Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3 FY 2022 earnings conference call of Alicon Castalloy Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Mayank Vaswani from CDR India. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Margaret. Good day, everyone, and thank you for joining us on Alicon Castalloy Limited's Q3 FY 2022 earnings conference call. We have with us on the call today Mr. Rajeev Sikand, Group CEO, Mr. Vimal Gupta, Group CFO, Mr. Shekhar Dravid, Chief Operating Officer of Alicon Castalloy Limited, Mr. Andreas Heim, Managing Director of Alicon Castalloy, and Mr. Rajiv Gupta, Head of Domestic Business of Alicon Castalloy Limited. Mr. Vimal Gupta will cover the financial performance for the quarter, following which Mr. Dravid will walk us through the operating highlights. In order to share a more granular view of the initiatives towards both the global and domestic markets, we also have Mr. Andreas Heim and Mr. Rajiv Gupta to provide insights on these areas. Following which, our Group CEO, Mr. Rajeev Sikand, will give us a brief summary of the quarter gone by.
Thereafter, we shall open the forum for our Q&A session. Before we begin, I would like to point out some of the statements made in today's call may be forward-looking in nature, and a disclaimer to this effect has been included in the earnings presentation shared with all of you earlier. I would now like to hand over the floor to Mr. Vimal Gupta for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Good morning to all our investors. I hope that all of you and your near and dear ones are safe and well. Thank you for taking the time out to join our earnings call. We have reported a steady performance in the third quarter and delivered continued improvement each quarter through the year-to-date period this fiscal. This quarter witnesses several macro challenges coming together and intensifying. Alicon faced and combated four such key challenges, which we have termed as four Cs. The first C is Corona, being the impact on our operations on account of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted overseas operations from mid-September and resulted in muted demand in domestic markets, especially in the latter half of December.
The second C is semiconductor, as in chip shortages and supply chain constraints, which persisted during the period impacted, impacting volumes for the automotive industry across the globe, especially in high-end vehicles and high-value addition products. This, in turn, moderated our sales performance in the quarter. The third C was the cost-price inflation, wherein we saw higher input material costs on account of the increasing rates and even increased freight and logistic costs, likewise supply chain issues. The fourth C was the cost of new product development. However, with rapid change underway due to EV evolution and light-weighting, which has come with only a short gap from the shift from BS-IV to BS-VI, the product life cycles are shortened.
Overall, the quarter was marked by these four key challenges, and despite the nonlinearity, we delivered steady top line in the quarter with consolidated revenues from operations at INR 278.9 , higher by 4.2% over the immediately preceding quarter. The four Cs impacted profitability too, especially the continuous increase in commodity prices along with inflated freight costs and costs towards new product development, which resulted in higher expenses during this quarter. However, our sustained cost reduction initiatives using Kaizen principles enabled cost reduction at micro level across our operations. This was supported by factory and this product mix, as we were able to increase the volume of higher margin products. Like we had indicated last quarter, we have been working collaboratively with our customers to undertake price corrections and have successfully passed on some part of increased costs.
The combination of these above factors have helped us to support margin performance. This has been yielding results with our margins coming in stable at 12.1% in quarter three. Another aspect to keep in mind is that alloy prices are pass-through for us, but higher prices elevate the denominator. Even when absolute EBITDA remains intact, EBITDA margins will naturally reduce due to higher denominator. In quarter three, the effect of higher denominator has led to EBITDA margin reducing by over 1%. Had alloy prices been stable, we would have reported an EBITDA margin in excess of 13% this quarter. While the margins were lower by 40 basis points year-on-year, on a quarter-on-quarter basis, they are higher by 268 basis points compared to quarter three last year.
Overall, the impact of our margins has been largely contained despite the combination of challenges we faced this quarter. Another highlight to note here is that all our operating costs are tightly controlled and optimized across our business model. Even when the operating environment normalizes, we do not anticipate significant increase in the cost model going forward. Overall, the gross margins stood at 50.1% in quarter three FY 2022. Our EBITDA stood at INR 33.8 . Profit after tax during the quarter stood at INR 12.1 . With our continuous effort, as cost pressure stabilizes, we expect our EBITDA margins return to pre-COVID level of 14%-15%. On the operational front, in quarter three, our factories in India and Europe did not face any mandated lockdowns despite the disruptions due to third wave.
We continue to do our best to ensure we create and maintain a safe workplace for our people. Despite the cost pressures and supply chain disruptions, we have focused on ongoing improvements. We witnessed a sharp increase in alloy prices, which had a resultant effect on cost of inventory and on debtors. However, we were able to drive greater efficiencies which had enabled us to actually improve our working capital base despite these pressures. We expect this to stabilize going forward. During the quarter, we have reported steady cash flow from operations. The conclusion of equity raise via QIP and preferential issue has further helped enhance our liquidity and balance sheet position. On the balance sheet front, our net debt has been maintained around INR 200-INR 300 and the net debt equity ratio remains comfortable at 0.55.
