where we would like to achieve, and at this moment, we have achieved so far. So if the momentum of revenue will continue at this level itself, the margin is sustainable for the year.
Okay. Thanks. I'll come back into the queue.
Thanks for your questions, Akash. Our next question will be from the line of Dhiraj Dave. Dhiraj, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah, can you hear me?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks a lot for providing the opportunity. Congratulations to Team Shivalik for wonderful performance in challenging time. Kabir, if I may ask, on slide nine, there is some mention about pilot PCBA assembly line prototype. Can you elaborate what exactly is our effort and how we shall see and whether it can become a major contributor to our future growth journey?
Yeah. So what this is basically covering in a nutshell is something that Kanav also touched on, which is the forward integration specifically from the automotive and certain non-automotive applications where generally what happens is that a shunts is primarily used for current sensing. So eventually, the end user or the tier-one customer would do some sort of a sub-assembly which would allow the end user to extract the voltage sensing potential from the shunts. Now, by putting a PCB onto the shunts along with a few other components that provide other data, you are creating a one-stop solution where you're getting accurate current sensing along with other sensors that are mounted onto the shunts.
So it's cutting a couple of steps in the supply chain and putting that all into one ready-to-use solution, which reduces the overall error in the system rather than having two or three individual components with their own margins of errors. This is built as a single unit, which is then calibrated for certain errors within that unit as a ready-to-use part. Now, this obviously has to take into account many factors other than just the shunts. There are other PCB-mounted components which have to be selected, fine-tuned, calibrated, and then tested for long-term stability. And there are certain automotive standards that have to be met. So that's the nutshell of the application which we have been actively working on. We are on a third series of prototypes now, which we should be closing very soon.
These would then be tested at the application level with various customers, which will then lead to small fine-tunings, after which we should see these going into commercial production.
If I may ask, what would be the typical timeline from the pilot prototyping to getting end consumers? Would it be around 16-18 months or more than that?
It should be less than 16 months. We've already covered quite a bit of legwork on this. The overall design is, I would say, at about 85% maturity level. At this point, you can understand that these are automotive applications, and especially when you're moving from just a mechanical product to an electromechanical or even on the boundary of an electrical product, the quantum of test requirements and safety requirements exponentially increase, so keeping that in mind, there will be certain timelines associated with long-term application testing as well as design validation as well as part validation testing, so there'll be first a series of tests which are going on right now, which are design validation where these parts are subjected to various conditions that an automotive application will go through over 15 years of wear and tear.
After which, provided all of these tests pass, these would move on to part- level validation where they're actually mounted onto an engine bay or on the battery management system. And then they undergo a certain series of tests. These usually can go in anywhere from nine to 12 to 13 months, which changes from customer to customer. Some customers have a basic certain set of tests. Some will do some additional testing that can go into an additional three to four months of exposure. So I'm expecting this to be less than 14-15 months tentatively is when we should be done with most of this testing.
All the sub-assembly, when we are doing assembly, whatever component we require, are we trying to make all those in-house or do we need to procure something from outside vendor as well?
No, some of these will be bought-out parts. Some of the parts will be built in-house. Some parts that go into the PCB will be standard bought-out parts because in many cases, these are predetermined by the end customer. There are specifications that are already put in place. They may be using those sensors already in other applications. So they prefer to have the same component used. For example, I would give you an example of a thermistor. A thermistor is just doing simply temperature measurement on a PCB. So those are standard thermistors which are already pre-qualified at an end user. So we would use the same specification rather than reinventing the wheel.
Okay. Thanks for answering in detail on that part, and the second question I have is a small one. Basically, we see a significant jump on shunts business. Another investor also made this question, so do we see which is the region, particularly in Asia? Because now, in fact, it makes sense that at least you break up into Japan and China, if that is a kind of detail. Which segment or which part of geography in Asia? Because now, in fact, that is larger than Europe. India and other Asia, rest of the world, is kind of larger than U.S. market for us, so if you can, because this year is a significant jump in that region.
Yeah, we've significantly grown our business in Japan, in Korea, as well as China. And of course, our constant push is always to kind of maximize our revenue within India as well. So these are the Asian countries where our current focus is and our increase in revenue is coming from.
Fair enough. That's from my side. Wish you all the best. I'll link you in case anything comes up.
Thanks for your questions, Dhiraj. Our next line of questions will be from Dhruv Jain. Dhruv, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your questions, please.
Thanks for the opportunity. First question is on the smart meter opportunity, right? So while the potential remains immense, could you just spell out what are the challenges to scalability here? And by when do you think it will become significantly large for Shivalik in terms of numbers?
Good question. I think that we've already started seeing the numbers are rapidly increasing. In fact, we expect this year to be good for us, specifically in this specific application side. And I see that next year will continue to show us. This year and next year will continue to show us good revenue growth when it comes to the smart meter side of the business.
How large can it be, in your opinion, for Shivalik? I mean, say in three years, are we looking at, say, INR 100 crore kind of a revenue from this segment?
I think.
Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead, Sumer. Go ahead.
