Good day, and welcome to GE T&D India Limited Q4 FY 2023 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star 10 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Tanvi Gupta from GE T&D. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thanks, Nirof. Good afternoon, everyone. We welcome you to the GE T&D India Limited earnings call for the fourth quarter of the financial year ending 31st March, 2023. I'm Tanvi Gupta from GE T&D India Industrial Relationship team. We're delighted to have you all on this call. In this call, we'll discuss the company's financial performance, including operational highlights. We'll share the key updates and address the questions you may have. Before we begin, I would like to highlight some important notes for today's call.
As you're aware, we recently declared the results for the fourth quarter of the financial year ending 31st March, 2023. The said results are available on our website. We have also prepared an analyst presentation for the quarter, which will be under discussion during this call. That presentation has been mailed to you.
Also, I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that today's discussion may contain some forward-looking statements, which are subject to risk and uncertainty. These statements are based on our current expectations, but actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied.
We encourage you to refer to our public filings and disclosures for a comprehensive understanding of the factors that could impact the future performance. With this, now let me introduce the GE T&D India management team who are on this call.
Firstly, with immense pleasure, I would like to welcome Mr. Sandeep Zanzaria as the new Managing Director and CEO of GE T&D India Limited to today's call. Sandeep brings with him over three decades of experience in the power sector. He joined GE in 2017 as the Regional Commercial Leader for GE Grid Solutions, South Asia.
He was responsible for commercial strategy and order intake for the region. Prior to joining GE, he had various roles in commissioning, project management, engineering, as well as commercial and business leadership at BHEL, Areva T&D, Alstom T&D, and Schneider Electric. His exceptional leadership and expertise will undoubtedly steer the company towards continuous growth and success.
To dive deeper, we are also being joined by Mr. Sushil Kumar, CFO of the company; Mr. Abhishek Srivastava, Head Business Operations; Mr. Sachin Madan, Communications Leader; Ms. Anupriya Garg, Company Secretary of GE T&D India Limited.
We'll have a dedicated question and answer round towards the end of the presentation, where you can ask your question and seek clarification on any topic of interest. Thank you once again for joining us today. I'll hand over the call to Sandeep for his opening remarks. Over to you, Sandeep.
Thanks, Tanvi, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. We hope you and your families are healthy and safe. We are currently witnessing a positive trend in India's grid electrification market, supported by the Government of India's emphasis on expanding electricity access and promoting renewable energy.
This commitment has strengthened the country's electrification efforts, driving significant advancements in this sector. Rising emphasis on clean energy and a collective determination to achieve renewable energy targets set by the Government of India are fueling investments and technological advancements.
Furthermore, a growing focus can be seen on integration of smart grid technologies, digital systems, data analytics, and advanced monitoring capabilities, which will ultimately improve grid infrastructure management, enhancing reliability, efficiency, and overall quality of power. Our company's expertise in innovative technologies and services align perfectly with these evolving needs of India's grid electrification sector.
As a result, we have been receiving orders from prominent transmission players in both the public and private sector. This is evident from our order growth, which has increased by 58% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of financial year 2022-2023, and overall by 26% annually compared to the previous fiscal year.
In terms of financial performance, we have achieved improvement in operating profit both in the fourth quarter and in the fiscal year. This improvement reflects our unwavering commitment to delivering values to our customers and shareholders.
By operating leaner and more efficient businesses, we are continuously driving cost optimization and improvement in execution. We are pleased to report a substantial reduction of our debt during the fourth quarter of FY 2022-2023, strengthening our financial position and improving stability.
Our CFO, Sushil, will provide a detailed analysis on these financial numbers later in the call. On the operational front, in the last financial year, we have commissioned a number of AIS, the air-insulated and the gas-insulated substations, along with supplying critical equipment like the 765 KV transformers, reactors, and various substation projects for public and private utilities.
These initiatives contribute significantly to the reinforcement of Indian transmission infrastructure and meet the growing energy demands. Moreover, we are keeping the lead in deploying automation technology, not only for India, but also for neighboring countries. Our state-of-the-art automation and digital grid solutions has been widely adopted by utilities, enhancing substations and control centers across the region.
Notably, we have secured a significant contract for upgrade and automation of 39 substations in Nepal, including the establishment of 6 master control centers and the replacement of existing control and relay equipment.
This project showcases our expertise and dedication to improve the grid efficiency and reliability. I am proud to highlight our recent participation in the ELECRAMA, hosted by IEEMA, where we had the opportunity to showcase our latest technologies in grid automation, sustainable grid solutions, high voltage equipments, and digital substations.