As you would recall, at last quarter, we had discussed that we have deferred our CapEx for fiscal 2022 due to the uncertain macro environment led by COVID-19 disruptions. We had only placed INR 60 at the start of the fiscal 2022, but we mostly would be closing the fiscal year around INR 55 -INR 60 . More importantly, this CapEx has been utilized towards upgrading capabilities and elevating end of process capabilities, such as finishing and machining. We have leveraged our unutilized capacity at the back end and deployed capital towards value addition in the front end of the process, enabling us to deliver greater value creation for customers, enabling margin addition.
Our balance of INR 30-INR 35 , which is deferred CapEx for the FY 2022, along with fresh CapEx to the tune of INR 60 will be invested towards growth in FY 2023, resulting in cumulative CapEx of INR 90 this year. We anticipate a normalized operating environment in FY 2023 and expect faster recovery. To summarize, we have reported a resilient performance during the quarter despite the disruptions in the automobile industry. We continue to operate a healthy financial profile and strong balance sheet. In a normalized environment, we look forward to building on this further. On that note, I would like now to hand it over to Mr. Shekhar Dravid, who will talk about operating highlights for the quarter.
Thank you, Vimal. Greetings to all. I trust all of you are well and staying safe. The trends in the domestic auto industry continued to be a mixed bag. While we saw strong demand and higher consumption in the market led by festive and holiday season, inflationary trends in the global market and a touch of the third wave during the latter part of December impacted sales performance for the industry as a whole. The auto and auto ancillary space continued to witness bottlenecks in the raw material supply chain. As a result, during the quarter, the industry has experienced an extremely challenging and volatile input pricing environment. In some cases, we have seen aluminum and related alloys reach new highs. The new wave of the pandemic in certain Asian countries has resulted in aluminum prices reaching a fresh 14-year high.
In addition, logistical problems and inflation in shipping and freight costs further downplayed the momentum in sales. Across the domestic industry, CV volumes saw improvements during the period supported by the healthy demand for both passenger and cargo segments. 2 -wheeler volumes, however, saw a notable impact due to lower consumer sentiment affected by the third wave of the pandemic. Similarly, the PV industry sales continued to be impacted by the supply chain constraints and mechanical equipment shortages. Besides weak rural sentiment, delayed harvest season, floods in the southern states as well as higher fuel costs restricted the pace of recovery in the quarter. On the international front, most of our key export geographies in U.S. and Europe reported strong auto sales led by festive and holiday demand and stable currency. Against this backdrop, we have reported a stable performance during the quarter.
The four C framework that was discussed by Vimal impacted our overall growth in the quarter. It is one of the rare times wherein we have seen all these operating challenges acting together in the industry. However, it is noteworthy how our team has been able to navigate through this difficult situation well, and we have been able to seamlessly manage supplies to all our customers on time. In the quarter, we have added 30 parts from nine customers. Let me talk about the highlights of our performance across each of our five key strategic growth pillars. The first being our auto business. This industry in the past two years has been adversely impacted due to COVID, mobility restrictions across geographies, supply chain issues, and raw material inflation.
However, as the environment is normalizing, we are seeing the mobility sector as a whole bouncing back with a staggered recovery in sales. The consumption across vehicle segments, be it passenger vehicle, commercial vehicle or even the 2-wheeler segment, is on the increasing trend. What we are seeing is that while supply chain issues moderated production across the industry, the end consumer demand has been on the uptrend. There are signals, signs that suggest semiconductor supply shortages could begin to ease in the latter half of 2022, albeit in a phased manner. This will further boost sales in the industry. Another data point here is that if you were to look at the penetration levels of the cars across the globe, India is one of the lowest, with around 225 registered vehicles for every 1,000 people.
Encouragingly, there has been a constant increase in this number in the past decade, and as the macro environment recovers, the car consumption and the penetration levels will keep growing. The pandemic, for instance, has accelerated the consumption for consumers preferring personal transportation modes. We have been seeing sharp rise in personal automobile across urban, semi-urban and rural markets, with improving traction in auto registrations. Overall, the outlook for this segment remains solid, and this in turn bodes well for Alicon. The global industry witnessed a downfall of 13% in last quarter over last year quarter three. Alicon witnessed a growth of 22%. New order wins SOP helped to perform predominantly better than the market. In auto segment, we are seeing strong inquiry levels across domestic and export markets. We are also seeing repeat order wins from customers such as Nissan, Bajaj and Maruti Suzuki.
I am happy to share that in the quarter we have won orders for seven new parts from these customers. Coming now to the second of our growth pillars, which is the electric vehicle division. The division continues to register exponential growth, not just in India, but also on the global level. According to the reports by the International Energy Agency, roughly 130,000 EVs were sold every week in 2021 as against 130,000 EVs sold worldwide in the year 2012, suggesting an explosive growth. In the year 2021, while we saw the auto industry reporting moderate growth across traditional and hybrid segments, EV sales marked a healthy growth.
