Hello ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the STL's Q3 FY25 earnings conference call. My name is Chetan Wani, and I head investor relations at STL. We are joined by Ankit Agarwal, Managing Director, STL, and Tushar Shroff, Group CFO, STL, to walk us through the Q3 FY25 results and to answer any questions that you may have. Please note that all participant lines are in listen-only mode as of now, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. You can download a copy of the presentation from our website, that is www.stl.tech. Please note that this call is being recorded. Before we proceed with this call, I would like to add that some elements of today's presentation may be forward-looking in nature and must be viewed in relation to the risk pertaining to the business.
The safe harbor clauses indicated in the presentation also apply to this conference call. I now hand over the call to Ankit Agarwal for opening remarks. Over to you.
Thank you, Chetan. Good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our Q3 FY25 earnings conference call and wish everyone a fantastic 2025. As we advance to the end of FY25, directionally, our strategic priorities remain the same. In the optical networking business, our focus remains on driving growth by increasing market share in optical fiber cables and improving our connectivity attach rates. To achieve our goal of generating significant revenue from data center enterprise segments, we will accelerate the development of comprehensive data center product suites to tap the vast potential of this market. Additionally, we will sustain our efforts to drive technology and cost leadership in the optical domain. On the global services business, we will build capabilities and value-added services while optimizing the project mix to boost profitability. Concurrently, we will work towards completing the demerger of the services business.
On STL Digital, we aim to scale the business through strategic investments in new technology and domain capabilities while maintaining a complete focus on the profitability. STL has always endeavored to be a responsible leader in ensuring we have a connected and inclusive world. Through our various initiatives in education, women empowerment, and healthcare, we are very proud to share that we have positively impacted millions of lives since FY19. To highlight the achievement of some of our initiatives, we are proud to share that 13 students from our RoboEdge program proudly represented India recently at the prestigious Robotex International Championship in Estonia. The program has impacted over 5,000 students over 11 schools in Aurangabad and Silvassa, fostering innovation and excellence in STEM, education, and robotics.
Our flagship Jeewan Jyoti program, founded by Ms. Jyoti Agarwal has empowered more than 5,000 women artisans with vocational training and now showcasing their products under the Okhai brand. With a focus on sustainability, we have installed 4,523 kilowatts of solar panels across our plants, contributing to a significant reduction in our carbon footprint and advancing our renewable energy adoption goals. These installations not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also demonstrate our commitment to energy efficiency in manufacturing. Additionally, we actively collaborate with 26 Gram Panchayats on afforestation and water replenishment programs, planting thousands of trees and illuminating water bodies to support biodiversity, improve groundwater levels, and create resilient ecosystems.
Through a hybrid healthcare initiative, Swasthya Suraksha , we have delivered primary and tele health services to 26 lakh underserved individuals in rural Maharashtra. At STL, sustainability is at the core of everything we do, and we are firmly committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2030. Since FY19, we have diverted over 260,000 metric tons of waste from landfills and recycled over 930,000 metric cubes of water, reflecting our focus on resource efficiency. We have also partnered with Hygenco and adopted Green Hydrogen , and we are proud to be the world's first optical manufacturer certified for Zero Liquid Discharge and Zero Waste to Landfill. Our Eco-labelled products not only use 52% less energy but also extend network lifespan by almost 13 years, combining innovation with environmental care.
Aligned with 16 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, we proactively and positively impacted over 910,000 lives and earned over 100-plus ESG awards, proof of our unwavering commitment to build a sustainable and inclusive future. In the next few slides, we will highlight our optical networking business and our efforts towards becoming the top three players in optical connectivity business globally. Reflecting on the past quarter in the year 2024, CRU's latest estimates show some contraction in the global OFC demand through 2024, driven by reduced demand in China in particular. 2024 volumes are estimated to be the lowest in the last four years. Despite lower demand in recent quarters, we have seen steady fiber deployment and ongoing client commitments towards network expansion going forward.
Data center demand for cable is emerging as a key growth driver, and various analyst estimates assume a steady demand improvement from 2025 and a robust demand growth from the medium to long term. CRU projections indicate a steady increase in fiber optic cable demand, reaching 620 million fiber kilometers by 2028, with more than 4%-5% annual global growth and over 8.5% annual growth outside of China between 2024 and 2028. STL's key markets, North America and India, are expected to grow even faster.