The positive response and feedback received from the industry experts and stakeholders further validate our position in the industry. I would like to express our gratitude for your continued support and confidence in our company.
This achievement we have witnessed during financial year 2022, 2023, demonstrates our dedication and strategic focus, and we maintain unwavering determination to enhance our performance in the upcoming year. Thank you. Now I hand over to Abhishek for sharing the operational performance.
Thanks, Sandeep. I will just take you all through some of the key operational highlights of commission that we have done in the past quarter. Our pursuit for serving our customer with uninterrupted supplies and making and strengthening the networks stronger, we delivered a few very critical substations for our customers.
One of them was a 66 KV Gas-Insulated Substation for the city of Delhi for Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited. This was one of the critical supplies, and based on the expectation of the customer, we were able to commission it almost ahead of schedule, on 31st of March, as per the expectation. Equally, focus was in even in the neighboring countries.
In Bhutan, we were able to, based on the timelines, commission the 20 KV gas-insulated substation, which is their first and has a very crucial role in terms of improving the stability of power for the Bhutan capital. Similarly, again, one of critical substations for Delhi Transco, which was a 66 KV GIS substation at Gopalpur, was commissioned on 31st of March.
Adding to the capacity in service, in terms of commissioning of transformers and reactors. We serve and help our customers like Sterlite, Bhutan, Adani and JP, wherein almost close to 1,200 MVA of capacity was added.
In addition to that, we had delivered the SCADA system for Odisha utility, which is Odisha Power South Odisha Distribution Limited, wherein our project is helping to monitor close to 100 distribution substation. Similarly, additionally, we are working on the other two utility, which is for the central Odisha and western Odisha. I hand over to Sushil to take us forward through the financials.
Thanks, Abhishek. Good afternoon, everyone. In terms of financial performance, first, talking about our orders performance. In the quarter four of the financial year, we achieved INR 8,706 million of orders, which is 58% higher than the fourth quarter order booking in the last financial year.
Overall, for the entire financial year 2022-2023, we booked orders of INR 27,359 million, representing a 26% growth over the order booking in the last financial year. Key orders that we gained in the quarter four of the financial year, mainly included upgradation and automation of 39 substations in Nepal, located across six different locations by Nepal Electricity Authority.
Order from a large private transmission company to supply 765 KV, 100 MVA reactor for substation in Narela and Pune. An order from Power Grid Corporation of India to supply 765 KV reactors to their projects in Narela. Centralized remote protection, substation automation system, orders from various private transmission companies like AEC, Techman and Techno Electric, and 200 KV, 220 KV order, gas-insulated substation from Sree Electricals and KAN India.
Moving to the next page on our PNL performance. During the quarter four, we achieved a revenue of INR 7,031 million, representing a 6.2% growth versus the quarter four in the last financial year. However, there was a significant improvement in terms of operational execution, and our EBITDA improved from a loss of INR 1,356 million in the last year to INR 316 million of positive EBITDA in current financial year, quarter four.
This EBITDA represented about 4.5% of revenue. There was a corresponding improvement in the profit before tax and exceptional item as well. Overall, for the entire financial year, the revenues were at INR 27,732 million. This represented a 9.5% reduction versus the last earlier financial year. However, again, a significant improvement in terms of EBITDA performance, where we achieved about 4.9% EBITDA for the entire financial year, at around INR 1,365 million.
moving to the next page, where we give details of the breakup of orders, revenue, and backlog. During the entire financial year, our order booking, as I mentioned, was INR 27,359 million. Of which, 35% of orders were from the export market, and 65% orders were from the domestic market.
Out of the total revenue of INR 27,732 million, about 30% of revenue came from the export market and 70% revenue from the domestic market. End of the financial year, we had a backlog of around INR 27,000 million, of which 20% were from the private customers, 14% from state utility.
One second here. Ladies and gentlemen, please stay connected. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. We have the line for the management reconnected. You may go ahead.
Yes. Sorry for the technical disruption. We got disconnected. I talked about the last page on the investor presentation, where we have given the details of order, revenue, domestic market and order enhanced it within the different category of customers. We'll open up for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, please press star and 1 on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and 1 to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Parikshit from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi, Sandeep. Congratulations on your elevation as CEO and MD. My first question is on assuming this leadership role, what will be your top two, three priorities given the background that we had a very strong order inflows and order backlog given at 2017, 2019, and after that, everything has been on a downhill.