Closer home, the total registered electric vehicle sales in India more than doubled in 2021 as compared to 2020, and crossed the 300,000 mark in 2021, the highest ever annual volumes. December, in fact, was the first time when electric vehicle registrations crossed the mark of 50,000 in a month. 90% of the sales in India were in 2-wheeler and 3-wheeler segments. The market has seen strong consolidation of existing EV models by established and new players. This, along with increased preference for personal mobility, reducing price parity between EVs and the ICE vehicles, and growing awareness about global warming continues to fuel growth in the EV sector in India. In the Union Budget as well, the government has announced supportive policy for electric vehicles.
The announcement of a new battery swapping policy will improve the country's EV infrastructure and create an impetus on faster adaptation of environment-friendly public transportation and 3-wheelers. Auto manufacturers will also be encouraged to develop sustainable processes for batteries, which will help in increasing the EV ecosystem efficiently. For this segment, we are working with OEMs as well as a Tier 1 supplier. We have been working extensively with Dana Incorporated, Scania, Tata AutoComp, Arrival, Eaton on both domestic and international orders. During this quarter, we have won orders from existing customers such as Tata AutoComp and Scania. We have also added a new logo win in this quarter. We have received an order win from a customer called Arrival for 17 new parts.
We are the first Indian supplier to be empaneled with Arrival, which manufactures electric buses and vans and belongs to a niche segment. They currently have the plants in U.K. and U.S.A. and are coming up with a plant in Spain and India. In addition to the 17 parts already booked, we are in close discussions for other opportunities related to our fluid engineering and thermal solutions. We introduced vibration solutions, high pressure die casting to low pressure die casting conversion by giving customer advantage of a lower CapEx, thermal solutions for the components like battery housings and motor housing and other such technological advancements. One such area where we are seeing strong response from customers in the lightweighting of the product in the auto and EV space.
We are getting increased inquiries from the OEMs, both in domestic and export market, and the development of various product categories such as motor housing, battery housing, and consumer housing. In December 2021, for the first time ever, Tata Motors was the second highest seller of vehicles in the passenger vehicle segment. Jaguar, a Tata Group company, has already announced 100% EV by 2025. We are already supplying EV parts from our European subsidiaries to them, and now we are in active discussions for the opportunities from India. Another exciting development for us has been the breakthrough order wins with Tata Motors. We have been observing the progress being made by Tata Motors, which has emerged as a leader in electric 4-wheeler as well as passenger vehicle category in India. We're very keen to be empaneled as a supplier given the prospects for the strong volume.
We are delighted to share that we have been empaneled for two critical and complex motor housings with them in the last quarter with a good volume. With the industry on the cusp of next phase of a growth, Alicon is one of the frontrunners in the EV space to capitalize on these growth prospects. We have already built up a portfolio of over 101 parts catering to EV, and our revenues from EV business stands at 9% in quarter three of financial year 2022. Our target is to bring the wallet share of EV business to 36% of our overall revenues by financial year 2025-2026. Clearly, we are progressing well with our strategy as 57% of our new orders during the quarter were from EV segment. Now on to our third growth pillar, being a technology-agnostic platform.
This segment is where we are directing our focus, bringing value addition to all our product categories. Alicon's philosophy has always been towards manufacturing innovative and differentiated products. Having the European hub being at an early stage of our growth journey gave us a first-mover advantage in the domestic markets. During the quarter, we have received orders from KTM. Coming to our fourth growth pillar, which is a non-auto business. In this, we are witnessing healthy growth in demand, especially from the defense sector. During the quarter, we have received an order win from existing customer like JCB and a new win from Textron USA. In the non-auto business, we have been seeking to add critical and complex parts in this segment with sustainable volumes.
With the empanelment with the Textron USA for fully machined cylinder heads supply to the U.S. market, we will be able to showcase our capability of manufacturing such parts to the other OEMs, which will open up more opportunities going ahead. Our previously announced orders are progressing as per the schedule, and we expect strong order wins in the quarters ahead. As discussed last quarter, we have submitted a tender of 4,000 wheels for defense, and we are expecting the finalization of the same shortly. We are penetrating with the existing customers like Siemens, GE, and Ingersoll Rand in this segment. The fourth pillar is our focus on improving customer wallet share and the customer stickiness. With several parts moving towards SUV, we are well-placed to enhance contribution from existing customers and demonstrate customer stickiness and belief in our brand.
Our long-term approach is towards building wallet share and positioning ourselves as a trusted supplier for an existing customer base. On that note, I would like now to hand it over to Mr. Andreas Heim to throw light on our global business.