North America's demand is projected to grow by almost 12% in 2025 and more than 14% till 2028, driven by both the BEAD Program as well as continued data center demand going forward. We also believe that inventory normalization and consistent deployments are steadily driving a market recovery. The surge in data center demand for optical products, fueled by generative AI, is set to accelerate further with projected 22% annual growth in global data center capacity between now and 2030. By then, 70% of total capacity is expected to cater to advanced AI workloads, highlighting the potential supply deficit in the future. One of the estimates suggests more than $2 billion CapEx in fiber-related infrastructure over the next decade. This presents a significant opportunity for companies across the data center value chain to address the capacity crunch.
In India, GPU-based server capacity in AI-driven data centers is expected to reach 5.2 lakh GPUs by 2026, and we believe that these CPU racks require significantly more fiber compared to regular data centers. STL's AI data center portfolio, a Make-in-India innovation, is tailored for GPU-dense data centers that require high bandwidth, low-latency AI data center requirements. Featuring high-density Celesta ribbon cables with IBR technology, advanced MPO panels, LC panels, patch panels, and copper connectivity systems, it ensures high bandwidth, low latency, as well as scalability. We are proud to report that 22% of this quarter's revenues came from our data center and enterprise suite products. We are focused on driving rapid product development and significant revenue growth from AI data centers and the enterprise ecosystem. Global investments in 5G networks, FTTx deployments, and cloud data centers continue to fuel strong demand for optical connectivity products.
In Q2 2024, CapEx among the top 10 telecom operators increased by 2.9% year-on-year, primarily driven by 5G fiber deployments and high-speed broadband expansion. Private players are allocating substantial resources to enhance 5G infrastructure, achieving widespread 5G coverage. The number of global 5G operators risen from 582 across 173 countries in Q4 2023 to more than 618 operators in 184 countries, and they expand the gigabit broadband access to both urban and rural areas. The growth is further supported by the finalization of 5G advanced standards in June 2024, which is accelerating its adoption. FTTx deployments globally are expected to grow by a CAGR of 7.1% from 2024 to 2029, with North America almost 14.6%, Middle East 11%, and Eastern Europe more than almost 19% driving this expansion.
North America is projected to become the largest FTTx market, with the U.S. targeting 100% FTTx coverage by 2029, backed by government initiatives such as the BEAD program. In Europe, the transition to full fiber broadband is gaining momentum due to copper switch-offs, with Portugal, Spain, and Sweden leading the way. As per FTTH Council Europe, at least 14 countries in Europe are in different stages of transitioning from copper network to fiber networks, which should enable the demand for optical products in these countries. In India, telecom giants Jio and Bharti are aggressively pursuing 5G-based fixed wireless and fiber-to-the-home services, bundling broadband with pay-TV offerings. These programs could lock a significant INR 11 billion-15 billion in annual revenue opportunity for them in India, underlining the immense potential of the fiber connectivity market in the region.
Over the past three decades, we have developed deep technology expertise across the optical fiber value chain, offering a seamless glass-to-gigabit experience. Our advanced solutions include industry-first innovations like India's first multi-core fiber, “Multiverse” , and the ultra-slim fibers with diameters of 180 and 160 microns, supported by a robust 740 patent base. This quarter, we achieved significant milestones led by our world-class product offerings. We obtained self-certification for our ‘Build America Buy America’ compliant optical products, strengthening our position to be a key supplier for the federally funded broadband infrastructure projects under the BEAD Program. Through our South Carolina manufacturing plant, we are collaborating with U.S. broadband providers to meet the rising demand of both federal and private broadband projects, including the BEAD initiatives. We achieved initial commercial success with first-order order win of a newly launched AI fiber optic sensing solution, Sensron.
The success of AI-first fiber optic sensing Sensoron opened a huge market opportunity for STL as well. We also continue to support India's progress in fixed wireless solutions by providing optical products and copper products to large telecom companies in India to enable enhanced connectivity across the country. Reflecting on the market share in optical connectivity attach rates, according to CRU global consumption data, we held an 8% market share in the optical cable market across the globe ex-China during Q3 FY25. We are constantly focused on increasing our market share across our focus geographies. For three consecutive quarters, we have sustained more than 20% optical connectivity attach rate, a testament to our product superiority and customer validation. We expect to build up further backed by strong funnel order book and growth across our customer segments. Now, let us look at the financial performance of the optical networking business.
As we reflect on the financial performance of the optical business, in line with our guidance, Q3 FY25 revenue stands at INR 924 crores, which shows healthy improvement on year-on-year basis. EBITDA for the quarter stands at INR 119 crores at 12.9% of the revenues. EBITDA margin reflects substantial improvement on year-on-year basis, driven by constant focus to drive cost leadership. As we have been sharing with our strategically located manufacturing units, completed capacity expansions, and well-executed CapEx cycle, aided by constant focus on optimizing our cost structure and expanding our data center product portfolio, we are well-positioned to capture significant market share as demand grows. Now, let us focus on our global services business. In the global services business, Q3 FY25 revenue stands at INR 289 crores.
