Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 and FY25 Earnings Conference Call of Cyient Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Krishna Bodanapu, Executive Vice Chairman and Managing Director. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you very much, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Cyient Limited's Earnings Call for the Fourth Quarter of Financial Year 2025. I'm Krishna Bodanapu, Executive Vice Chairman and Managing Director, and present with me on this call are Mr. Sukamal Banerjee, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Prabhakar Atla, President and Chief Financial Officer. I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's discussions may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. A detailed statement in this regard is available on our investor website, which has been emailed to you, and is also posted on our corporate website. This call will be accompanied by an earnings call presentation, the details of which have already been shared with you. As we delve into the highlights for the quarter, I will first share a few brief updates with you.
Q4, as you would have seen, the numbers were a tad bit lower than what we had anticipated. I just quickly want to provide some color on this. The quarter has started off quite well. We were quite confident of a reasonable quarter. The good news still continues that a lot of the deals that we have won continue to be in a ramp-up phase. A lot of the existing customers are doing quite well, which is also reflected in the growth of the top 10 and the top 20 customers. Having said that, we did have a bit of a bump in the third month, which is March. March was softer than what we anticipated, given some of the global uncertainties that are going on. Excuse me. Given some of the global uncertainties that are going on, we do not see any significant challenge because of this.
Our customers still are very committed to their programs. The programs that have been awarded will continue to start during the course of the next few months. What that has done is put a little bit of a kink in our Q4 numbers and will also lead to a softer start to the quarter in Q1. Again, I want to assure you, and Sukamal will talk about the details, but I just want to assure you that there is nothing that is of significant concern, and we are very, very confident that the strength of relationship with our customers and the quality of business is as good as it has always been. I just wanted to address that issue upfront on the Q4 numbers, given that it was a tad bit lower than what we had originally anticipated.
Also, I do want to take a minute, given that this is the end of the year, to highlight the strength of the group on three vectors or three parameters. The first aspect is that the group revenue momentum is there. We have delivered the highest revenue ever for the company, and the revenue has doubled in the last seven years and has grown three times in the last 12 years. There is this new piece of significant momentum, and this is a platform which I'm sure we can grow or continue to grow on. Also, with the choices that we've made, I'm very proud to say that we have a very balanced portfolio along three parameters. The first, as you know, is DET, or the Engineering Services business, or the Traditional Engineering Services business, which, as you know, is now evolving into Digital Engineering Technology.
The second vector is the semiconductor business, Cyient Semiconductor Private Limited, which has been spun off, and we've seen tremendous interest in terms of what our customers want to do and also what our potential customers want to do with their turnkey ASIC projects and the requirements for semiconductor design. The third axis, of course, is the DLM business, or the Design-Led Manufacturing business, which continues to do well, and you may have seen that business grew about 27% year-on-year last year. The first thing I want to—or the second thing I want to highlight after the growth momentum is the fact that we have a well-diversified business around three vectors. The third element I do also want to highlight is, even within the DET business, the diversification and the portfolio are working out quite well.
We are not dependent on any single industry, any single geography, any single capability. I believe we've built a good set of capabilities, and I believe and, the reason why I wanted to take a minute to highlight this is, as we transition to Sukamal Banerjee as the CEO, I believe he has a tremendous platform to grow the business, especially as it relates to the DET part of the business, and I wanted to quickly highlight that as we go forward. I also want to give you an update on the semiconductor business. As you know, we got the permission, or we got the approval from the Board, to spin off the semiconductor business as a different entity. We've appointed Suman Narayan as the CEO of Cyient Semiconductors. Suman is an accomplished professional in the semiconductor industry.
He comes with a proven and tremendous track record of managing large organizations and scaling businesses. His expertise is in the semiconductor industry, and I'm quite confident with Suman's leadership that business will grow, and that, like I said, we're seeing tremendous interest from our customers and, more importantly, from our potential customers in terms of what they want to do with us. Also, I do want to highlight two key wins, and the reason why I want to highlight them is they are in very interesting areas and growth areas. The first is, I want to say we're very proud to have received a very large order for the engineering and of the first-of-its-kind green hydrogen production project, which will be used for marine transportation.