Thank you, Mr. Ganesh. I welcome all of you. I will briefly cover the development on our international business. We have delivered a steady performance in this one during the quarter on the back of improving demand environment in our key global markets of U.S., Europe, and China. However, the chip shortage issue across the globe has resulted in a significant impact on our international business sales in the third quarter. For the quarter, exports including overseas revenues contributed to 22% of the total revenues, and for nine months, it's 24%. I'm happy to share our exports including sales from Illichmann subsidiary was strong during the quarter and got higher even than the actual basis. We are also seeing increasing costs on account of inflationary trends in aluminum and other alloys. In addition, higher price costs has definitely helped us in higher expenses during the period.
While we've kept the margin during the quarter, we have been passing over the price hikes which has resulted in the steady profitability. On absolute basis. Overall, we have delivered an enduring performance during the quarter and nine months. While there are ongoing concerns about this pandemic in some of the key global markets, we have experienced minimal and short-term impact. Overall, we remain very excited about our future growth prospects and opportunities in the medium to longer term across markets of Europe, U.S., Middle East, and Turkey. On this note, I would like to hand over to Mr. Rajiv Gupta, who will cover developments in the legacy business for the quarter.
Thank you, Andreas. Good day, everyone. We have seen mixed trends in the automotive sector during the quarter. While the demand has been upheld, issues on account of persistent raw material pressures and shortages are significantly impacting production levels for automotive players in the domestic industry. Lower product production levels due to chip shortages have resulted in unusual waiting period ranging from 6-9 months. There are also thinner inventory levels across dealers, dealerships. Passenger car sales are seeing a continuous decline on account of chip shortage. Even entry-level segment is facing challenge due to increasing fuel prices and weak consumer sentiment. The sentiment was further weakened by Omicron related concerns in December and January. However, we have seen steady recovery from mid-January onwards as concerns around the third wave have eased.
The chip shortage situation is easing out slowly and gradually, which we believe will elevate sentiment in the industry. Now coming to the performance, given the macroeconomic backdrop, Alicon was able to report steady pace in Q3 FY22. We have booked an average yearly sales of around INR 40 with project sales of around INR 150 over a period of five years in quarter three. In nine months cumulative this year, we have added 60 parts of which 32 were in the EV segment with average yearly sales around INR 330 , with a project sales of around INR 130 over a period of five years. Our total order booking now stands at around INR 3,250 over a period of five years with a yearly average sales of around INR 650 till now.
Overall, we are witnessing a good level of inquiries and bookings in the market and are hopeful that improving macros will further support this momentum. On this note, I would request our group CEO, Mr. Rajeev Sikand, to share with you his perspective on Alicon performance.
Thank you. I welcome all our investors. Thank you for joining the call. I hope you and your family members are well and safe. I would like to add that the way Alicon team has overcome the challenges thrown at us in the last two years gives me every reason to be optimistic that we will negotiate further challenges that will be thrown at us in the ever-changing and dynamic scenario the automobile sector is facing. My confidence in the long-term potential for Alicon and the opportunities across the auto, non-auto, and e-mobility space remains unshaken. While we are seeing headwinds in light of persistent raw material challenges, the chip shortages across the globe, there are signs of the situation easing out with the resumption of chip manufacturing across Asia. My view is it will take another two quarters for it to really stabilize.
We are hopeful that with the parts of the world moving away from lockdowns to learning to live with the virus, we should see the pre-pandemic sense of normalcy return soon across domestic and global markets. Educational institutions, corporate, and private offices are now slowly opening throughout India. This, along with the augmented consumer sentiment, improvement in finance availability, and gradual pickup in economic activities will translate to a higher demand, especially towards personal mobility. In addition, better macros will further support in commercial vehicles in the long, longer term. As discussed by my colleague, in the nine-month period, we have announced significant order wins with multiple OEMs. Our current order book stands at INR 3,250 , and this provides us with strong growth visibility for years to come.
Our business fundamentals are strong, and we are proactively engaging with the existing and new customer groups to accelerate this growth further. We are focusing towards improving our product portfolio and have added a range of high potential SKUs across auto, non-auto, and EV segments to bring in differentiation and value addition in our model. Sustainability is one of the cornerstones of our business framework, and we are pursuing many initiatives by way of business processes, manufacturing capabilities, and product development. Looking ahead, we believe that demand conditions in the market will continue to improve, and we are optimistic on the medium-term outlook of the auto industry. Also, Alicon's diverse product suite will enable us to capitalize on demand reversal. The recently announced Union Budget also announced growth-boosting reforms which will further create and maintain demand in the market.
The battery swapping policy, scrappage policy, PLI link scheme, FAME scheme, and improved CapEx towards road infrastructure all go well for the sector and will help boost consumption. On the whole, we look forward to a promising future. On this note, we would be happy to take your questions now. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Anyone who would like to ask a question, please press star and one at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment for the question queue to assemble. The first question is from the line of Gaurav Jain from Sushil Finance. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. Am I audible?
Yes, sir, you are audible.