Our selective order intake and execution focus has helped us achieve a Q3 FY25 EBITDA of INR 20 crores and EBITDA margin of 6.8%. As you may notice, the EBITDA margins have improved year-on-year and Q on Q basis despite reduction in revenues. This is attributed to our select project intake and strong execution focus. We continue to build our capability towards value-added services and system integration to improve our margins and reduce the fund involvement going forward. In our global services business, we made steady progress on key large-scale projects in this quarter. Notably, we secured the strategically significant 2,600 crore BharatNet Phase III project in Jammu and Kashmir. This project aligns with STL's commitment towards the nation building and expanding broadband connectivity, enhancing opportunities in education, healthcare, and economic development for the remote regions of our country.
Additionally, we continue to build a strong track record in large network deployments, having successfully executed projects like MahaNet in Maharashtra and T-Fiber in Telangana. With over 150,000 km of fiber laid across India, we are well-positioned to capitalize on any major programs involving nationwide fiber network rollout in the coming quarters. We are happy to share with you that we see very healthy order participation and funnel development for our global services business that should translate to a large order book in the future. Now, let us discuss our STL Digital business and its performance. In our STL Digital business, during Q3 FY25, we observed robust deal flow across geographies from marquee customers. We continue to acquire new global customers and added SAP and Oracle in our elite customer list during this quarter.
Another notable highlight, we successfully led Vedanta's digital transformation program across, through project RISE and SAP, spanning eight companies and serving 15,000 users globally. The capabilities and experience from such a program strongly position the STL Digital to undertake further large transformation opportunities in the future. Our growth is underpinned by a strong partnership ecosystem comprising 40-plus active technology partners. We are happy to share that with STL's Digital order book standing at a strong INR 451 crores at the end of the quarter. This, coupled with a healthy order pipeline, execution capabilities, and a strong leadership team, we are well-positioned to drive sustained future growth. In light with the expectations and despite a muted industry environment, we achieved Q3 FY25 revenues at INR 77 crores, which is a healthy improvement on a Q-on-Q basis.
Our focus on profitable growth is showing results as we achieved our first EBITDA-positive quarter in Q3 FY25. We are happy to share that STL Digital business EBITDA stands at INR 4 crores. We shall continue to stay focused and grow further in the coming quarters. I now hand over to Tushar to talk about the consolidated financials.
Thanks, Ankit. Good day, ladies and gentlemen. In line with our guidance, the consolidated Q3 FY25 revenue stands at INR 1,261 crores. The Q3 FY25 EBITDA stands at INR 133 crores, and EBITDA margin stands at 10.5%. For Q3 FY25, profit after tax loss stands at 23 crores. The quarter-on-quarter revenue decline is attributable to lower OFC volumes and lower revenue in GS business. Profit after tax losses are narrowing on a year-on-year basis. As we look at STL's nine-month FY25 performance, nine-month FY25 revenue stands at INR 3,892 crores, INR 3,892 crores. The EBITDA stands at INR 3,378 crores, and nine-month FY25 after tax loss stands at 83 crores.
In the last quarter, we witnessed a strong new order book addition with several large new orders and key contracts signed with prominent customers across the region. Notable wins include the new orders from a leading American client for OFC Supply, a major U.K. telecom operator for optical connectivity and fiber solutions. We also received the new orders for optical fiber cables and specialty cable products in Italy. Additionally, we secured the fiber supply contracts with major French customers. In digital business, we secured large long-term outsourcing contracts from industry leaders. Thanks to our global business and customer base, our revenue mix was well-diversified in Q3 FY25 as we reflect on our order book situation. Based on our strong new order book addition during the last quarter, despite the significant order descoping, our open order book stands at INR 9,050 crores, INR 9,050 crores as of Q3 FY25.
The order book is well-diversified across the customer segment and business verticals. We have provided the abridged version of our reported numbers for your review. The net debt of the business stands at INR 2,195 crores. Let us now discuss the update and the status of global service demerger. We are making steady progress on the demerger process. The shareholders and creditors of STL India approved the scheme of arrangement in a meeting held on July 10, 2024. Following this, the demerger petition was filed, admitted with NCLT during October 2024. The final hearing date is scheduled on 30 January 2025 with NCLT Mumbai Bench. The final approvals are expected in Q4 FY25, after which resulting companies are anticipated to be listed on stock exchanges.