The project is called Bodø, represents a major step in Norway's renewable energy ambition, and essentially, this is the generation of energy for the ferries that go between Norwegian islands. The project win in a critical sector like hydrogen power is a testament to our very strong expertise, and now we're very confident that we will see that the growth momentum that we have in our energy business will continue. I also want to highlight the alliance with Micware Navigations in the mobility space. This partnership will deliver some very interesting solutions for intelligent mobility focused on safe, sustainable, smart transportation systems.
I wanted to highlight this because this is in the area of intelligent mobility, which is a growth area, and again, when Sukamal shares, or between Sukamal and Prabhakar, we share the results, you will see that the automotive sector has shown good growth for us and has continued momentum. I want to also now take a moment to welcome Sukamal Banerjee. As you know, as I'm sure you know, Sukamal joined us as the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of Cyient about six weeks ago. This is the first time that we're formally introducing him to our investors, so I just will first say we're very, very—or at least I'm very, very excited to have Sukamal on board.
I think Sukamal comes at a very interesting point where the base business is positioned very well, but as you know, we're also looking at how we can accelerate growth through the convergence of technology, through the convergence of technology and engineering, and this is something that Sukamal has done and has done it at a significant scale earlier. Many of you know Sukamal. Sukamal is an accomplished professional and an acknowledged leader in our sector. He spent much of his career with HCL Technologies, finally in the role of a Corporate Vice President, responsible for the engineering business, and most recently, he was the CEO and a Member of the Board of Xoriant, which is a leading engineering company.
As we strengthen our core offerings and build technology-led intelligence solutions, I think Sukamal's experience will be a tremendous asset in transformation and in accelerating this phase of the growth. With that, I will, once again, take this opportunity to welcome Sukamal to Cyient. Like I said, we, as an organization, are very, very excited that we have a leader who will lead us through this journey of acceleration and transformation, and hand it over to Sukamal for his perspective of where things stand and how he's going to take the business forward.
Thank you, Krishna. Thanks for those kind words. Firstly, I would want to thank Cyient's Board to assist me with this journey for Cyient on the go-forward basis. I am personally very excited and honored to get this opportunity. Just to give a perspective, as Krishna mentioned, for the last first six odd weeks, my initial weeks have been spent traveling across four continents, meeting 1000+ of our employees, as well as quite a few of our key customers, almost 100 of them. If I have to summarize my takeaways, firstly, it is extremely impressive to see the quality of our customers, not just in terms of who they are as an organization, but also the partnership and their care for their partnership with Cyient over the years.
Some almost 30 years, some 20 years, some 15 years, and their commitment to continue to work with Cyient going forward. I'm equally impressed with the quality of the engineering talent that Cyient possesses and the passion of this team to make it successful from a company perspective. Not to mention, like Krishna highlighted with a couple of examples, deep knowledge in the vertical markets that we operate in, which, again, is of significance as we build for the future. However, I will acknowledge that there is some good amount of work to be done in the near future from an execution perspective, and that is going to be important for us to make sure that we make it happen. I also want to add that this is something which has already started in all earnest over the last five, six weeks.
So, I would like to first start by sharing that we will be stopping guidance for now. Given the current macro environment, we believe it is prudent to utilize FY 2026 to build strength, predictability, and stability across our portfolio. We will be working and have already started working on reassessment of some of the areas of work and bring focus into the same. We will make sure that we are harnessing the investment which has happened into the technology area as Krishna highlighted and making sure that these bets on digital and AI play out and become an engine of growth for us. Of course, to re-energize the organization to make sure that we are aligned for the road ahead. This should provide us a good platform to build our organization for medium and long-term growth.
Of course, in that vein, I'll let you now share a few updates. Firstly, we have been working on boosting our leadership team, and I'm delighted to share that we welcome K. Prabhakaran to the Cyient family. He joins us as a Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for our DET business. KAP, as we fondly call him, is an engineering leader with a tenured career at Honeywell across aerospace, industrial process, and other product areas where he has worked both on product development, technology adoption, as well as digitalization of these products and services.
He'll be a great asset to us as we move towards our journey, and as Krishna mentioned, the integration of our foundational engineering work with the new generation of technologies and the emerging technologies, and how do we make sure that we are driving these assets across product plants and networks, both in the physical and the digital domain. We also took a decision to break up sustainability vertical into its constituents, which are utilities, energy, and mining and minerals. This allows us to be agile to respond to each sector. While there is a good amount of common leverage in these industries, we believe, given the current times, it is important that we have empowered leadership close to the customer, and they essentially are reacting and acting in conjunction with these different industry subsegments and harnessing that for growth.