Yeah. Yeah. Dhruv, so basically, I think what we are looking at, and to go back to your previous question also for a second, our biggest challenge related to smart meters was about the delay, the latching relay being manufactured here, which has been a welcome change in the last one year or so that a lot of this manufacturing has started taking place in India. A lot is still under development, so we foresee this growth. Now, what we are experiencing in smart meter growth is disproportionate. We are experiencing a much faster growth than what the market is. The market is also growing really fast, but what we are experiencing is something faster because what we are supplying to is this change of the relay being manufactured here.
So it's a little disproportionate, and we expect it to remain disproportionate as we see more and more of the large volume players moving their relay production to India, and which, by the way, some of the largest users even today are importing from China. So what you will be seeing in this number of what you mentioned, we should be seeing probably in a much sooner time than three years ago. So the overall potential we feel that if all government policies remain as expected, the overall potential for Shivalik can be upwards of INR 140-INR 150 crore. But in a very, very short term, that INR 100 crore level or so, we should be touching because this year, anyway, this number is expected to be in the INR 70-INR 75 crore range.
Maybe another couple of quarters into the next financial year, it should be averaging to reach that INR 100 crore number.
You are including both contacts and shunts, right, in this?
That's right. And the same thing applies to the contacts as well. Our opportunity for contacts only opens up if the relays are manufactured here, which is what is happening again. A slightly different thing in this when it comes to contacts is that this is not just something that we alone as a manufacturer make. So we have a certain level of competition. So, of course, we can get a large share of the business because we make the shunts and because we have that advantage. But, of course, we have some level of competition. So, of course, there's value addition difference, etc. But the opportunity is very, very big for the silver contacts as well. And we are doing that. Wherever we are supplying, we are either already supplying silver contacts or developing them.
Sure. My second question is on the new products, and I think related to the previous question as well. What we've seen is you spoke about the testing and validation, but I remember in the last earnings call, you said that there is a potential of about INR 150 crore sort of number coming from the PCBA bit next year. Has the timeline changed, or do you still feel that it can go full throttle in the next year?
No, it can certainly go full throttle. It's just that at this point, again, we are in the prototyping phase. We are actually beyond the prototyping phase. We are doing smaller lots also at this point. So we feel that, yes, we are still discovering some applications in the market, which some of them we hadn't even anticipated or expected. So they're there. We feel that in this year, if it goes more and more into development, the year after, which is financial year 2026- 2027, is where we feel we can look at revenue numbers related to that. It's not just the PCB mounted assembly, but that also includes certain other forward integration initiatives, but they're very similar.
So, for example, when we are turning some of our strip business into parts and then some of those parts into PCB assemblies as well as other types of sub-assemblies, so when we combine all of those forward integration activities, that's what can take us to a potential added revenue of INR 150 crore in the financial year after this one.
But it's safe to say that nothing will come in this year, e verything is going to be in FY27?
No, no, no. There will be a certain percentage. I wouldn't say it would be more than what we target in that year. It should be in the range of maybe 10%-15% of it because most of this year goes by in the development part of it. So we've taken that some business will come in the last quarter, and then those quantities will increase in the financial year after. So it will not be an absolute no revenue, but it will be probably 10%-15% of what we expect in 2027, 2026- 2027.
On the Americas business, right? So obviously, there is that disruption or the potential risk of tariff, but that business has been under pressure for quite some time. So if I have to just take tariff off for the moment, right, do you think that that business can recover if tariffs were to normalize and go back to the kind of numbers that you guys were doing in, say, FY23, FY24?
Yes, absolutely. And in fact, we are absolutely in that direction of doing so. We've seen recovery signs. In fact, I would say that we are in a far better position today than we were two years ago. Why I say that is because our exposure to one customer and one market specifically for these kind of products was a lot more at that time. And as we speak now, that has been spread out a lot more, which means any large customer of ours, if their business was to drastically get affected, it's not going to hurt us as much as it did a few quarters ago. So we are actually in a much more sustainable kind of a position when it comes to this particular area. And U.S. definitely would continue to be a huge market for us.
But the exposure, again, to that geographical region has reduced drastically, not in value terms, but in percentage terms. Because, like Kabir mentioned earlier right now, a lot of our development, and even Kanav mentioned that a lot of our development for shunts has been in other regions, including Japan, Korea. And what we are currently developing also, a lot of that development is coming from Japan. So as maybe another few quarters go along, we will notice that our geographic region will be spread out even more evenly. So yeah.
Thanks. Thanks a lot, Sumer, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thanks for your questions, Dhruv. Our next line of questions will be from Vikram Sharma. Vikram, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your question.
Hello. Hi. Thank you. So my first question is regarding. I wanted to understand the size of domestic smart meter market opportunity and the potential margins. Will we maintain same margins in that segment also, like contacts is lower margin business? And also, what kind of forward integration we are planning on the smart meter side? I think we have mentioned a few times earlier.