However, the progress remains contingent on NCLT scheduling and hearing. In summary, our focus areas for the business are clearly defined as, In optical networking business, we aim to drive the technology and cost leadership. With the goal of becoming one of the top global top three, we will drive the sales in a focus market to expand our optical network business and close the volume gap. Our focus will remain on growing the optical connectivity business and increase the attach rate. Additionally, we will prioritize the rapid development of our data center product portfolio. In the global services business, we will continue to focus on the select projects intake to improve the profitability and optimize the net fund involvement.
We also aim to complete the demerger by Q4 FY26. In STL digital, we will continue to scale the business and grow our revenue along with the focus for profitability. With this, I now hand over the call back to Chetan .
Thank you, Tushar. Ladies and gentlemen, we have now come to the end of our presentation, and we shall move to the Q&A session. Please note that if you want to ask a question, you can click on the raise hand button, and we shall take your questions one by one. We request all of you to keep your questions to the brief and limit the number of questions to maximum two so that we can attend to the maximum number of questions from most of the participants. Please also share your organization's name for the transcript as you state your question. The floor is now open for Q&A. We will take the first question from Nikhil Choudhary. Nikhil, please go ahead and ask your question.
Good evening, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity. This is Nikhil from Nuvama. My first question is on the data center opportunity. Thanks for highlighting that. Ankit, can you give some color, especially regarding our capability and how we are positioned vis-à-vis our competitor? What we have seen globally, some of your peers launched data center-specific products, right? I just want to understand how we are positioned, especially in data center capability. The second part of the question is the 22% contribution you have given for data center and enterprise. If you can break it, especially for data center, and if you have some comparison of how much it was in the same period last year.
Thank you, Nikhil. I think, as we've been sharing in the last couple of quarters, that clearly this is from a sure CapEx spend. We continue to see that globally, data center spend will only continue to grow and accelerate. And within that, we are seeing that certainly, as this shift goes from CPU-based to GPU-based, the amount of fiber optics required will also grow multi-fold within that. We are seeing the connections of fiber optics up to the servers and go beyond that. So both in terms of copper as well as fiber optic connectivity, we do see that the growth will be quite strong. Within that, we are closely evaluating both in terms of opportunities for STL globally as well as particularly in India.
In India, we see that the data center capacity will grow from around one gigawatt now to about between 2-3 GW in the next few years. So clearly, again, a large opportunity here. And more and more, possibly, of the data centers in India will either look for or ask for made-in-India solutions. So it presents an interesting opportunity for STL.
I think we do have some base of portfolio of products, both on the copper and fiber optic cable. But equally, going forward, if we really have to cater to this market, we need to build a full portfolio of product and make sure that we can really provide an end-to-end solution to the various data center players. From my perspective, I think this will take some period of time. Probably over the next one to two years, we will continue to build the portfolio, build our own IP, and in parallel, continue our conversations, which are going on currently as well with various DC players. But as I shared last time as well, this is clearly a priority for us. We cannot give any specific forecast at this time, but what we are starting to call out from this quarter onwards is data center plus enterprise as a segment.
We will start calling out what percentage of revenue for the optical networking business is coming. With that, we do expect that to continue to grow going forward. To your second question, in terms of breaking out between data center and enterprise, we don't want to split that up for competitive reasons, but we are seeing increased demand of various solutions, particularly on our copper connectivity, which are going to various enterprises, whether it's GCCs or elsewise. At the same time, we have some unique communication cables for the railway segment, and we are seeing rapid expansion of these requirements, particularly in Europe and possibly also in India going forward.
Thanks a lot, Ankit. Second question is on demand environment. Last year was a tough year, especially for the optical industry. How is the outlook for CY 2025? Any early indication you are receiving from telecom OEMs in general for CY25, as well as if you can touch upon any update on BEAD? You last time highlighted some delay, but any update there?
Absolutely. Spot on, Nikhil. So I think from what we have been sharing even last quarter, we have seen that there has been on the positive side, there are now at least several states, including particularly Louisiana, etc., which are expecting what they're calling shovel on the ground based on BEAD funding in the next 100 days, so say three months or so from now, where probably some first investment and execution will start by at least one of the states.
But if we had to speak at a larger level, we do expect that H2 of this calendar year and definitely probably our our Q2- Q3 kind of time frame is where we expect initial BEAD investments to pick up and hence our fiber optic solutions to be starting to be required for that. But really, we expect that the larger and more significant demand will come from a calendar 2026 perspective. So probably some portion of our financial year, quarter three- quarter four, which should see benefits of our BEAD requirements. We are well placed for that. As recent as last few days, we also made an announcement where we have been on the official list of self-certification. And again, that places us very well amongst few companies who can provide the cable solutions for the BEAD requirements.