Our reporting formats going forward in FY 2026 will be aligned accordingly to reflect this change from next quarter onwards. We have also taken a very important step, and we are already seeing the results for it, which is focused on creating a GCC-focused BU. We have a leader who is focused on making sure that we can engage effectively and in the manner that GCCs in India expect from an organization like Cyient, and I'm sure we'll talk more about it as we go along and share our data points about the success we are seeing in this particular area. We have also started working on, as I said, building back our talents, and one of the key areas of focus that we have done from that perspective is to bring back successful tenured employees of Cyient who had left us in the near past.
One of them I would want to call out, Beatrice Lippus. She joined us back in Germany, and she will be leading our energy business going forward, which also includes the team which has come from the Citec acquisition a few years back. With those initial remarks, let me just say that we are working very hard over the next few months to create a comprehensive go-forward plan while we work on these tactical changes and realignments, which will make sure that we improve performance in terms of outcomes at the earliest, and more importantly, make it stable and predictable. With that, let me hand the floor over to our CFO, Prabhakar Atla. Over to you, Prabhakar.
Thank you, Sukamal. Hello everyone. Thank you very much for your time today and for your kind participation in the call today. Before we proceed with the financials, a quick comment on the nomenclature. The nomenclature and segments under which we will report our group performance today will remain the same as with the previous quarters, i.e., DET, DLM, and others. The focus of this call will remain DET segment, which also includes our semiconductor business, and therefore, all metrics are like to like to the previous quarters. Given that this is the end of the fiscal year, we will also present two sets of data, one for the quarter ending March 2025, which essentially is Q4 FY2025, and the other for full year FY2025. Therefore, please bear with me as the commentary for this call will be a bit broader than in the previous calls.
The Q4 FY2025 dollar revenue for DET today is $170 million, a quarter-on-quarter degrowth of 1.9% in constant currency, and a year-on-year degrowth of 3.4% in constant currency. In Indian Rupee terms, this revenue today is INR 1,472 crore, with a quarter-on-quarter degrowth of 0.5% and a year-on-year degrowth of 1.2%. This Q4 revenue was lower than the previous expectations given the rapidly evolving macro situation, which impacted the revenue portfolio and profile, especially in the last two months of the quarter. The DET EBIT margin for Q4 FY2025 today is 13%, down by 48 basis points quarter on quarter.
Despite the revenue degrowth, we were able to mitigate the impact on margins due to tight operational control and focus on execution efficiency, and in part due to the early benefits from the second phase of the cost optimization exercise, which we embarked already at the end of Q3 of FY2025.
The Q4 FY 2025 PAT for DET today is INR 163 crore, translating into a 32% growth quarter on quarter and a degrowth of 6% year on year. This also translates into an EPS of INR 14.81 for Cyient DET for the quarter. The DET FCF for Q4 FY 2025 today is INR 215 crore, one of our best quarters, resulting in an FCF-to-PAT conversion of 132%. In the following chart, you'll also see that our full year FCF has also significantly improved year on year.
In terms of the full year commentary for DET, the DET FY 2025 full year dollar revenue today is $687.7 million, a year on year degrowth of 3% in constant currency, and in Rupee terms, this revenue today is INR 5,816 crore, with a year on year degrowth of 1.6%. The EBIT margin for FY 2025 today is 13.5%, down by 261 basis points year on year.
This drop was primarily due to the momentum revenue, partially mitigated by cost optimization and efficiency measures during the year. We've also chosen to continue to invest in sales and technology development through the year to support our growth strategy. The DET FY2025 PAT stands at INR 605 crore, translating into a degrowth of 12.2% year on year. The translation of EBIT to PAT this year is much better than what we had in the previous year since we had significant improvement in items below EBIT. The DET FY2025 free cash flow today is INR 800 crore , our best ever, with an improvement of INR 45 crore year on year, resulting from our continued focus on cash generation. Moving on to the group numbers, the group numbers are a combination of all three segments we have, including Cyient DLM.