Good question. Roughly, I would say at the moment, we are, I would say, roughly between 40%-50% market share. So there's still the possibility of doubling our existing share of business. And as the situation becomes more favorable and with the capacity of, as Sumer mentioned, with the localized capacity to build more relays, we'll have a lot of potential market available for our products. And we are already seeing existing as well as new players building those kind of capacities. So we are very positive about that. And on the assembly side, we have already kind of started working. And in fact, some of them have also started going into commercial production. We have forward integrated some portion of our shunts and contact business, and that assembly work is already initiated.
We'll see more of that coming into our revenue starting third and fourth quarter of this year.
Okay. And when we are on double-digit growth, so could you give a break-up of what could be growth in domestic market and export market?
I think what we are targeting is somewhere between 12%-15% overall growth. Of course, certain export markets, as we just mentioned, the situation is a little dynamic. So it's a little difficult to predict and bifurcate in terms of how it would be between exports. But what we're looking at at the moment is the overall growth of anything between the number I just mentioned.
Okay. So even just 12%-15% growth on overall numbers is really, I think, we are expecting through smart meter market. So we are assuming other global environment is still not very good for other market for other products.
Yeah. We're projecting that in the existing conditions. Of course, if things change going forward. But at the moment, as we said, that we have a robust order book and development activities going on. So we are quite confident that we should be able to deliver what we are mentioning here right now.
See, also, and I'd like to add one thing. You see, of course, everything, as Kanav also mentioned, and you also mentioned that things are very unpredictable when it comes to what's happening and mainly what's happening in the U.S. Now, even if those things were to normalize, we don't know what the impact could be, and nobody knows that, right? Maybe this puts an entire slowdown kind of a situation in the market and things slow down, so we have to be prepared for the worst. Where we find ourselves in a more comfortable position is definitely that our business is a lot more spread out among product types, among different types of industry within the shunts and bimetal business, so we feel that if drastic thing changes happen in one area, we still feel a lot more secure at this point in time.
Rest, of course, global things, whatever happens to these U.S.-related issues, etc., nobody can at this point predict the outcome of that. And let's all hope that that remains or that does not get worse than what it already is.
Thank you.
Thanks for your questions, Vikram. Our next line of questions will be from Pratik Jain. Pratik, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your questions.
Hey, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So my first question is on the bimetal segment. We have been speaking in the past that there is an international PO, an international PO who has been marketing the market, and it was expected that a good chunk of that business will create an opportunity for us. So any update on that piece?
I think if you see that our international business on bimetal side is already seeing good results, we've grown in most geographies, and we continue to grow, and we continue to expect to grow in this direction. We have some very positive development activities happening in different regions, and our product is drawing a lot of preference over our competitors, and I think our current results are already showing that this is well in place now.
Got it. So let's say if INR 100 of business is being marketed, are we able to get a good pie of it?
If you see, we are very much at an 18%-20% market share. So every INR 100 generating, we are basically capturing INR 20-INR 25. Our target is to kind of get a lot more than that. And with the capacity and capabilities that we have, we have this opportunity to grow even further.
Got it. And so my second question is, like you had explained and also mentioned in your press release, that the impact of tariff on shunts business is not there because it's in the exemption product, right? Wanted to understand that is it the same applicable for the Assembly business because the incremental growth, which we are thinking about of INR 100-INR 150 crore by next year, is there any impact of tariff on that piece?
Actually, we released our press release on tariff when there was a base tariff imposed by America initially, and then there are so many changes that have come up from American side as far as tariff is concerned, so currently, if you see, as far as India is concerned, for exporters, there are some flat tariffs, even reciprocal has increased from 10%-25%, and they have imposed 25% on other due to Russian oil purchase, so eventually, the total tariff for any exporter from India becomes 50%. The situation has changed now when we have released the press release and the time we are discussing the subject. As of now, today, our product falls under 50% tariff, and earlier, there was an exemption notification, but now they have withdrawn those notifications.
But we are not seeing any change in business, and we are hopeful that the business will continue in the near term.
Got it. And given now our product maybe 50% higher, so what's the price difference? If theoretically, I just assume that there is a tariff that's going to stay. What's the difference between our price on the landed cost versus the other supplier for them?
See, at this point of time, so I'll address it in a slightly different way. Now, the thing is that if we separate this discussion into shunts and bimetal, when it comes to bimetal, you see, the only damaging effect we foresee if these tariffs were to stay, assuming that they don't get negotiated or don't fall down, or if they were to stay like this, then one threat that we see is related to our new developments, which, of course, because makes us 50% more expensive as compared to. Although, having said that, the other supplier who's based in the U.S. also has to import raw materials, and that raw material, their raw material also falls into this category.
So the difference is not going to be purely 50%, but it's going to be less than that because since the material cost is a major part of the overall cost, and that is going to attract duty as well. And plus a slightly higher manufacturing cost over there, then you see the total differential will be less, which means that it could have a damaging effect on new developments, the future development. But when it comes to existing business, as of now, from our primary customers for bimetal, we have been told that as of now, there's going to be no change. First of all, because even they don't understand at this point whether this is going to stay or not, so they can't take any immediate actions. But assuming, like you asked, that if these were to stay, yes, it can have an impact on new developments.