In terms of overall market demand, we continue to be focused in our geographies, which are in Europe, U.S., North America broadly, as well as in India. In India, we are seeing that on the back of BharatNet, broadly, there should be an increased demand over the next four to five years. As the advance purchase orders get released, some of them have already happened in the last few days, and others should happen in the next few weeks. That should result in demand for both our cables as well as fiber to other cablers. And of course, from a services business, we should be also getting our purchase order for the Jammu and Kashmir project, hopefully in the next few weeks. So that's on the India market.
Europe has been flattish, but as we talked about, this transition from copper switch-off or copper to fiber is happening in few markets, particularly in the U.K., in Poland, in Germany, etc. So some pockets we do expect to see some strong growth, but the largest growth continues to be in the North America market. We have seen some of the inventories reduce over the last few quarters. We probably have maybe a quarter or quarter or two left of inventory absorption. But broadly, this is all placing us well for a good growth in North America demand in the coming year, and important for us is STL to capture some of that growth going forward.
Thanks a lot, Ankit. The last one, if I can squeeze in for Tushar, especially on margin? So decent performance on margin on both the side, optical business as well as digital business. So, optical business, what was the moving part? Despite of lower revenue, we were able to maintain the margin. And in digital business, we saw uptick in revenue as well as first-time adjusted profitability. So was there some, let's say, one-time revenue because of completion of some milestone which led to revenue bump up as well as profitability? Or can we sustain this profit going forward as well? Thank you.
So Nikhil, as you are aware that for the last couple of quarters, we have been extremely working to ensure that our cost structure remains in our control. So from that perspective, a lot of efforts have gone on optical networking business to set the cost structure right. So as far as the ONB business is concerned, I think these are the sustainable in terms of the profitability margin is concerned.
With respect to service business, I think what we have seen, despite the lower revenue, we have been able to more or less maintain the kind of EBITDA margin that we have generated in the last quarter. This is also on account of some kind of a cost initiatives that we have gone ahead in that particular service business as well as we are expected to demerge this particular business to a separate entity in coming quarters. So from that perspective, at STL level, whatever the cost optimization efforts that we have been putting, which is yielding the results and which is despite this quarter, we have a lower revenue. We have been able to maintain the margin percentage as such. So that's something I would say is on account of a lot of other, I mean, initiatives on a cost perspective.
Digital business.
The digital business, I mean, it is more or less, I think the way we have seen this particular business is we have a good long-term order book which has happened in this particular quarter. And the kind of the new orders that we have been executing are at the better margin as compared to the earlier period. So from that perspective, the overall margin from the, I mean, the existing contracts are much better as compared to the earlier period. So the overall improvement in the project margin, the way we have been getting the new orders is giving the positivity in terms of sustaining the margin for the digital business.
Thanks a lot, Ankit. Thanks, Tushar. Good luck for the coming period.
Thank you, Nikhil.
Thanks, Nikhil. We'll take the next question from Sunny Gosar. Sunny, please go ahead and ask your question.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is on the optical business. So basically, I just wanted to get some more understanding on this BEAD program. So in the U.S., the sustainable demand which was there, let's say, two years back. So going forward, is it fair to assume that all the CapEx that even the telcos are trying to do will get folded under the BEAD program and BEAD will be the sole driver for demand? Or BEAD demand will be over and above the demand that the telcos had for their own network-related CapEx? And once this inventory adjustment or the inventory destocking gets completed or gets more normalized in the U.S., there could be dual legs of growth, one in terms of the normal demand from the telcos and second from the BEAD program.
So how should we look at that at a more normalized level?
Yeah, actually, Sunny, I think a good question. I think exactly from the market perspective, I actually think it's going to be three elements happening in parallel. You're going to have the telco and the ISP demand, which is continuing. In fact, if you see the announcements recently from AT&T, Verizon, you see the announcements from various Tier II, Tier III players, Windstream, everyone else, they're actually talking about accelerating their fiber deployment. So we continue to see the telcos invest and build out their fiber infrastructure. Everyone is clearly talking about fiber being simply the best medium for providing high speed. And by the way, more and more operators are looking to move from about one to two gig service towards between four to eight gig service.
So even the requirements and the speeds that they're now competing in are moving more and more where simply only fiber can provide that solution. So I think that's a very positive sign. I think BEAD, as I said, while the timing may have shifted, from our own view, there's very much a continued focus on making this happen. I just gave one example of Louisiana State. But equally, other states have gone through. All the states have gone through the process. And now slowly, we'll see state by state coming. And as the winners of the projects in the states move forward, that should lead to the demand. So that will be a second driver. And then the third driver will be this whole switch from the CPU to GPU based. And that will lead to further demand of fiber for the data center segment.