As regards to full year numbers for the group, in Rupee terms, the revenue for group stands at INR 7,360 crore at a growth of 3% year on year. This is the highest ever revenue for the group, and Krishna had made a comment on that already. The group PAT stood at INR 622 crore, representing a degrowth of 15.4% year on year, and the FCF at INR 688 crore has also improved significantly by 6% year on year. On reflection of FY 2025 performance for DET, we believe that we have three significant takeaways for us. The first obvious takeaway is that DET revenue and EBIT were below the previously guided views and expectations.
With a strong FY 2024 with 12.6% revenue growth and 31% earnings growth year on year, and with a soft FY 2025 to follow, Sukamal and Krishna had provided their views already on what we see ahead of us in terms of growth and potential. The second takeaway we have is that our cost control and efficiency improvement playbook has been very effective in managing the impact of revenue movements on EBIT. The third key takeaway we have is that our focus on cash conversion and cash management has worked very well for us. We have strengthened our cash balance and reduced our debt exposure significantly in this year. As you know, at the end of FY 2025, our cash position is the highest ever we've had at $157 million for DET, and the FCF for DET was INR 800 crore, up by INR 45 crore year on year.
At the same time, we've also cleared all our long-term debts within the year, essentially meaning that DET is now a long-term debt-free business. Therefore, as we exit FY 2025, we believe that we have an efficient, stable, and proven framework of cost and cash management, which we believe are critical to navigate the current uncertain macroeconomic scenario and to explore and exploit opportunities as we see them under the strong leadership of Sukamal. We're also very happy to announce a final dividend of INR 14 per share, INR 14 per share, which translates into a full year dividend of INR 26 per share. Lastly, as you're aware, as Krishna commented, we have recently concluded the carve-out of the subsidiary, CSPL, Cyient Semiconductor Private Limited, and as previously communicated, CSPL financials will be reported as a separate segment starting Q1 FY 2026 onward.
With this, I'd like to thank you again for your time and for your steer and support as we navigated a challenging FY25, and I will now hand over the call back to the moderator to initiate the Q&A.
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 the touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Karan Uppal from Phillip Capital India. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. A couple of questions on the aerospace vertical. So, one of our large customers in aerospace has given a profit warning due to the impact of tariffs, and also U.S. Airlines last month has given profit warnings due to weak travel demand. How is it impacting the aerospace, especially on the MRO side? That's the first question.
I think that's a very good question. I think right now we're not seeing any significant impact on the aerospace side. I think we will start to see some of that as we go forward, but at least as we see, because a lot of the work that we do that relates to MRO is based on flying hours. The flying hours have not really decreased very significantly. In that sense, the impact is quite minimal at the moment.
Okay. Secondly, on the green hydrogen deal, if you can comment, what is the size of the deal and whether it will move the needle for the sustainability vertical, and has it already ramped up or is it expected to ramp up in the next couple of quarters?
I think we haven't really announced the size of the deal, but I'll say it is meaningful. It does have an impact on the energy vertical. Also, if I may just clarify to what Sukamal said, the sustainability vertical going forward will speak about it in three pieces, which is minerals and mining, energy, and utilities and geospatial, because that's the more meaningful way of looking at that business. Anyway, with that caveat, it will be significant for the energy business, and the ramp-up is in the process of happening, and we're already seeing some—we're seeing the first of the revenues that we will continue to see that over the quarters. But it is a meaningful deal for the overall business, not just for sustainability or for—sorry, for energy.
Okay. Last question, Krishna, is on the pipeline. In the last couple of months, due to change in the macro, have you seen any impact on the pipeline? Is it taking more time to close deals? Within the pipeline, which segments are you seeing more traction?
I'll just—Sukamal, when you speak.
Yeah, sure. In terms of, has it modified our pipeline or changed our pipeline? The answer would be no, because stress also causes a change in opportunity to create pipeline of a different nature. But has it caused or created a pause in decision-making? The answer is yes.
Okay. Thanks. [audio distortion]
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sandeep Shah from Equirus. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations, Sukamal. The first question to you, sir, I think Cyient always had a very great quality of client as well as good capability, but somehow the growth volatility on an organic basis, year over year has not been so great, and there is an issue in terms of predictability of the growth at the start of the year and what we deliver at the end of the year. How do you see this situation, and what are the corrective steps you are looking to repair this side of the predictability?