We see at this point a minimal impact on existing business because the cost of switching to another supplier and developing with another supplier also is significant. Even beyond that, even if it continues beyond that into a very long term, then what we have already started discussing with our customers is that in order to keep the scale benefit or the volume benefit, if some of our US business was to be going to lose it because of these tariffs, we must get some in exchange from some other geographical region. As you probably already know, most of our customers for bimetal are international large electrical players.
So if Schneider, for example, or even if some of the U.S. business reduces, in order to keep the same pricing, we can work out a deal with them to give us something from another geographic region because that's how it has a centralized system of working. So that's what our other strategy is in the worst-case scenario, to try and ensure that we retain as much business as possible, even if it doesn't come from the U.S. and comes from some other region. So when it comes to the shunts, as we initially mentioned, that a lot of our development, and kind of I'd mentioned as well, that a lot of our development is now for these components is directly going to customers. A lot of 80%-90% of that business actually is with Asian-based customers.
So what our U.S.-based customers want us to do now, and we've already signed these agreements with them, is to supply finished components directly to those customers while we even have the U.S. involved in between. Because of these tariffs, all of those developments of those conversions and changes have multiplied in speed because obviously now nobody in the U.S., our customers, will not want to pay such heavy tariffs, especially when the final product is anyway going out of the U.S. So I would say on the shunts side, these tariffs have been a sort of a blessing in disguise for us because all of these developments which had an 18-24-month conversion process have now been multiplied. Of course, we have a lot of pressure from the customer, and we have to work.
People are working day and night trying to make it happen in a shorter period of time. But in the long run, it's good for us because all that development speed has been multiplied.
Got it. Thanks, thanks so much for the detailed answer.
You're welcome.
Thanks for your questions, Pratik. Our next line of questions will be from Bhargav Buddhadev. Bhargav, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah, thank you very much for the opportunity and congratulations on our strong performance. My first question is on this PCB-related revenue potential of INR 150-odd crore that we are targeting next year. So how much of this are we targeting, especially to U.S., if you can spend some time on that?
Most of this is not at the moment for U.S.-based customers. It's basically for other parts of the world.
Actually, some of it that was initially being talked about for the U.S. market, as I just mentioned, also is converting into where its final use is going to be.
The final destination.
Tariffs, etc. A lot of it, the final usage was not there. Although the opportunity exists. So what we are targeting at this point is non-U.S.-based business. A major chunk of this, actually, not a majority chunk, but a major chunk of this is actually we're targeting within the Indian market. And some of it comes from our existing customers who buy these resistors from us, where we see the opportunity of converting them further into these kind of assemblies. So it's a combination of different factors.
And within non-automotive, is it fair to say that we are also looking at a potential semiconductor customer set as well for this PCB-related revenues?
No, no. So it's mostly these assemblies that we are looking at is mainly for the automotive and some for even we are exploring certain assembly opportunities for smart meters as well. But that's still under development. But that's not a PCB-mounted assembly. But when we say INR 150 crore of added revenue from this forward integration, that does include certain assemblies which are non-PCB type assemblies as well. But the idea is that we want to convert some of our or a larger portion of our shunts business into assemblies. And a lot of that business would be PCB-related.
But the exact breakups and on how it will pan out and what would be what quantity, because there's a certain business section of this business that we are anticipating and forecasting, wherein we are still not 100% sure what percentage we can get, because a lot of that, a lot of those assemblies are still imported from China. And so we are still in the process of seeing how much of that we can target and what our strategy would be.
Is it fair to say that as electrification sort of increases in terms of penetration in India, this opportunity can only accelerate for us?
Yes. When you say electrification, you mean in the automotive space?
Yes, yes.
Yes, yes, yes, it can. In fact, not just that, but even when other alternate methods or alternate mobility is adopted, for example, hybrids, which we expect will come in a big way, that also involves these kind of assemblies. So yes, definitely an opportunity is there. Now, when a company, let's say like Tata, Mahindra, or Maruti, when they buy these assemblies in large volumes, they're not been buying these assemblies so far. They've been importing the entire BMS from China. And with this localization, not just China, but from other places as well, but let's assume in an example, China. So the opportunity now opens up for us because a lot of these manufacturers want to develop and are in the process of developing these kind of devices in India.
My second question is on this strong growth of bimetal exports to the U.S. So is this more than channel filling ahead of tariff imposition, or this is more sustainable in nature?
I think, as we mentioned earlier, bimetals are something which you can't really qualify overnight and develop. So it's not basically we don't really see it as an action for kind of before the tariff or because of the fear of implementation of the tariff. So it's something which is very much there and required and sustainable.
These are coming from developments that for us started two years ago.
Absolutely.
The entire bimetal process, not just bimetal, most of our product, the entire prototyping, sampling, prototyping, and then testing, all of those things are like a two-year process or so, which I'm sure you probably understood by now. We keep talking about that, and so what we may be getting as business now from a customer, whether it's in the U.S. or not, is coming from maybe development that started in 2022- 2023, and so none of these decisions have been pushed because of tariffs, but which is where our fear lies, which is what I mentioned as a threat to us now because of these tariffs, is what we were targeting as further developments for something that would have happened in 2027, in 2028.