So we do believe all three should play out in terms of the demand for North America. To give you a ballpark, this broadly should lead to demand in North America going from current base of 70-80 million fiber kilometers to north of 120 million fiber kilometers annually. So this will be a plus-plus in our view. That should partially play out in 2025 and then certainly 2026 onwards.
Got it, that's helpful. And have you seen improvement in terms of the new inquiries and any feedback from your customer discussions for the normal telco-related CapEx demand? So what is the status there? Are there green shoots? Is it still slow in terms of conversation? So any thoughts or feedback on that?
Yeah, I think broadly, I would say that we have definitely seen more incoming. When you look at our pipeline of opportunities, definitely it is stronger than it was last quarter. So I would say that, and particularly in North America itself. So I would definitely say that we see more opportunities, customers asking for more quotes. The way North America works is on calendar year basis. So as the operators have now decided their budgets in kind of November, December timeframe, this is the period now in January-February onwards where they start the inquiry process and they decide on their partners for the current year. So this is a very important period between now and up to March, April, where we should get much better visibility of how things will pan out for the rest of the year.
Got it, that's helpful. My second question is on the Global Services Business. So we won one package in the BharatNet order. When do we expect to start execution for this package? And what would be the execution timeline for the same?
Yeah, so we have won the Jammu and Kashmir project, which broadly is about a three-year execution and 10-year maintenance. In terms of the timeline, as I said, some of the other participants or winners have got their advanced purchase orders in the last few days. Ours is probably expected in the next few weeks maximum. And then probably the final purchase orders, formal purchase orders will also come in probably towards the end of the quarter or early Q1 maximum. So post, of course, our work in the background has already started in terms of the survey and whatever else we need to do.
And so I think it would be fair to say that probably some point in Q1, the work would start in terms of various planning and other things also that go into it. And similarly for other players who have won the other projects. So this is important for us as a project, not only for services, but also for the optical business. So all those conversations are going on in parallel.
And have we seen any improvement in our working capital from the service business in the last one or two quarters? Have we been able to get down the contract assets and the receivables?
Yeah, so Sunny, I think so relatively the working capital has started reducing in the service business. But the kind of a pace that we have been expecting, it is a little slower as compared to what we were expecting. So with respect to our plan and the budget that we had, I think presently it is not at that level. But yes, definitely on a quarter-on-quarter basis, we are seeing that the improvement in terms of production in the working capital.
Got it. And I have one last question before I get back in the queue. Basically, our net debt as compared to the pre-QIP period is down by about INR 800-odd crores. However, if you look at the interest cost reduction, we have come down from about INR 94-95 crores per quarter to INR 83-84 crores. So it seems like the interest cost reduction is relatively lower than the reduction in the net debt. So I have two questions. Basically, what should be the sustainable quarterly interest cost going forward?, and i s there any one-off cost in the finance in the interest cost line item in this quarter in terms of any refinancing cost or any bank charges or anything?
Yeah, so I think, Sunny, best way to look at the number is on a year-to-date basis. If you look at the overall finance cost, which has gone down from INR 281 crores to INR 238 crores, so there is almost INR 50 crores in terms of reduction in overall finance cost. Now, when we talk about this finance cost, finance cost also includes some of the bank-related charges, correct? Maybe the operational, or it may be related to the financing. So from that perspective, it is not only the interest cost, but also the operational in terms of the bank charges, which we incur, as well as the bank cost, which is related to the funding of the activities that are also a part of the finance cost.
So it is not only the interest and the bank charges, which is associated with borrowing, but there is also some element of the operational cost, which is also included in the finance cost.
So is it fair to assume that INR 83-84 crores will be a sustainable quarterly run rate going forward, or do you see this coming down in the coming quarters?
So it should come down over a period of time, especially with quarter one, FY 2025-26. Okay.
Thank you for the detailed response, and I'll come back in the queue.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sunny.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from Arun Malhotra. Please state the name of your organization and then share your question. Arun? Arun? By the time Arun comes back, we'll take a question from Rishikesh Oza. Rishikesh, please go ahead and ask your question. Hello. Yeah, Arun, you are there?
Yes, I am there. Sorry, sorry for that.
Please go ahead. Rishikesh will take your question after this.
I didn't see the pop-up. Yeah. I think there have been a lot of talks about the huge demand that is there both from the data center and other aspects. But can you also comment on the supply-side dynamics and our competitive position to gain orders or gain market share? Because I'm actually extending it further to the pricing. Because if there is so much demand and supply is not there, do you expect a buoyancy on the pricing side also going forward? And can we go back to the 2019 price levels as well as the profitability?