Sure. Thanks for the question. I think, yes, there is, as I mentioned in my commentary also, that there is some near-term work to be done with regards to execution, and this is definitely one of those areas of focus. I think it's much more difficult to build client base and competency and easier, I'm not saying it's easy, to build a business rhythm both from a sales and delivery perspective. It is something which we will be working on together to make sure that, given the current environment, it is just a way the number goes, that we are able to provide that stability and predictability in terms of what our business outlook looks like. So, to answer your question, it is an area of work that has been identified, and work is in progress as we speak.
Okay. You are looking to restructure some of the leadership team, or do you believe there won't be major overhaul in terms of the leadership? It would be more to do with the increased focus on execution and periodic review?
Hello? Can you hear us?
I can hear you. You can hear me?
Can you hear me? Operator, are we on the call?
Yes, sir. We can hear you. Are you able to hear us?
Sukamal, I dropped off.
Hello?
Yes, can you hear us?
I can hear you, sir.
You are audible.
Okay. Perfect.
Am I audible, madam?
Yes, sir.
Now you are. Yes.
Please go ahead.
Okay. Okay. In terms of the overhaul and restructuring, sir, are you expecting some change in leadership or churning of portfolio needs to happen, or it's more an execution focus without any major overhaul in the growth strategy ahead?
I think first and foremost, it's a focus on execution. I would reserve comments at this point in time about any future changes that we may have to do. But at the same time, there are areas of focus that we need to bring in which the organization doesn't have. If I may call out one of them, like partnerships and ecosystems. There will be leadership brought in, new leadership brought in to address some of these areas which need attention. But in terms of right now, what we are focusing on is to focus on execution.
And in parallel, we are working on making sure that we can define a strategic roadmap which we can work on for the next two to three years once it's in place.
Okay. Krishna sir, just to follow up, in terms of your opening remark, you called out that the month of March has been a negative surprise. Is it fair to assume it will have a full quarter impact in the first quarter, and even first quarter, it could be flat or declining on a Q-on-Q? In that scenario, the full year positive growth or a flattish growth could be a daunting task. Is it a right way of looking at it?
I think in all fairness, there will be some of that impact that will be felt in Q1. I think, again, I just want to reiterate that it's not something that's very significant and a sustained impact. I think it was really a few projects that got pulled out or got put on hold to start execution or etc. I'll say there will be an impact on Q1. Again, if you pardon me, I will again reiterate that it's not a major or a massive impact. It is an impact. Having said that, I think to the point earlier also, we just want to be cautious on how we look at the year ahead.
I do not want to comment on the whole year at the moment, and that is why I think in all fairness, I should give Sukamal or we should give Sukamal the time to get a good grip on not just the business, but also how we do forecasting and how we do budgets in the business. In that context, I would say I just want to say, yes, there will be an impact in Q1, but not a significant or a crisis-level impact for sure. There will be a little bit of an impact. From a weird perspective, I would rather not comment because I would rather that Sukamal gets his handle on the operations. Again, no secret, our ability to forecast in the last year or so has been a bit of a challenge.
I do not want to forecast when I'm not confident that we've overcome that forecasting challenge. From a business perspective, if I look at what our clients are telling us, if I look at our pipeline, if I look at the confidence of the sales team, I'm not overly worried on how the year will turn out.
Okay. Just to follow up, can you give some commentary segment-wise or industry-wise in terms of DET demand entering FY 2026? Because tariffs may lead to a supply chain disruption in many of your verticals where you focus. Will it lead to delay in decision-making in many of the sectors? Can you brief in terms of the growth outlook across most of your industry segments? Second, on margin, Prabhakar sir, just wanted to understand last time you were saying by Q4 of FY 2026, we can reach back to closer to 16% kind of a margin which we want to sustain. Whether that assumption still remains true or it has been postponed further because of the macroeconomic issues?
I'll take the first part, which is in terms of subsegment-wise momentum. We definitely have some of the areas which have grown healthily in the last year.
I'll call out healthcare as one of them. Definitely, it's an area where we have seen momentum. We have seen growth in some of the other segments as well, like automotive, like Krishna mentioned some time back. In terms of going into FY 2026, we have a few segments which are coming in with momentum. However, I would like to add that this is a time where there is a degree of uncertainty, and will it play out exactly the same way in terms of how we close FY 2025 into FY 2026? While we are reasonably confident, but we cannot say for sure. It will need some work and some more time for us to be able to talk specifically about segments and their growth. Prabhakar, go ahead.