Yeah. Okay. First of all, congratulations on yet another wonderful set of numbers, and thank you for the opportunity. I have a few questions, and my first one is in your opening remarks, you mentioned about new logos added and some orders and some Arrival equivalent for 17 new products you mentioned, and some products for Textron as well. Would you include a few points about the orders and, you know, their execution timeline, some highlight on that. And also, the orders for BMW worth INR 3,654 . What is the execution timeline for the same?
Over to you, Rajiv.
Yes, we have mentioned we have added two new logos in last quarter. One was with Arrival, and in the EV space we have added 17 parts, and these are very critical structural parts for this bus. The good thing with Arrival is they've come up with 30 plants across regions. Currently this opportunity is for the U.K. market, but there are chances of multiplying this opportunity once they come up with future plants in Spain and India. To talk about order opportunity, this order, the yearly average sale is around INR 10 for these 17 parts. On a project basis, this will be around INR 40 in total. This was a great achievement because Alicon was the first supplier from India who is awarded with Arrival. Second is Textron.
Yes, we were eyeing in this particular segment because this belongs to a niche segment. These are very critical parts which help us to showcase our existing OEMs also. This order is for the U.S. market for a very critical complex cylinder head, and this also we got in last quarter. We added Tata AutoComp with a motor housing. We were eyeing this segment, as mentioned in the last quarter, because we noticed Tata Motors in the domestic market were picking up quite well. With that we have added two critical parts. With that scenario in last quarter, we have confirmed a yearly average sale of roughly around INR 40 with a total project value of around INR 150 over span of five years.
With this, my order booking now are stretched to on a yearly average of +INR 850 and total to INR 3,150 . The good thing over here is, we are best focusing on EV. In last quarter also the order booking, 57% comes from the EV segment. That was a good sign what we have noted. If you talk about nine months, the EV contribution is 33%. We are moving ahead with what we have planned or what we have strategized.
Thank you. Okay. One follow-up on that. Of this INR 3,250 , what proportion of how much is from EV overall?
17% is from the EV of total, this INR 250 what we are talking. At this moment, 17%.
This is also expected to go over the five years, right?
Yes.
Okay, coming to my next question, you know, it is amazing to see gross margins being maintained, especially during these tough times, which is, you know, currently prevailing across the industry. This showcase our strength, despite lower margins on the standalone, the substantial improvement in our European subsidiary, we have managed to, you know, maintain our overall profitability on an overall basis. The subsidiary continues to do exceptionally well with almost like a 21% EBITDA margins. How is the trend looking forward? I'm talking about the European subsidiary.
As far as our, you know that the European subsidiary can make their margins now coming up from the EV segment because the orders are increasing, the volumes are increasing there. We have negotiated because this is the initial stage and development stage in the EV segment. These margins now this is the start and when the volumes will grow. Hopefully we will be able to maintain because we can see that in the quarter four also, we will be able to even perform much better if we compare with the quarter three. That are our expectations for this. Hopefully we will be able to maintain the same momentum in the coming year.
Okay. One follow-up on that too. In this market, we did a turnover of around INR 28 in the European subsidiary. How is the possibility of, you know, scalability here at that point?
Approximately this year we will be able to do INR 125 . As per our strategy, we have not planned to scale it up to a large level. The reason being we want to have it is our development center. We want to use that location to develop our critical parts as a know-how and also a knowledge center. Because whatever the developments we are doing in India, those are being supported by the European team. Because you know that the cost of production in Europe is so high. Maybe you are seeing these volumes, margins are high in Europe. Maybe on that basis you are feeling that we should grow there.
At the end when the volumes goes up, wouldn't they also look for some alternate sources from a low cost country. Our concept is that, we will have, we will maintain maybe INR 120 to maybe maximum go to INR 200 in the coming few years. The idea is, to win the orders, bring the volumes to India. That is on that strategy we are working.
Okay. Got it. Sir, my last question. What was the contribution from new orders during the quarter? If I believe, in previous con calls you had mentioned that the new orders for the FY 2023 contribution would be around in the range of INR 350-odd . So are we on track despite the headwinds which the global auto industry has been facing for some time to achieve our goal?
For this new orders, we are noticing we will be booking around INR 260 -INR 280 for this year.
For the coming fiscal?
For the coming fiscal, this would be at a range of INR 450 -INR 500 .
Okay. You are expecting a very big growth in the overall topline for next fiscal, right? Or there would be some major results from this current year?
Yeah. Talking about the current business, we are noticing the auto segment, particularly 2-wheelers, might get ahead with the acceptance of customers to the EV. We are noticing that and also with the other factors like increasing fuel prices and cost of production. With that we are expecting the current sales with existing customers and parts might come down. The good thing is we have added these parts, and this will help us cushion up and further increase sales going forward.
Would you be able to quantify it? Okay. The phasing out products or the contribution of.
That we'll compare, but the phasing out will be less only that because due to the challenging market. We are not anticipating that there will be a growth in this business. That is the challenge after that we are now perfecting our plan.
Got it. One last question, if I may, regarding just a short one. How is the revival seen in 2-wheelers? Did you get some feelers from the OEMs?