Yeah, so I'll break it into two, three parts. I think specifically to your question on the data center/enterprise side, I think definitely there we do see that there are fewer players who have the portfolio and who can compete with the full solution. And I think that's certainly on one side, we are definitely looking to see how we can scale that up. But definitely, we see a good opportunity there for having a healthy pricing and margin. And as we progress in terms of quarter-on-quarter improving our sales to this market, you should start seeing that.
In terms of the market, I think globally as well, I think we are in an interesting place where when you look at large government-funded projects like BEAD, etc., going forward, there is an expectation that there should be a premium for that because it has very stringent Made in America requirements, which naturally would be at a higher cost base. So I think, again, from that market perspective, as that demand comes in and there are limited suppliers who can provide those solutions, I think that will again give us an opportunity to improve our realizations. Of course, broadly, as the market itself improves, as we get into the second half of FY 2025, that should give us an opportunity to improve our realization globally.
And of course, at the same time, in BharatNet as well, kind of projects, as that demand improves and increases in India over the next few years, that should also help us improve our realization.
See, orders like BharatNet, are they going to be lower margin orders or a normalized margin?
So just to start on the services part, we are very confident that we have got this order at healthy margins. And so, of course, it's now down to our execution. But principally, I would say that I'm confident that we've booked it at the services business level at a healthy margin. Equally, on the optical business, I think definitely we are confident that we will look at various opportunities both on cable and fiber, both for our own services requirement as well as for other winners of the projects.
Just to extend this again, sorry, but we have seen buoyancy on the demand side, but the revenues have declined if you see quarter on quarter. The margins are still not healthy, so what is causing this dampening both on revenue and margins?
Yeah, so specifically, I think, see, one part on the positive side, otherwise, Tushar said, a lot of work has gone in internally in the last 12 months - 15 months on our cost reduction initiatives, and you'll see that flowing through our P&L. On the market side, as I said, we've had somewhat of a flattish demand in Europe.
And also because of high inventory over the last 12-15 months in the U.S., even though the execution of new projects and fiber to the home, all of that was all-time high, the new demand from suppliers like us and others had been on the lower side. So in that market environment, we had seen some realization reduction. And as I'm suggesting that as the demand picks back up in probably the second half of this calendar year, etc., then we also expect with that demand, we do expect that both the lead times and realization would increase.
And sorry, lastly on this, can you elaborate on what is this attach rate and what is the significance of this number?
Yeah, so it's a metric that we use and we've been sharing for the last few quarters. Essentially, what happens in the telco ecosystem or the ISP ecosystem is that you need both the cables as what we call the optical interconnect to go together, especially as you're connecting homes or towers, etc. So what we've historically been doing is selling a lot of cables. But then with the acquisition of Optotec and some of our product development, we've also been able to push forward into our customers more of a solution sell of the cable and the connectivity together. What we call is the attach rate is that for every $1 of cable we sell, how many cents of connectivity that we sell. And so ballpark now for about $1 of cable that we sell, we sell about $0.20-$0.22 of connectivity products.
And historically for us and going forward, we expect the connectivity portfolio to have even better margins than the cable portfolio.
All right, that's thank you. And lastly, on the receivables, last quarter, you mentioned that you are expecting some receivables, INR 1,000 crore and there's one more. Any guidance on that?
So Arun, last quarter, we spoke about very specifically on liquidating some of the outstanding that we have in the service business. It's not only the outstanding, but there are certain working capital like work in progress that we have in certain contracts like T-Fiber and MahaNet. Unfortunately, it is a little slower as compared to what we planned. Thank you.
Any timeline, sir?
Yeah, so I mean, see, unfortunately, these are the state government-backed projects. So a lot many times, it depends on the budgetary allocation coming from the state governments to liquidate some of those receivables.
We are waiting for a budgetary allocation to happen for this particular project so that we can liquidate our receivables and the contract assets that we have.
All right. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from Rishikesh Oza. Rishikesh, please go ahead with your question and request you to state name of your organization.
Yeah, hi. Am I audible? Thank you for the opportunity. Rishikesh Oza from Robo Capital. My first question is if you could share our revenue and margins guidance that we have for FY 2026.
Rishikesh, we actually don't give a guidance or forecast on an annual basis. What we have been, I can just share what we've been guiding is that as a business, particularly the optical business, our vision is to make this a world top three business. We've been talking about that from a growth perspective. In terms of, for example, the optical connectivity business, we've been talking about how we see a lot of potential in that. We want to scale up our attach rate between our cable and our connectivity. We are in the process of our services business demerger and definitely continue to see a lot of opportunity and pipeline to scale that up over the coming years. And of course, our focus has been ultimately to generate cash and reduce our debt, thereby also reducing our interest costs on an ongoing basis.