Those kind of developments, which were very important for us in the long run, we feel that these tariffs are not changed or not taken down, can have an impact. We don't see that happening to immediate business.
And lastly, as we sort of develop scale in this PCB-related business, exports also can open up as an opportunity as we get more and more cost optimization through increasing capacity to this.
Yes, absolutely. In fact, one of the reasons why we decided to go down that road is not just because of, I mean, of course, it's a great business opportunity specifically for us when we make the key component used in it, but also because a lot of our customers demand that they want it like that, and few of our customers are buying our resistors and then eventually using another third party to do these kind of finishing assemblies and then because they want us to supply it like that, but so far, we did not have it as a part of our product portfolio, so yes, definitely export opportunities open up as well.
Here we also supply to the likes of Hyundai, Kia as well, or only local customers like, say, a Maruti or a Mahindra or?
No, we do supply to Hyundai and Kia, of course.
Presently, 100% of Hyundai cars made in India using our product.
And some export as well, right?
And of course, export as well.
Thanks for your questions, Bhargav. You can raise your hand again for more follow-ups. Our next line of questions will be from Naushad Chaudhary. Naushad, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your questions.
Thanks. A couple of clarifications. First, if I have to look at the business from a next three, four years point of view, how do you think your business mix should look like from a revenue mix point of view? And the existing and utilized capacity, what do you think, how much time will it take to ramp up fully? So as you were saying in FY 2028- 2029, how the business should look like for you?
So I think when it comes to looking at three, four, four years or five years, four years from now, things would be very different. We feel for the in the resistor side because we'll see a lot more growth beyond a certain point coming from there. In thermostatic bimetal, we were anticipating a certain amount of growth coming because our biggest target to take larger chunks of business was from the U.S. So where we would be in 2028- 2029, actually for thermostatic bimetal depends a lot on how these geopolitical issues and the U.S. thing pans out because that does have an impact in the long run, as I just mentioned.
When it comes to shunts, we feel that because of these new applications and these smart meter push, which we hope should continue onwards all the way till 2028- 2029 and beyond, looking at all of those things, we'll cross a point maybe in 2027 or so, 2026- 2027, middle of 2027, wherein we'll start multiplying faster in the resistor space. We'll probably have to add more capacity at that point of time. By 2028, I think we should be in a situation where shunts manufacturing capacities should be entirely used up. Bimetal, maybe we should be in the [50%-60%], hopefully assuming that we can get back to a normal situation, at least partially normal situation in the U.S.
So yes, we feel that by then, from where we are today, we should be if you look at a certain percentage of growth, in a situation where we should be at least maybe anywhere between 2-3x of where we are today, keeping in view all of these forward integration activities, top-line additions. We don't see any reason why that should not be the case. Other than that, interestingly, we are also working on other new verticals which should have taken shape by then, of course, because some of those things we've already finalized, but they're going to be set up in another year or year and a half. By then, we should have added revenue coming, maybe not a major portion at that point, but we should have some revenue coming from there.
So we expect some kind of new product verticals to be fully functional and adding to revenue by then as well.
On the forward integration, you have touched upon the one- piece part or PCB. You have talked about slightly touched upon the smart DC sensor and indicated your wish to get into smart meter or PCB as well. Apart from this, any other project which you want to highlight, which you are working on, which can be a bit clearer for you after one or two years?
Yes, we are working on these. I think Kabir will be able to expand a little bit more on it, but I'll just start it on a new product vertical, which is related to our business, basically bus bars and battery connectors. So the battery connector application is a very interesting one, and we are at a very advanced stage of developing that. So I think, Kabir, if you can just touch up a little bit on that.
Yeah, sure. It's again a completely new vertical. It does use our existing electron beam welding technology, where it's a set of different sizes and shapes of bus bars that all combine into one unit, which is then connected to a cell pack, which would go into various types of two-wheeler, three-wheeler applications. What makes it also unique is being electron beam welded and having the flexibility of using different materials, electron beam welded together. You can then play around with various properties and parameters of a bus bar, which is otherwise not possible using a single conventional type of bus bar.
As Sumer said, these have gone through over the last months. It's gone through various cycles of iterations, and different types of variations have been made to the design. It has now reached a stage where the finished parts have been sent to the customer. They are under testing. We are now going for a small production lot, which we expect to complete within September, which will then go into further testing. It's a little early to go into further details on this topic, but it is a brand new vertical. We are very aggressively working on it, and obviously, the potential is quite strong.
Would you be able to share the understanding of a total addressable market for this kind of product?
I think, Sumer, at this point, it'll be a little early to say that, right?
We still have to gather some more feedback on this.
Also depends on which, Kabir, a lot depends on which all types we finally decide to include in our product portfolio. So a very, very rough number to put on this would be that the immediate types that we were thinking of adding, we see that in the next two or three years, those parts, those things have a potential or an addressable opportunity, market opportunity, immediate opportunity of roughly about INR 2,000 crore -INR 2,500 crore. Now, what percentage of it finally we can get out of that will depend on a lot of these which ones we try, which ones we do, which ones fit the most with our current processes. As of now, it looks encouraging that a lot of them do, but we are still in the stages of development. So you see what we've started doing is we've started developing two or three different types.