At this moment we don't see any of the enthusiasm from the OEMs. We are keeping close watch and connect with our existing OEMs to get a feel on this. That is the situation at this moment because of the dynamics of the market.
Okay. Thank you. Thanks a lot, and wish you all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rajanandan N. L from SKP Securities . Please go ahead.
Congratulations, sir, for good results under challenging circumstances. Many thanks for the detailed opening remarks. Sir, my first question was, being an early mover company is gaining market share in the EV space across segments. Would you be targeting higher market share in EVs compared to that of ICEs? Can you talk a bit about company's strengths or competitive advantage which will support you in getting the market share in the EV space, both in domestic and export markets?
Thank you. This is Rajeev Sikand. Our playbook here is very simple. We are developing thermal technology, and this is very, very unique. This has been done because of our European plant, the know-how was developed from 2016. We've been supplying to Bosch, we supply to all the OEMs and to JLR, to Samsung. This technology is our playbook. We have divided our parts, thermal and other. We are focused in thermal. Yes, at the same time, we have to focus on other parts in the EV segment. We are finding that our capability is really being looked at all the global you know Tier 1 or like Dana is a Tier 1. This is a system for a bus.
This is where we are coming in. I hope that answers your question.
Yes. Thank you, Rajeev sir. So basically just extending on the same question, in terms of competition, would you say that this work which you have done on the thermal side has put you ahead of the competition and that will continue to remain a competitive edge for us?
You know, when you come as a first mover and because of our advantage, because of Illichmann, where we invested and we took this up in 2016. This will remain for a time being. I don't see this competition going. Sooner or later, people do copy, do acquire. It will gonna give us one or two years of headwind, of free space to take this on, because it's not so easy. You may even get the technology, but how to manufacture, how to handle on the shop floor. We have paid that price in our building up in Illichmann. That kind of thought process is now available with us.
Thank you, Rajeev, sir. That is very helpful. My second question was on the order book side. So, you know, like, the management did make a statement, INR 260-280 order for FY 2022 and INR 450-500 order in FY 2023. The clarification I wanted is it the amount of new order executions or is it the new order bookings which was referred to?
These are executions. This is the realization from these accounts, what we have booked. End of that.
Thank you so much, sir. Another clarification was on Tata. The order book which we have is that lifetime order book of INR 150 or that yearly order of INR 50 . This is the overall order book for Tata or is it the new order wins?
It's actually a new order win. What is happening, Tata, we are doing two things. One is we are supplying their global facility which they have acquired. Secondly, you know, Tata Motors have gone into the concept where other OEMs are doing born EV. Tata Motors have adopted their EV. So like they have taken Nexon and other current car which is an ICE and made a EV. So they have gone head on in this. What we have proposed, they are importing these parts from China, these critical parts, and assembling them. So we are going to come in their phase one of localization to develop these very strategic thermal solutions for them. We have tagged those two orders as of now. They are two very critical models.
Understood, sir. Thank you. Thank you for that. Next, I had a question in terms of the underlying domestic industry. Is there any improvement which you are seeing in the production schedules? For the underlying 2-wheeler segment, for February or March, now that the COVID wave intensity is waning.
You know, as my colleague just said, we are seeing this demand is muted. You are much aware that how much OEMs have put up their capacity and what are the numbers. The reading is, it's both, it's a couple of issues which they are facing. As my colleagues have already highlighted, both on the demand side and on supply side, and the consumer is facing in the entry-level motorcycles, you know, their own value in terms of purchasing power. There is also, l et us not run away, but there is a demand disruption to an extent in the. With all this COVID on and off, a lot of service industry has got impacted, small restaurants, small businesses like that. There is an impact which we are seeing.
Understood, sir. Thank you. Mr. Gupta sir, on the input cost inflation pass-through, you know, now that the focus is on the monthly adjustments, given the further pass-throughs that are happening, would you see a better gross margin compared to the pre-levels?
Yes, sir. Definitely, because in the last quarter, when I had changed that, there was the impact of the cost inflation on the margins. We have started the negotiations with the OEM. We are seeing the impact in quarter three, and that's still not settled with all OEM. That is in process. Definitely, we are seeing better improvement in the margins in quarter four.
Sir, like, on Europe operations, can you help us understand the key factors helping profitability? The management highlighted that, now that the EV businesses are ramping up and initial phase, margins are on the higher side. Would that be the main reason, or would there be any tooling revenue which is also helping the margin?
See, it is all composite. It's not only one way. It's tooling revenues, it's operations getting streamlined on those parts. You know, if you make the same part every day, all the other costs which were there in terms of making those parts, plus of course the margin. Our team in Europe has done very good. We have a general manager from India, one of our best guys are running there, Mr. Kirtipal. We are very happy to see the progress our European team has done.