We have revived our profitability and there's also been a reduction in ordering. I just want your sense over the next couple of years, three years, given the strong demand, changing energy scheme and renewables, what will be your top two, three priorities in terms of growth and profitability?
Thank you. The top two, three priorities would be, again, whatever we have achieved in last one year, in terms of improvement in margin and also reduction of net debt. One thing would be continuing this effort and then improving this to come to a level which is more sustainable.
Also I would keep it in a way that it is more like, you know, not like a sinusoidal wave, but we have more consistent results. That would be one thing. Second, would be the growth in the orders. Yes, we need to continue that momentum as well. Including the, as you said, that we have good opportunities which are there because of the renewable and the government's target of achieving the net zero.
Apart from that, I think there are also, there is huge opportunity of digitalization, which is also going to be playing a key role and introducing a lot of, not a lot of, but few technologies which are available globally.
At least initially to start with, to position ourselves in the market as a technology differentiator and then build upon that. I would put this apart from the few two things. One, would be maintaining the US, which is like one of the most important thing for us.
Second, also to keep on working for the talent upgradation and also for the upskilling of the people, because some of the way technology is changing, we also need to keep on changing much faster as the market expectation is also growing faster and faster.
My second question is on this scale of revenue currently at INR 700, right? We have been averaging last three quarters at INR 700, which is kind of a break even if you look at EBITDA level.
This profitability has to be improved and the gross margins at around 50%. We need to ramp up to almost INR 1,000 crores to really have some meaningful profit. Given that our order book has been gradually ramping up and it's at about INR 6 crores-INR 7 crores of inflow this quarter. When do you think this journey, this gap of like growing from here on, can we reach that number of INR 1,000 crores kind of a quarterly inflow or revenue?
Thanks, Parikshit. As you rightly mentioned, the order booking last couple of quarter has picked up. We are on an average in last six months, close to an average of INR 8,000 million of order booking, and our endeavor is to grow it further. Also you would notice that one of the endeavor is to, as we earlier highlighted, was to be selective and win more profitable orders, as well as to grow volume from the export sector.
Uh, as this momentum continues, we also intend to increase the order booking further, continuing the themes of better profitability and mix that I, I talked about. Uh, reaching a revenue of thousand crores, uh, candidly will, uh, be a bit, uh, kind of key time, because, uh, we don't just want to achieve a revenue which does not actually result into profitability in PNL. But endeavor is to definitely keep growing from here on.
Okay. Just, Sushil, one more thing on this, typically, like, in this business, we cater, like, the segmentation which we give? If you can give some more clarity, like, are we present in segments like railways, industrials, and... Utility is a large segment, but within that, like, railways and transport, industrial segments are in terms of product, portfolio.
What kind of opportunity do we have at play at railways, like Vande Bharat, kind of opportunities in the transportation segment? Do we have the product line, like, traction transformers there, or how do we play that segment?
Yeah, Parikshit, so we are not currently we are not present in segment, in the transportation segment, but we are definitely present into the industrial segment. For example, few of the orders that we have taken are from refineries, also from data center. In the industrial segment, we are present, but not in the transportation.
Just lastly on this, entire, the panel, just, we get a good share of the players, like, basically when they bid for utilities like, Power Grid and all. What could be? They have received very strong orders this year in the HVDC space.
I don't think that is getting reflected in our numbers. We may have given some. Is there outreach that already announced or about, is there any significantly large L1 which is sitting out and yet to be concluded?
No, no. Currently, we are not having any large L1 positions where the orders are yet to be concluded on us, so.
Just on the Leh-Ladakh, there were some players who are doing the feasibility study. Are we going to bid for that HVDC line? Are we doing some studies there? How do we intend to tackle that and participate in that program?
You know, we have basically about, in next two to three years, we have, as per the Government of India, we have approximately four projects which are going to come up. Khavda, which is LCC, which is exactly similar to what Champa-Kurukshetra. Leh-Ladakh, which is a VSC project, and then we have Khavda-Bhuj and Gwalior-Jabalpur.
I think we are closely monitoring the situation, because, you know, all the projects will be getting executed practically in the similar timelines. We would be targeting on specific opportunities, and then we would be bidding and then winning those opportunities, rather than spreading ourselves thin on everything.
Okay. Thank you. I wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Subhadip Mitra from Nuvama Wealth. Please go ahead.
Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity. My first question is, you know, on the back of the previous question on the HVDC market side. What we understand from, you know, recent communications that came from Power Grid as well, is that one of those lines is actually being rethought, I think the Khavda line is actually being rethought and may fall out of the HVDC market. Do you see that in any manner, you know, changing the overall addressable market for you? I still remain high voltage, but just not on the DC side.
In the last Transmission Committee minutes, what I've seen is with the Khavda-Jabalpur, Khavda-Kulla project, has been cleared by the Transmission Committee, and of course, we are also discussing on that project with CEA and all. At least, I'm expecting that not to drop off, because eventually when Khavda becomes a 30 gigawatt project, the evacuation of power will be very critical. It remains to be…
Understood. Understood. If I have to, you know, look at the Leh-Ladakh line, what we understand is, you know, there are some project studies going on over there, but DGTME is not part of it. Are there any product gaps because of which, you know, we are not part of the Leh-Ladakh, site study or something like that?
That's a business strategy. I think we focus as Sushil said, that the part of the activity. There are certain projects which we target, certain projects which because of newer risk analysis and then we decide whether to participate or not to participate. I think probably you would have seen that globally, GE Grid Solutions have won $10 billion VSC project, number of projects totaling about $10 billion in Europe. VSC technology is not a challenge for us, but then we look at the overall risk perception of the project, we then take a decision.
Understood. Understood. Secondly, with regard to the high voltage, you know, jam out there, while the HVDC part of the jam X of HVDC, how would you know, look at the addressable market, let's say, over the next 2-3 years, and let's say, what would be the target market share?
I would say that actually definitely, you know, the target market remains the PGCIL remains the large part of the market. There's definitely the, so certain cases it could be a product target, or certain places it could be a project target.
Depending upon the channel to the market, that's where we take the decision. Especially in PGCIL, who wins the bid, we decide whether to go on a project route or on a product route, along with the collaboration of our EPC partner. That is basically a constantly moving strategy, which keeps on changing depending upon the winner of a PGCIL bid.
Understood. I mean, what I was trying to shoot for is, you know, I think we are all aware that of the overall INR 2,40,000 crore kind of CapEx number in transmission that CA talks about. Just trying to get a sense of within that INR 2,40,000 crores, if one has to look at the addressable market for you, how would you look at that market, you know, panning out, let's say, on an annual basis and, you know, any estimates?
Out of that, INR 40,000 crores, probably, what I would look at that market relevant to us would be less than INR 20,000 crores. I think it would be in the range of close to about INR 15,000 crores, because when CA talks about INR 40,000 crores, that will include transmission lines and other aspects of the project as well. So far, the addressable market out of the INR 40,000 crores will be slightly lesser than INR 15,000 crores.
This is overall INR 15,000 crores spread over a period of four, five years, the target?
No, no. What basically I'm saying, out of the INR 40,000 crores, what you are saying, that's close to about our assessment, what we do for the total market addressable for, of course, is close to about $3 billion, which is close to about INR 24,000-25,000 crores annually.
Understood. INR 25,000 crore annually is the number?
Yeah.
Understood. Perfect. Thank you so much for answering the question.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Mohit Kumar from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir, and congratulations on the appointment as CEO. My question is, the first question is: Do we have the capability to take up more than 1 HVDC project at a time? And how much supply should we have done in this country for HVDC?
Mohit, thanks for your compliment and, see, this will also depend upon that what is the time frame which the HVDC project execution is being demanded for. I'm just giving an example that suppose there are two projects which I have to run in like a 36 or a 48 month schedule, maybe two projects might not be possible.
Typically, if the timelines are extended, and then there might be a possibility to do that. If we, if you really look at the localization part, you know, GE T&D was the first one in the country to have supplied a 800 KV HVDC transformer. The complete transformers are manufactured at our Vadodara plant. Also, if you really look at, other aspects of it, there are certain components, of course, which are, like based...
Like, for example, it might be a ball cooling systems and to some extent, certain technologies of bushings, etc., which come from outside. Otherwise, if a ballpark number, if I have to quote in, it would be close to about maybe about 40%-50%, depending on the composition of the project, which what is localized.
Understood. The second question, sir, of course, we are energy transition, and renewables will become higher and higher in the proportion in grid. Do you think there's a gap in any portfolio? Do you think we need to bring some product from maybe Europe to India to meet the requirements in the market, and which are maybe not been localized and would like to localize?
Mohit, just to update, I think probably whatever is manufactured in Europe for GE, or GE Grid Solutions, except for the exception of one or two products, where the global requirement is so small that it needs distribution only to have globally one factory or two factories.