So Kabir, if you were to put out of that INR 2,000 crore-INR 3,000 crore, the ones that we're initially working on would be what percentage, let's say?
I would say about 15%, [10%].
Yeah. So initially, we can target this INR 200-INR 300 crore kind of a level. And let's say that over the next three years, and since you asked about a FY28 kind of a scenario, one could safely say that it could be possible to get 50%-60% of that kind of revenue. So that is what we are looking at. And if we push it faster, and there are ways and means to do that, I'll touch upon a slightly different topic in order to make sure that these kind of developments, because there are interesting developments that are taking place. But so we are at this point of time making a completely new dedicated development center, R&D and Centre of Excellence, and probably based out of the NCR region, which we are now in the process of finalizing.
We have even hired a new team of people in the finalization of hiring those people, but it's almost done. So that these kind of projects are absolutely they progress with great priority because we can see this is something that we have specialization in, and we see this market. We don't see anybody else coming into this in India. So this is a huge chunk of that particular INR 2,000 crore is possible for us to capture, provided we do a standalone development for this irrespective of other growth. What's happening at this point of time, we are going through a situation wherein a lot of developments are happening with our existing products as well. So we felt the need to completely segregate these other developments and a completely separate team. So we have been so far successful in creating that distinction.
So we feel that once the team is ready and in place, which is a matter of months from now in this location, we should move much faster with these kind of developments, and they will no longer be going along with the existing ones. So when I say FY27-FY 28, we could see hopefully a larger chunk of that business coming in from these bus bars and battery connectors.
Thanks for your answers, Sumer and Kabir, and thanks for your questions, Naushad. You can get in touch with us for any more follow-ups. Our next line of questions will be from Yashovardhan, excuse me, Agarwal. Yashovardhan, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your question.
Yeah. Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. If I heard you correctly, you have guided that we can do around INR 70-INR 80 crore of revenue from smart meter. So what was this number last year?
About INR 50 crore.
About INR 50 crore. So I just wanted to know that deployment of.
It's a little less than, sorry, a little less than INR 50 crore. It was about more like INR 40 crore. So it's nearly doubling in value.
Okay. So if I look at the deployment of smart meters, that had increased a lot, going at around one crore per quarter. So if I take the annual number, that would be around INR 3.5 crore-INR 4 crore, and per meter opportunity for us is around INR 100. So total for us annually would be around INR 350 crore-INR 400 crore. And in that, we are targeting INR 70 crore-INR 80 crore, and next year, it could be INR 100 crore and INR 120 crore.
No, no, I'll just clarify something, and at some point, I mentioned it. I'll just do it again. Actually, the thing is, see, meter implementation as well as meter manufacturing in India has an impact on our business, but it's not directly related at this point because our business is related to how much percentage of latching relays that go into these meters are produced here. Now, to give you some perspective, two years ago, a lot of meters were manufactured in India, but the latching relays were all imported. When I say all imported, it means 80%-85% imported. So our business was much smaller. Now, our business from INR 10 crore-INR 12 crore level jumped up straight to a INR 35 crore-INR 40 crore level. Now, meter manufacturing did not become 3x in that period, whereas latching relay production increased drastically. So our business increased those many number of times.
Now, same thing is happening now. Even as we speak, as Kanav also mentioned, only 40%-45% now of the relays are now being produced here. That also now, when we say now, means in the last three or four months, this push has really, really started because people started developing seven, eight months ago. So now the manufacturing is already, as we speak, beginning, and we're getting these very encouraging forecasts from customers. So for the next coming few quarters, at least, or four, five, maybe even up to three, four to five quarters, I would say, this will continue to happen until we reach that point where 80%-85% of these relays are being produced here. Then our business will get more and more directly linked with the meter implementation and installation. Right? Is that correct, right, Kanav?
Yeah, that's correct, Sumer.
I think what he's also missing is that it's not just the shunts alone, but including if you add the contact, it's a lot more than the INR 80 crore that we're talking about. INR 70 crore-INR 80 crore is just related to the shunts.
Right. And assuming that we get a smaller share in that because of competition, etc., but because the overall value is more, so it comes to about a similar number. So yes, at some point, maybe what you're asking will become more valid or more like that, maybe in about a year or so. Because I think for another year or so, I would say four, five quarters, like I said, we would expect to see a large portion still coming, a large portion of relays still coming from China. The push is there.
You see, because it takes time to create capacity also to manufacture so many relays in India, and a lot of the meter manufacturers first were prioritizing setting up capacities to make the meters rather than the relays or work on the relays because their main aim was to start. At least they said, "Okay, we can always get the relay from China, but let's make the meter." And now, of course, because of the Make in India portion, the percentage value that comes from the relay is very important for them to make the relay here as well. So we're absolutely in the right direction when it comes to that. We're finally in a situation where we're seeing that growth because of the relays being manufactured here.
Correct.
So even if we are taking 50% market share of relay being made in India, so that still presents us an opportunity of INR 200 crore. Correct? So we are targeting 50%-60% of that or?