Thank you, Rajeev, sir. Sir, my last question. On the side of, you know, your technology partner, so just wanted to understand from you how the support is continuing, given the COVID times and travel is restricted. I mean, how is the support continuing on new product development, plant representation or, you know, they helping in terms of getting new orders. I mean, Enkei Corporation helping in terms of getting new orders?
Yeah. A good question. Sorry we have also missed out that. See, NK is our teacher. Just to give you. You know, before I answer that question, I'll give you an answer is, we have a new project with Toyota. With the COVID time, these people are not able to come from Japan. Every day, they are able to visit the shop floor virtually. They are able to discuss this development. Every day there's a call at 2:30 P.M. in our Indian team, Toyota India, Toyota Thailand, Toyota Japan is joining. There is a value addition from both sides. Discussion. Same thing is happening with NK. That meeting is fixed. One is on weekdays, which is typical, and one is on a quarterly basis. Both things continue. Mr.
Suzuki is very, very active personally in getting his updates every quarter. We have two meetings with him, so which is even more than what we were having when he was coming physically. Of course, we were having a virtual meeting. You know, this is a way I think the world has evolved. Not only Alicon, every other supplier is also involved in the same way.
Thank you. Thank you, Rajeev, sir. That was very helpful. I'll come back to the queue for more questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mr. Tushi from WhiteStone Financial Services . Please go ahead. Mr. Tushi from WhiteStone Wealth Management, your line has been unmuted. We would request you to kindly unmute from your end and go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. My question, you know, you mentioned about the EBITDA margin that this quarter it was around 12%, and as a percentage of sales it will look lesser because of the increase in the alloy prices since the denominator has increased. At the same time, you also mentioned-
that, you know, margins will be 14%-15% very soon. Even at this high alloy prices, you expect that margins can come back to 14%-15%?
Yes.
Okay. That's it from my side. Thanks.
Hello.
Thank you. The next question from the line of Karthik Keyan from Surya Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning to everyone. I had a couple of questions. One is the order book that you spoke about, the INR 3,050 of new orders.
Yes.
Which is not adjusted for, inflation, I assume. Is that correct?
Yes.
Right. As and when the, you know, actions come through, that is when the adjustment will be done.
Yes.
Okay. The second part is that of the order backlog. You said an incremental INR 200 roughly would be executed next year over the current year's base. Is that correct? I just making sure that I understood it correctly.
Right. Yes.
Right. The third thing is, what would be the current 2-wheeler contribution to your revenues? Because you gave a fairly, how shall I say, you know, not very optimistic commentary on the 2-wheeler segment. Can I know the current contribution of 2-wheelers to your revenues nine months previously?
Currently it's 30%.
I'm sorry, can I miss that number?
It's 50% currently.
Currently 50%.
Yes.
Last year it would be less, you know. In case of the Illichmann revenues being limited to a certain level and a lot of the production being transferred from India. In that context, I'm asking you this question. When a customer places an order, does he identify the location or does he identify the entity? How exactly does that work? Can you split the order backlog between Illichmann orders specifically and, you know, any thoughts on this would be helpful.
Basically, what Vimal was trying to explain that Illichmann is our European entity having European cost center.
Yes.
Certain parts cannot be delivered from India, keeping, you know, sometimes when you start in the EV, there are low volumes or there are special requirements.
Mm-hmm.
Illichmann plays that role of acquiring these new parts into its portfolio, which is a playbook. Basically for us, that is the second point. It's our technology center to bring all these new two segments, EV and the structural agnostic parts or technology agnostic parts knowledge, their capability to us in India. That is the role Illichmann plays. It is not that there is some part which is shifted from there. We offer those parts only from India. That is why the customer comes to us.
Okay. I was just making sure I understood that correctly. Thanks. Best wishes.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhi Mitra from Care Financial Advisory. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking the question. It's more than a question. I think I need your view on the long-term path of the company. The first section is basically on you have presently 70% of your revenue, and I think mostly it's coming from your legacy business. As you have already said that the legacy business part, mainly the 2-wheeler part will have some kind of a headwind ahead. How will you plan to execute your long-term projection of reaching INR 2,000 revenue by the next three or four years? If you can give me a view, I think I'll appreciate that more because that was my question.
Thank you. This we will divide into two parts. Over the last three years, we have been reducing our 2-wheeler share of business.
Mm-hmm.
It's not that suddenly we have. It's more than a 3-year strategy or 4 years we've been reducing our share. Secondly, what we are doing is we are going for higher machining content. Whereas there is a more value add which we are providing. Of course, 2-wheeler is high volume. It does not mean it is by the value addition also. Just to give you a context on the whole thing. Now I let Rajiv answer you on the other number.
Yes. Over here, as Mr. Sikand explained, we are focusing on increasing the share of business. Also, we are trying to penetrate to the existing accounts where we were not there. Like earlier we were supplying a cylinder head. Now we added a pipe or we added a headlamp where we were not there, which will increase my content per vehicle. Also we are now focusing to add new logos where we are not there. With this mix definitely we are going to increase our sales in this particular segment.