See, on the question of margin, three things I'll say. The first is part of my repetition of what I said. The cost management framework that we had was very effective for us in FY25 and also in FY24, as you know. The second thing I'll say is that we intend to continue with wage hikes to our colleagues and associates, which is what we will do in FY26. The third thing I'll say is that we'll be a lot more prudent and focused on investments we will make in the current year towards outcomes. Now, what these three things will mean for us in FY26 in the context of how Q4 has played out is this: that previously, we said that we will touch 16% sometime in the next 12 months, what we said in January.
We will have to recalibrate this to touching and even staying steady at 15% over the next 24 months. This is the current outlook, but as we navigate the following quarters, we will see what further updates and upgrades we can make to the margin trajectory.
Is it fair to assume now we are looking at 15% as a margin target over the next 24 months versus 16% earlier?
All we are saying is this: that these three things, we will manage the cost, the wage hikes, and the investment. We will look at a 24-month time frame to stabilize the margin trajectory at a number that is appropriate for the growth that we will deliver.
Okay. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Moez Chandani from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to discuss on the connectivity and the new growth areas because both of them have seen a sharp decline this quarter. Was that also just largely the macro impact in the latter part of the quarter, or was there something that you saw throughout the entirety of Q4? Has there been any incremental improvement here in the first three, four weeks of the new quarter?
Okay. I think in terms of connectivity and new growth area, yes, I think we saw broad-based uncertainty in the month of March. There is an impact for sure. In terms of the first three, four weeks, it is potty at this point in time to call out specific trends. That is one of the reasons I said earlier we're going to stop guidance for the time being. I think the way we should think about it is that what Krishna already mentioned, that there are challenges which are rare in sports and tactical, which does impact numbers. In an environment where demand is there, but it's not robust demand, obviously, it's having impact on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
Sure. Understood.
Let me also add to this to what Sukamal said. Out of the six large deals we won in Q4, two were from aerospace and two were in communications.
Sure. Sure. Understood. I also see a very strong cash balance right now, which is close to about INR 1300 crore. What are the plans for this? Is it largely for the semiconductor business, or are there any other plans that you also have with this cash balance? Also, with very strong cash generation, I would think you would continue adding to this cash balance in the near future as well.
I'd say that there are two elements to it. One is, of course, we want to make sure that we continue the healthy cash generation that's been even in some difficult times in the past. We've always generated cash as a business, and we will continue to focus on that. To your point, yes, we will. I see that the cash piece will continue to be quite strong. As you know, we also did a lot of work in terms of reducing our CapEx spend, which at one point was almost 3% of our revenue. We'll continue to generate good, strong cash. There are two elements. One, of course, is on the usage of cash. One, of course, is the dividends that we've paid out. We understand there's an obligation on our payback to the shareholders, and that has happened.
The Board also has taken a decision to review the dividend policy to make sure that we are investing and have enough cash available to support growth, which we will come back with when that happens. More importantly, I will say one is the semiconductor business, and two is, I think, at least in the last six to eight weeks, in a lot of conversations with Sukamal, I feel very confident that we now have a good handle on what are the elements of our portfolio that have to be enhanced and where an inorganic play could come in to enhance these elements of our portfolio. As you know, our customers respect us for the capability that we have built in engineering in the domain and so on and so forth. Yet, there are some gaps in terms of our competence on technology, especially some of the emerging technologies.
We will continue to look at ways to enhance our portfolio using M&A, and the use of the cash will also be for that. Of course, it's before the question on M&A, I'll just say, as with M&A, as you know, it's too early to talk about any specifics, and the only right time to talk about a specific M&A is when it happens. I would just say that we are very, very focused on, again, it's a great opportunity to enhance our portfolio and plug in some gaps that we have in our portfolio, which we will be looking for.
Sure. All right. Thank you.
Of course, the semiconductor business will also require cash. Like I said, we're seeing some very, very strong inbound interest from customers. We will also put that to good use.
Got it. And Sukamal also mentioned something about increasing your focus on GCCs. Can I get a sense or any more details in terms of what we're doing in terms of working with the GCCs and what's the revenue and margin profile of some of these projects that we're doing?