Everything is manufactured by GE T&D in India. For example, if it's transformers, instrument transformers, GIS, control relay panels, relays, circuit breakers, Gas-Insulated Switchgear, everything what is manufactured globally is manufactured in India. If I really look at the footprint point of view, we are close to maybe about more than 98% of the footprint which gets manufactured in India. In future, there are certain products which, for example, today have a demand more in Europe, like GQ small.
Today the demand is not there, and we are in discussion with lot of customers to promote g³. I think once the acceptability of that product will start, we have a free flow factory. It is only adding a product line, so it's not requiring any bigger investment in terms of that. If that answers your question.
... What kind of products you have in the segment? Data centers or centers, collaboration or, is it primarily related to electrification or is there something else, you-
It is primarily related to transmission side only. Like, for example, we have transformers, we have circuit breakers and control panels and GIS. The normal products which are used in substation. Data centers or, for example, refineries, they are highly power-intensive applications. Normally, for high power-intensive applications, the connections would be either at, like, 300 KV or 400 KV, and there they would be requiring a lot of transmission products as an input to the industry. That is where is our play.
The last question, how is the market outside India, in terms of how is the market, Asian market looking like? Do we have an opportunity to participate in those markets? The related question is: Is there any export which can happen from the Indian market in near future?
If you really look at our order portfolio, I think constantly, if I'm not mistaken, Our order portfolio consists of about 50% or slightly more than 50%, as the order composition, which comes from the export market. You know, in the smaller countries, the fraction of renewable has just started, and it's not, like, great.
Consistently, those countries are also investing in terms of upgrading their transmission infrastructure. That's a stable market, or I would say, slightly growing market, which is there. Of course, with our endeavor is to get qualified Indian parties for more and more export geographies. That's a constant effort which we keep on doing in most of the geographies.
Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Other members are in line to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Raj Rishi and Division Investor. Please go ahead.
Hello? Hello.
Yes. Hello.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Hello.
Yeah, can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah, we can hear you.
Yeah. The HVDC today, I believe, you have competition with Hitachi, Siemens, etc. How do you place yourself in terms of profit with these competitors?
Raj, if I compare ourselves, in, for example, in the market today, at least in the Indian market, I would rate ourselves as, in the, in the number of installed base, we are the second largest player in the country. As far as the offerings are concerned, our offering is as good as any of our competitors' offering, whether it is Hitachi or whether it is Siemens.
Okay. Okay. Lot of restructuring is happening at the current level. How will that affect this particular company?
This restructuring, which is happening, is basically that, I think you would have seen GE globally. Earlier, we were a conglomerate of three companies, like, not companies, but three businesses, which was healthcare, aviation, and the power business.
Ultimately, what's happening from 1st January 2023, healthcare has become a separate company, standalone on its own. It is expected by the end of this year, aviation and the power portfolio, which is called Vernova, will be again standalone company. But apart from that, we don't expect anything, because our portfolio and our technologies and everything remain in the same basket.
Okay. Okay. There was some talk about GE moving away from fossil fuel, etc. In your company, there is no reason for the party to change hands, right?
No, no. We are totally on the grid side, so we have no role to play in fossil fuel technologies and things like that.
Okay, okay. Okay, thanks, sir.
Thanks, Raj.
Thank you. The next member in line to ask a question. This question is from the line of Aniket Mittal from SBI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for the opportunity. The first question is just coming back to the lay project. Typically, see, the HVDC projects for us have been a good margin business. You know, the projects in area is coming up is also an RTM one, where the developer that's building it can easily make cost escalations over there.
Let's say, Bhadla project that's coming in, that would be on a TBC basis. You would highlight the risk part that you saw and you decided not to participate. If you could elaborate a bit more on that, then that would be helpful.
Aniket, thanks for the question. If you really look at even the transition, normal projects which come on TBCB route. In these cases also, for example, there are standard transformers, reactors, and other products as well, where we have the risk of price escalations and things like that.
Mostly the developers who are participating in these projects, they know how to manage those risks. I think I will leave it to the developers, how do they manage those risks, but I don't see any challenge in participating in a TBCB project for HVDC from an OEM perspective.
Fair. Given that this is our team and I could assume, and like I said, you know, actually, we've made good margins in this business, and, you know, some of the benefits also trickles down into operating leverage. Just wanted to get a bit more clarity on what's the approach over here.
As I said, that the tenders have not yet come in, so we have not said that we have opted out. We have just said that, as of today, we have not participated in the FEED study because, you know, the FEED study will require the specifications to be formed, et cetera.