It does. At 50%, I mean, and let's say that the shunts value in that is about 40%. So yeah, exactly that turns to about INR 80 crore-INR 90 crore potential in a shorter period of time annually. And then the rest from contacts. But contacts, we usually are dividing that market between four players or five players, four players maybe. And so we would take a smaller number there. So it would probably result in a more realistic number like INR 125 crore-INR 130 crore, which we are absolutely if you see the chart, it's exactly going in that kind of a direction.
Got it. Just one last question from my side. Can you please give me the break-up of export volume and what was it last year? Hello?
Yeah. I think, Rajeev, do you have that number?
Yeah. So I have the total number. I can give you the total sales for the export in tonnage is around 251 tons. And next question was regarding which number? Domestic?
No, sir. Export number, volume in kgs. What was the number in this quarter versus last year?
Last year, the whole year was 1,000 metric tons, and this quarter is 251 metric tons.
Okay. So sir, are we witnessing an increase in realization on the export part?
Yes, of course. Initially, as I explained about the bimetal realization, it was due to the increase in export market because whenever you are exporting, you are making a bit of the valuation more compared to the domestic market.
Got it, sir. Thank you so much. I will be backing you. Thank you and good luck.
Thanks, Yashovardhan. Our next question will be from the line of Deepak. Deepak, you may go ahead and ask your question. Your line is unmuted.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm audible?
Yes, please go ahead.
Yeah. My first question is regarding our Indian business of bimetal. So if I look at your YY growth rate in the past three quarters, we have seen a decline of 7%-8%, which in this quarter has moderated to around -3%. Right? And if I look at the listed peers, they in the switchgear segment are reporting growth of 8%-9%. Right? And we claim that we have around 80%-85% domestic market share in bimetal. So how is that that if the end consumer is growing at 8%-9%, right, and we claim that we have 80% market share, that our growth rate is kind of declining? And do we have that order book visibility for us to grow at, let's say, at least a mid-single- digit for the next nine months in FY26?
Deepak, to answer your question, let me break it into two things. First of all, last year, if you look at the volume from the volume perspective, we grew. Even though the revenue perspective, we did not, because the metal played a role in the domestic market for the bimetal side of the business. Whereas when it comes to this year, of course, there is a moderate 2%-3% decline in the overall business. But when it comes to the customers, as I mentioned earlier also, I think where we generally kind of get confused is that customers like Schneider and Siemens are not just making products which just use shunts.
They make several switchgear products, whereas the products where the shunts are going in, where we supply or we form part of the supply chain to them, those verticals, those product lines have kind of moderated for the last two to three quarters. But the numbers that we have projected or have been projected by them for the next three quarters, of course, we have the numbers with them. And based on those projections and numbers, we anticipate that we will be closing in on the expected growth percentage that we mentioned earlier.
Okay. Now, coming to a revenue growth number for both bimetal and shunts. So this quarter, if I look at the split between your volume and realization growth, so bimetal has been fairly even at 4% and 4%. Right? But in shunt resistors, we are looking at a volume decline of 3%, while our realization has kind of backed it out very well at 13%. So just wanted some flavor on what is leading to this sort of realization and what is the outlook for, let's say, the volume growth of both bimetal and shunt resistors for FY26, and what kind of realization growth are we looking at?
I think, Rajeev, that should be because of the strip being or the more parts being added because it can vary a lot because the components can vary from large size to in a nutshell, our component business is growing faster than the strip business. I think, Rajeev, you can add a little bit more.
Yeah. So the one reason is, as you rightly explained about the component business is more than the parts business, strip business. And the second thing, if you see in the last year-on-year, LME movement is around 4.5%, and similarly, the movement in dollar is around 3.53%. So this all is factoring whenever we are talking about the realization per se.
What is the volume growth outlook for bimetal and shunt resistors for this year?
Even as we talked about, the last year growth in the bimetal volume is around 4% and 7.4%, which is very healthy. If you add the LME movement for the last year, that will add on 3.5%. Overall growth is around 7%-8% in the bimetal segment. Similarly, shunt resistors, if we see this quarter is somewhat 1.5% in the volume growth, whereas we have around 7% in the value growth, it is due to the movement of this LME and the currency movement.
That's fine. I'm asking about what is our volume growth outlook for both this segment?
So as we have initially explained about our double-digit growth in both the segments combined together, and we are hopeful that it is what we are concentrating on the volume part. So we have projected our volume growth around 7%-8% minimum to achieve those double-digit growth in value.
Okay. And our electrical contacts at that new facility, has it come on stream? I think it was supposed to come in Q2 of this fiscal year. Correct?
Yes. So it is in the final stage of factories completed now. Now we are in the process of gradually movement or shifting of our process from the existing unit to the new unit.
Thanks for your questions, Deepak. Our next line of questions will be from Harmanjot Singh. Harmanjot, your line is unmuted. You can go ahead and ask your question.
Hi, team. Thanks for the opportunity. So my first question is on the margins of these forward integration plans that we have, the INR 150 crore number, for example, that we are talking about. So the margins in that business, would it be similar to our existing business, considering the existing business is a product business and that is sort of an assembly business? So value add might be lower there. So if you could elaborate more on the margins there, that's the first question.