Sure. That's a very good question. I think, first and foremost, we now have a local leader, big part of India, focused on GCC, somebody who comes with established credentials in the market, working with GCCs for a period of time and which extends to a couple of decades. Somebody who understands the market very well, who understands the needs of the market very well. We have aligned many of our accounts, which are largely GCC-centric, to his business unit and making sure that it operates as an independent business unit, given that if not 100%, close to 100% of the revenues are actually being generated from the GCCs and decision-making in the GCCs. In terms of margin, when it comes to our EBIT, we would ensure that the way we are operating and managing this business, that our EBIT does not get diluted because of this.
There might be different mechanisms in terms of how we price and hence what gross margin we generate. But we definitely will work towards making sure that the overheads that we invest into this business are definitely significantly lower than the overheads we have to do in terms of investment from a geography-based business. We will ensure that EBIT is not diluted from this business.
All right. Understood. Thank you and best of luck.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sulabh Govila from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is more of a clarification. Krishna, just wanted to check. Maybe I could not hear it correctly. But in the presentation, we mentioned that we expect the challenges or the uncertainties to last at least through the first half of FY 2026. While in the comments that were made in the opening remarks, I heard that it is only 1 Q. Just wanted to check what should we consider?
I think it's prudent to start with 1 . I think it's too early right now. As you know, with uncertainty, the nature of uncertainty is hard to predict. I'd say I definitely say one Q, we do have some challenges and uncertainties. Again, nothing to the level that we should be very concerned about. Yeah, the world is what it is, and we just need to work through. I'd say we'll start with, or I would imagine that through the quarter, things will stabilize, at least from a macro perspective. From a company perspective, I'm not too worried about. I'd say it's more a Q1 issue to start with. If that continues, we'll come back and let you know.
Okay. Okay. Understood. The second is that this process of stopping the guidance, I just wanted to get clarity. Is this more temporary in nature, or is this going to be a permanent phenomenon from here on? If it's temporary, then how much time should we expect that process to get back?
Yeah. Hi. The guidance stopping we are doing is temporary. We will come back as to when we are going to release that guidance.
If I may just comment on that from a Board perspective, I think the Board wanted to make sure that Sukamal has enough time before he can really comment. More than comment, I'd say commit on the business. I think in all fairness, we just need a little bit of time to bring that stability on how Sukamal is able to understand and articulate the nuances of our business. Again, we're coming off of a place where we did not have the greatest or we do not have the greatest track record in terms of giving guidance. Therefore, we thought it was best, or the Board, sorry, I'll say. This was something that the Board also strongly recommended to us, to Sukamal, Prabhakar, and me.
I think we just want to step back, just get a step back so Sukamal gets a complete handle so we can be a lot more sharp and focused on the guidance or the range.
Understood. Very clear.And then, when I look at the numbers for Q4, the segmental performance, both from a vertical standpoint and geography, while from a vertical standpoint, we've degrown in most of the verticals except sustainability. From a geographical standpoint, most of the decline has come in from Asia. Just trying to understand what's the nuances here, just some clarity there would be very helpful.
Prabhakar, do you?
Sulabh, structurally, what you say is right. The impact was felt of the macro across all geographies. We were expecting to grow a lot more in North America than what you've seen in the current numbers. That's how it played out. Some part of the change in APAC was structural to that particular quarter. Otherwise, the growth in North America was muted compared to what we thought it could be.
Understood. Understood. If I could also check, from a top client profile perspective, top five clients particularly, are you seeing any sort of client-specific issue that you would want to highlight at this point in time?
Sulabh, not at this point in time. Actually, if any, the top five customers grew by 4.5% year-on-year growth, and the top 10 clients grew by about 9% year-on-year growth. If any, this represents a very strong platform for, like Krishna spoke before and Sukamal later, that the client confidence, especially in top clients, remains the same way it is in what we do for them and what they expect us to do in the future.
Currently, there is no impact on top five clients that you expect in the coming quarters?
The impact was broad-based across the spectrum. All I'm saying is, on a full-year basis, we still had a strong growth in top five and top 10 clients for last year.