Okay. Actually, your EBITDA margin actually is almost the same or plus minus 10 percentage points over a quite some time now if I look into the trend. If you can give a comment on what is your roadmap on this specifically going ahead?
What we get when we see the EBITDA margins. Business structure change the business that has explained by Mr. Sikand and Rajiv Gupta, that they are reducing our exposure in the 2-wheeler market and moving towards other segments, so either CV or passenger vehicles, where we are having a complete machined part, so and increasing our value addition. There we can see the improvement in the EBITDA margins. That, as I explained, there is a major impact has come in due to the cost inflation in the past two quarters. Otherwise, if you take that impact and remove, definitely we are on the improvement side. Now we have taken two ways to counter this.
One is that to deal with the customers, going to the customers and asking for the absorptive cost and participate in this. Second is we have taken lot of actions in-house to reduce our cost. How to, you know, improve, improvement in our operations when like the operational cost we have to reduce and where we have seen cost increase in the logistics or negotiating with the customers and output from the people. Every area we are focusing, so from both the actions from customer as well as from in-house. That will help us to improve further in our margins the coming year.
I won't hold you on this. I just wanted to understand that what is your wish list of EBITDA margin when you reach say INR 2,004 of revenue?
That is really what we say that some forward-looking statements you are asking me to make.
No, I'm not holding you to that. I'm just asking for your wish list actually. What you wish to achieve?
Definitely, maybe 3% at least we are seeing that improvement for the next year minimum.
Okay. I'll just keep it at that. My last question, if I may allow. I think you. Hello?
One more dynamic which has happened, where you have all seen. 2018, 2019 was the first half where the industry was doing phenomenally well. Then started the IL&FS issue and the decline. Whereas fundamentally, structurally, the things were same. This itself, this was a changing period. I think not only us, all the everybody has faced this challenge and is evolving from here. From this 2018, 2019, you know, the base of the first half was the base where we were growing also at 30%. I. This is a very something structurally which we have watched that, and it is not something which has happened. It has started from there and where we have come today.
Thereafter, subsequently, we got hit by these. I thought last year corona was a very tough year, having worked in this industry for more than 30 years directly. I think this year has been even more enjoyable, let's put it this way, for everybody. You know, all the things coming at the same time, including the EV overhang in the mind of the consumer, plus the fuel prices, plus the other things which is affecting the purchasing power. It also gives you insight that what the team can perform under these challenging circumstances.
Yeah, absolutely. I think I really appreciate your effort of maintaining at least that bottom line and top line in spite of the perfect storm which has been faced by the industry the last few years. My last question actually is on again a view actually I'm looking for. You are rightly as a key point in your presentation that you've aligned with end-to-end customer and you have that many customers with small scale per customer kind of revenue of INR 10 , INR 15, INR 20 if I understood correctly. As you know, over a period of time, the TV market will also be consolidated and there will be five, six or 10 players who will be in the market like any other industry.
Like in internet, we have seen so many companies, but ultimately it has boiled down to few. How are you placed to really scale up with somebody when absolutely that guy actually destabilize and become the leader throwing out others? Like Arrival you were saying that is a startup, right? We don't know whether what will happen to this company few years down the line. So
Yeah. Let me give you know, a lot of EV companies where we are giving. We also know maybe there is a 30%-40% down, but some more will come. This should not be forgotten by everybody because today somebody is saying I want to be the Sheffield in the hub. Arrival is coming with that kind of. It's run by a Russian billionaire and he was a minister and he sits on a lot of oil assets. This is a foray into this. There will be companies down, up. We have to secure ourselves. This is one point. We have a policy wherein what we want from a customer's turnover must not go beyond a point.
We have our own norm, and these norms we review very clearly each quarter. We are in fact, when we started way back five years back, we were on a higher, and each year we keep on bringing this norm down per customer so that our risk is we are de-risked to an extent. Of course, as we will grow globally, which is also what we want to do, our global business, so that is also another way of de-risking ourselves. Besides the 4-wheeler and the other industry which we have said.
Some of these builds up really fast. Will you be able to scale up with them as and when possible?
Yeah. Scale up and down is part of the industry. It is not, it's, you know, it is a value chain and, the chain is the weakest will break the link. If he has to scale up, there is also testing costs, there is also testing times because homologation times, whether it is India or anywhere in the world. In automotive, it does not mean scale up means it's suddenly changing. Even if it is very fast, the fastest we saw the scale up was in 2018, 2019, the first half, where, you know, everybody went to the peak numbers.
Mm-hmm.
Those kind of things you are able to manage.
Okay, sir. Thank you. Thank you. These are my questions. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you. I hope we have been able to answer all your questions satisfactorily. Should you need any further clarifications or would like to know more about the company, please feel free to contact our team or CDR India. Thank you once again for taking the time to join us on this call and we look forward to interacting next quarter. Thank you very much.
Thank you. On behalf of , Alicon Castalloy Limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.