So these are some of the elements that we have been guiding, and we continue to stick to that. We don't have any specific numbers to guide at this point about FY 2025-26.
Got it. No problem. Also, second question is regarding the BharatNet. Our BharatNet order size, if I'm not wrong, is INR 2,000 crore. Are we expecting any further orders? And when will the revenue recognition start from BharatNet?
I think we'll have to come back to you in terms of revenue recognition. As we said, there's this process in between of us getting advance purchase order, then getting the final purchase order. After that, there would be a period where you do various amounts of survey and other things. I think there is a certain amount of time period. Let us first get the purchase orders formally. And then probably in our next earnings, we can give you better timelines around what could be the potential revenue that we could get from this on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
Okay. Could you share that what margins have we got the BharatNet order?
We won't be able to share that again for confidential reasons. Again, be reassured, this is in Jammu and Kashmir. We have executed an NFS project, almost 10,000 km in that region in the past. So we have a lot of experience in Jammu and Kashmir. We are very confident of the region, and we understand the region. And hence, we are confident that we have won it at a healthy margin.
So Rishikesh, this particular order that we've been talking about is better than the margin that we have been accruing in this particular business.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Rishikesh. We'll take the next question from Rohan Vora. Rohan, please go ahead and ask your question. Rohan. We'll take a question from Vipul Kumar Shah. Vipul, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. So my question is, what is our OF and OFC capacity as of today? What is the capacity utilization today? What was the same last year, same quarter?
I'll just start out on that. As we've been guiding in terms of our volumes have been fairly flattish. I'm just talking on quarter-on-quarter basis for a minute. Similarly, like we guided last quarter as well, we've been broadly at that around 50% utilization. As we've shared in the past, we are practically completely done with our capital and our capacity additions globally. We are very, very well placed with our capacities north of 50 million on the glass and fiber side and north of 42 million on the cable side, including our investments in the US. We are fully set up on our investments. In fact, if you look at our capital spend for the year, it will probably be around INR 120-130 crores maximum.
So we are really, from compared to previous years, our capital expenditure has also started to come down and will largely be much more of maintenance CapEx and some investment on the interconnect side. In terms of overall utilization, as we said, that as the market improves, particularly North America, India, etc., we do expect that utilization should improve in the coming year.
So I know that you don't give the exact rate at which you sell fiber or cable, but if I have to compare it with 2018, 2019 prices when your profitability was really superlative, then how much we are in percentage terms, how much we are down?
Yes, I would say ballpark, I would say overall, both America and Europe from, say, peak prices as of the period that you mentioned. I would argue that depending on the market, we're probably between 20%-30% down in realization. And again, as I talked about earlier, that we do expect that some of these, particularly North America, we do expect these realizations to also improve. And we've seen this in the past through various cycles that we do expect the realizations also to improve as the demand comes back and improves going forward. So I think it's equally on our side, we have been taking a lot of initiatives on the cost reductions. And so we are quite confident that the operating leverage will definitely kick in as the factory utilization improves.
And what is our capacity in USA? Is it only cable or is it fiber also?
We don't disclose specific numbers by factory, but it's essentially a cable factory. And we are very well set up now in the factory there in terms of product portfolio and capacity. So we're very well set up now.
But you would not like to disclose the exact capacity in the U.S.? No, no. We don't disclose our capacities by plant-wide.
Thank you, Vipul.
Yeah, last question. Sorry.
Vipul, we will take only last question from your side. Please go ahead.
Yeah, yeah. So return to profitability at net level, what should be our utilization in terms of percentage?
So Vipul, I take this particular question. If we have to go back to the 20% in terms of an EBITDA margin, we need to be at a capacity utilization about 70%-75%. That is the kind of a capacity utilization will yield about 20% in terms of an EBITDA margin for optical network business.
Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Vipul. Thank you, everyone. With this, we now come to the end of our question and answer session. And now I hand over the call back to Ankit Agarwal for closing remarks. Ankit.
I'd like to thank everyone for taking this call and showing your interest in STL. Despite a challenging market environment and a shorter quarter, we have made progress on key strategic priorities. We remain focused on the factors in our control, emphasizing customer centricity, building a lean and agile organization, and driving growth through technology leadership. We will continue to aggressively pursue business opportunities in our key regions, leveraging advanced manufacturing innovation and industry-leading products. As demand normalizes, we are well positioned to execute effectively, deliver strong results, and create shareholder value. I hope we were able to address all and clarify all your queries and comments.
For any further questions and discussions, please feel free to contact the investor relations team, which includes myself and Tushar. We really look forward to continuing the conversation with you in the near future. Thank you.