I think just to add to that, I don't see that there's any structural change regarding, especially in the last six weeks. We spoke to all of the top five as a part of introducing Sukamal. I think it's quite clear that there isn't a structural change. I think what has happened is, in May, with all the confusion, a lot of things got side-railed or side-tracked. I think, in general, at least I feel quite confident having that connotation along with Sukamal that we are in a very strong place with all the five.
To further quantify that, of the six large deals, we have one. Three came from our top 10 clients in Q4.
Understood. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shradha from Asian Markets Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Welcome, Sukamal. And thanks for taking my question. You indicated that 1 Q would be soft, but generally, we see seasonality of weakness in sustainability because of holiday in Europe. Do you expect that seasonality to play out in this year as well? Given that, do you expect 2Q to be equally weak as versus 1 Q?
Yeah. I think it's too early to talk about Q2. You are right that there is a European holiday which plays into our numbers for Q2. We have to work now to make sure that we work on mitigating it to the extent possible. I would say that let's stay with the commentary that Krishna has already mentioned about Q1. Given the decision we have taken on stopping guidance, I think we probably should leave it where we have left, I mean, mentioned so far in terms of our commentary.
Right. Right. On connectivity, I understand that macros have changed quite a bit in the last few weeks. During the 3Q earnings call, we had suggested that we expect connectivity to grow in the second half of 2026 based on the order book that you had in hand, and the execution of that was planned for the second half. Do you expect any dead spells or delay in execution of those deals that have already been awarded to communications for today?
I think we don't see any major change in what our customers are looking at. I think the deals that have been awarded, yeah, there have been some timeline issues or timing issues. In general, we see that the deals that have been awarded, etc., are continuing. I think we also see a good amount of fiber that will continue to be designed and rolled out, at least for the next couple of years. They might have a timing issue here and there, but I don't see the Sukamal with.
To give some color, especially with regards to March as well as to an extent Q1, we were renewing our contract with one of our major customers in connectivity, which has happened. During that process, there was definitely some slowdown of business award, new business being awarded. I think we are over that now with the contract being signed in April.
If I heard it right, you mentioned that you are cutting down on the dividend payout. Any number that you would be looking at for the new dividend payout policy?
No, no. I just want to say, for right now, we've rolled with the policy. The Board will review that during the course of the year. Again, that will only happen in conjunction with our ability to invest and grow. It is a bit of a we first need to also understand that side of the equation because, like I mentioned earlier, I mean, one of the great things about our business is we are a very, very solid cash-generating business. Any adjustment, I'd say, excuse me, any adjustment that we will make to dividend will really be so that we see an opportunity immediately to invest that cash. Otherwise, we would n't do that. My point is, the Board is very supportive of all initiatives, organic and inorganic. The Board is also very cognizant that they will make available to us the capital to make the investments.
But any adjustment to the dividend policy will only happen when those investments are made.
Got it. Thank you. Thanks, Krishna. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Krishna Bodanapu for closing comments.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being here this afternoon with us. I understand that today is a busy day, so I really greatly appreciate you taking the time to speak to us. As I said, while Q4 was a bit of a challenging quarter towards the end and, of course, a tad lower than what we had originally anticipated, I just want to reiterate that the business continues to be very strong. I am also very proud and happy and very, very eagerly anticipating Sukamal's role as the CEO of Cyient because, as you've already heard from him, Sukamal has a great understanding of the business, has a great understanding of the technology business and the engineering business.
More importantly, I'm very confident that Sukamal has a good understanding of some of the challenges that Cyient faces that need to be addressed. More importantly, of the strength of the organization because we are still one of the largest engineering, one of the most highly regarded engineering and technology providers in the world. That is because we deliver a great service to our customers. I'm very confident that Sukamal will use that platform to significantly grow the business and significantly accelerate not just the strategy but also the numbers. It will take a little bit of time. Again, I do want to be very cognizant that it's not an issue of changing strategy or changing tact. It's really an issue of just executing more diligently. That means that the time is very short.
We just need a little bit of time, but that's not a huge amount of time in the grand scheme of things. I am confident where we are. I am also very confident that we will be back into a very strong growth mode in the coming quarters. I just want to make sure that we communicate the confidence that the leadership team, I, and the Board have in the business. Thank you very much for your support. If there's any specific questions, we're happy to answer them later. Thank you, and we will speak again next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Cyient Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.