So it will have a slightly lower gross margin, but because the top-line value is many times more than the shunts alone, it more than makes up for that difference. To give you an example, if we have a gross margin of, let's say, 50% average, or in some cases, somewhere around that number, we have a gross margin of that in a regular shunts, this could have maybe a 35% gross margin, but it can be about, in some cases, ranging from 7-8 x, but in some cases, going up all the way to 20 x. So let's say an average of 10-12 x the top-line value.
So at a slightly lower or at a lower gross margin, but a very high top-line potential, we feel that it's still a very, very sensible business for us to do, especially because of the strategic value of it more than anything else. I mean, first, from a numbers point of view, it makes sense. And we also see this as a sustainable business because it's not exactly a commodity process that we are doing. Otherwise, it won't have these kind of margins, but there is a certain technical barrier in making assemblies like this. We have the main component in this, or one of the key components in this, that is our shunt resistors, since that production of that is in our control.
Since we have the expertise on that, it does give us an edge over anybody else trying to make an assembly like this by buying that similar shunt from somewhere else. If you look at it from the end user point of view, they would much prefer that the person who has the manufacturer who has made the shunt and has the expertise on the shunt is making such assemblies. That is why we chose out of the many, many forward integration opportunities that we get on almost a monthly basis from our customers. We have never sort of entertained any other one because we consider a lot of those type of assemblies simply a commodity kind of a putting together kind of a process, which we don't want to get into.
All right. So second question is more on the line of this PCB assembly. So we have seen there are many players in India as well, someone like a Kaynes or a Syrma who are also doing PCB assembly for automotive players, but they are doing it maybe for different parts, maybe for some of the lighting parts, some of the battery management system parts as well. So going forward, would we just stick to the places where our product goes into, for example, a shunt resistor, or does that also open up an opportunity in other industries?
No, it does. You see, that's what we want to avoid falling into that because that's a process a lot more people do. So if we get into that, we are going away from our core. We don't want to go too far away from our core. We wouldn't want to get into something like that. Now, what we would rather get into and the kind of new options that we are exploring would be products similar to shunt resistors, which means that there is a certain kind of a complicated or a difficult-to-replicate kind of a metallurgical process happening, which is not something that can be easily done by too many other manufacturers. We want to keep that ethos as part of any of our new products.
So like I said, there are many tempting opportunities that come up, which can take our top-line 2-3x , 4x in a very short period of time if you want to be in this industry supplying to customers extremely large in size. You can imagine we get such opportunities. But we don't fall into that temptation because we genuinely believe that those margins are not sustainable, and eventually, they come down to commodity-type margins. We, as a company, are not okay with going down that route. So we want to be somewhere in the middle. We don't want to create a barrier also by not looking into large addressable opportunities at all. But we want to maintain that core ethos, but we also want to look at things which can add more value. So for example, today, we have three product verticals.
We would like to have probably another four or five such product verticals where there is some entry barrier.
All right. So is it fair to say that even after the forward integration initiatives, our blended margins should stay maybe upwards of 20% + or somewhere thereabout?
That's what we would want to do. But what we are seeing, see, our aim is, of course, we don't have a threshold that we are not going to go below this. If an opportunity is very good and strategically very important for us, Silver contacts, for example. Silver contacts, we always knew were a lower-margin business, but strategically, it's very important for us. It goes along with bimetal. Bimetal has a very limited market size. Having contacts alongside bimetal really helps the bimetal business also, as well as bimetal help the contact business. So it was of strategic importance. So we do look at opportunities where there's some other importance, some other indirect benefits involved. But what we are looking at is that in order to still maintain some kind of a threshold, we don't want to go below our current lowest margin product.
So something that probably falls into the most commoditized product or most low-margin product that we currently do. I don't think we would want to do anything lower than that. So yes, our mixed sort of target margins would remain in this 20%, maybe ranging from our lower side would go to, let's say, 17%-18%, 16%-17% EBITDA margins, as opposed to, let's say, what we do at about 22%-23% at this point.
Thanks for your answers, Sumer, and thanks for your questions, Harmanjot. We'll conclude the Q&A session for today on that note. I can see that we still have some follow-up requests. You can write to us at Dickenson, and we'll make sure they answer to your satisfaction. I'll now hand over to Rajeev, CFO, for some closing comments. Over to you, Rajeev.
Thank you, Shankhini. Thank you all for your time and thoughtful questions. Our FY26 focus is sustainable, profitable growth through strategic execution, scalability assembly-level solutions, speeding innovation through the Centre of Excellence, and staying tight on operations. Thanks again for your support and for being part of Shivalik Bimetal's growth journey.
Thank you. On behalf of Shivalik, that concludes our Earnings Webinar for Q1 FY26. For any remaining questions, you can feel free to write to us at Dickenson. Please also take a few minutes to complete a directed survey for your feedback. You should receive it after this call. Thank you, everybody, for joining us, and thank you to the management for their time today. You may now all disconnect your lines. Please have a pleasant evening.