We always have a right to the once the tenders come out, then we can always participate in those tenders, because those tenders, based on the qualification requirement, we just qualify. I have not said at any point of time that we are not going to participate in melee.
Okay, fair. The second question was on the gross margin front. If I look at the gross margin this quarter, they've come down sequentially a fair bit. Just if you could highlight a bit on that and from an, let's say, FY 2024 perspective, what is the steady state gross margins that you can build in?
Yeah. Aniket, this is Sushil You're right, Q4 gross margin was around 26.5%, this was impacted by 2, 3 factors. First was inflation on the electronic part, mainly semiconductor that we use for our one of our businesses. In couple of projects, some customers applied liquidity damages, which we believe, if we can contest, and we'll contest these liquidity damages with the customer.
On a conservative, we have made reserve or a charge in the PNL for the quarter. The third is mix of projects that were traded in this quarter. As you're aware that last year we took commodity price inflation impact on many of these projects, and some of these projects have become now low margin and are getting traded in the current period.
Overall, impact of these three factors, there was an impact of around INR 250 million. However, if you look at the full year number, full year numbers, we achieved around 29% of gross margin, which is mainly improving from 22.6% in the earlier financial year. This is in line with where we had called out the number on gross margin for the current financial year.
On the question around the next financial year, and I'll not give a guidance, but we'll say that our endeavor is always to improve margin from here on, considering all the efforts, whether it is through mix of projects or pricing and efficiency or productivity, we are endeavor to improve it further.
Fair. If I just look INR 215 million, I think roughly we're a bit 30% gross margin mark for this quarter as well.
Yes, but I request that, let's look at the entire year, and I'll not call these out as expenses, because these are the business-related expenses. Basically, if you would like to adjust for a comparison sign, but overall 29% for the financial year, which we will endeavor to improve.
The other question was just to understand on the addressable market, which you did mention, that stands up close to INR 25,000 crores for us for this year. What was it, let's say, last year, versus this year, and how do you see it growing, let's say, over the next two years?
I think the next year, probably one of the factors that what could be there is that the last quarter will be seeing the general election also happening. Probably we like to see that where do we land in terms of the next year market scenario, because, like, the last quarter has a lot of, you know, lot of projects which get evaluated between January to March.
I think apart from that, but looking into the growth story of India in terms of renewable and in terms of requirement of transmission, we are pretty confident that the market is going to grow maybe at a pace which is, which will be like about, excluding HVDC, might be growing at a pace of close to about 7%-10% every year.
Thank you. You can join the queue again for a follow-up question. Next follow-up question is from, please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity once again. Like you gave us a sense on the gross margin, I just wanted to get a sense that if I am to look at, let's say, the next two to three-year scenario, on a normalized basis, is there any target range of, let's say, gross margin that you would be looking at?
Shivanand, we don't look forward looking guidance on a specific number target increase in the results. As I said, and Sandeep talked about endeavor for increasing the orders and also about endeavor for increasing the gross margin, so further improvement in the cost structure. These measure, are the measures that we take to improve profitability, but I'll kind of refrain from giving a number target.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you. You may press star and one to ask the question. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. The follow-up question is from the line of Aniket Mittal from SBI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Sir, I just had one question. You had mentioned that apart from the utility side, you're also working on data centers and refinery.
Sorry, Aniket, can you repeat the question?
That apart from the utility side.
Yeah.
You're also working on data centers and refinery. How large would that be, let's say, of your order book and revenue in ex-utilities?
Data center market is, probably the order intake that we have today is not a very large part. We have few orders of GIS and automation, which we have taken, but not a very large part.
The same would be for refinery as well?
Refineries and all, yes, we have been able to at least not in the last year, but prior to that year, we have had a substantial order intake. That also depends upon the kind of investments which are coming from the refinery. Like, for example, when the government directed for BS-VI, most of the refineries went for expansion, we took a large part of that market.
For the last year, the last year we had a large order from Reliance Industries as well. Depends upon the market which is available. I will say that in the, in the, in the oil and gas market, we have had some good successes in the past.
How much would that be of your current order book in those segments?
It would be close to maybe about 7%-8% of the overall order intake that we have.
Okay. Yeah, that's helpful. That's it from my side.
Thanks, Aniket.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. Bob Simmons, you may press star and one to ask a question. As there are no further questions, I will now hand the conference over to Ms. Tanvi Gupta for closing comments.
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