Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to this conference call organized by Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited to discuss an update on Apollo 24|7. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Mayank Vaswani from CDR India. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Margaret. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on this call to discuss the update on Apollo 24|7 shared earlier. We have with us on the call today the senior management team represented by Mrs. Shobana Kamineni, Executive Vice Chairperson, Mrs. Suneeta Reddy, Managing Director, Mrs. Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Mr. Krishnan Akhileswaran, Group CFO, Mr. Antony Jacob, CEO of Apollo 24|7, and Mr. Sanjiv Gupta, CFO of Apollo 24|7. Before we begin, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's discussion may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. I would now like to turn the call over to Mrs. Shobana Kamineni for her opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for this opportunity. This is pursuant to yesterday, post-board meeting, we sent a notification to the stock exchange, saying that Apollo Pharmacies, an associate company of AHEL, will list its pharmacy products on Amazon India. Before I give you the contours of what this relationship is about, I would like to take a minute or so, two minutes to actually talk to you about 24|7. Apollo 24|7 is Apollo's foray into digital health. From its inception, we had the belief that healthcare is required to transform and move to as much digital as we could. But however, it could not be completely in the digital world.
Apollo Hospitals and the entire group of companies that form AHEL decided to create one of India's largest omnichannel platforms, which meshed our digital capabilities and our physical capabilities. I'm happy to inform you all that in the last two years, we have shown the sustainability and the reliability of building such a business model. We have leveraged the 4,500 Apollo stores that we have, pharmacies that we have. We've leveraged not just the 7,500 specialist doctors in Apollo Hospitals, but we've reached out to another 15,000 doctors who work with us in our clinics and as partners, and we're bringing them into the network. We also have the capability of more than 640 phlebotomists from the Apollo clinics and almost a pan-India presence in diagnostics.
Using these capabilities, we have been able to grow. In the last two years, we've been able to grow this platform 500%. I think this is the fastest growth towards. We have 13 million registered users. This is the fastest growth almost among any digital health channel in the world, as we continue to measure ourselves, not just in performance parameters, but in actual customer experience. I'm very happy to tell you that your company, Apollo Hospitals, is ahead on all fronts. In terms of technology, in terms of the ability to deliver medicines in two hours, which is unheard of anywhere in the world. We're able to do this in almost 150 cities, especially and even during this COVID time. We've consistently been able to perform.
From that, we've been able to grow. We've done over 850 teleconsults, and I think doctors within the group who are using this definitely believe it is the easiest channel. It allows the patient to continuously stay within the Apollo system. We've been able to please understand that we're also you know, as a customer retention, this has been the most exciting tool that Apollo has ever put across, I think, in the last decade. We'll continue to strengthen that model. Having said that, I would like to concentrate for one minute before we get in to the Amazon relationship. I think it's very important for a group of investors to understand where we are, where we are investing beyond the physical capabilities and the digital.
It's the technological excellence. Leading this discussion, I'd like to invite our Joint MD, Sangita Reddy, to not just talk about our technological excellence, but also a very unique partnership that we have an MOU with Google. Sangeeta, may I hand over to you?
Yes. Hello, good afternoon, and good evening for people from different parts of the world. It's really an exciting pleasure to share with you some of the things which we're doing on Apollo 24|7, which is truly this is more than Apollo going digital. It's also, you know, it is us going closer to the customer and building an omnichannel, multi-faceted, multi-services customer engagement model. We're doing this backed on, you know, this comprehensive vision of being best-in-class, high quality and using every latest digital technology.
To enable this, we have, of course, the e-commerce platform. We have a very powerful repository of the personal health record, but we're also using some of the latest tools in NLP and AI to bring the appropriate insights for patients, customers, and doctors. I'm very happy to share with you that we have a technology support understanding with Google, because they are coming forward with engineers and the ability to use some of their latest tools in UI, UX, in customer journeys and omnichannel, as well as on their existing platforms, whether it is on Google Maps or on YouTube. These will enable us to go further in our vision of just being closer to the customer, sharing appropriate health information, and enabling an omnichannel journey.
Thank you, Sangeeta.
Now I would like to move on to describe, you know, and maybe answer some of the questions you might have on this relationship with Amazon. First of all, I think it's important for us to address that this is not just a seller arrangement, because a seller arrangement would just take less than 72 hours to do. It was clearly an understanding and a relationship that took almost six months for us to have discussions and understanding of what would be best for probably the most awesome e-commerce channel in the world, and definitely the best pharmacy network in the country. What would be the right mix for both of these? In that partnership, I...
I'm sorry, please disregard the word partnership. I think in this relationship, what we would bring first is, you know, for us, we could have done this with a two-hour hyperlocal delivery. For us, and today, our availability is 97%. From Amazon, their capability is at 99%. I think the learning of the expertise, the ability to understand how to serve more PIN codes and more people around the country and use this. To give you a practical example, today on a home delivery model, we do about 21,000 on our online channel, two-four-seven. We do another 20-odd thousand, 25,000 from our offline via home delivery. It's about 45,000, that puts us at about number two in the country.
Adding Amazon, we are sure that within the next, and this is forward-looking, but we do believe that we have the capability to be the largest online pharmacy delivery channel in the country. In terms of omnichannel, we service about 200 million prescriptions a year, and we believe that we have the capability to easily grow 50% more next year or in the next two years. But to do this, we also have to add the capability, the engine to generate. I think this partnership is a first to be able to help us leverage and to be able to use the network that we've created over the years and optimize it much, much better.
For us, as a commercial relationship, it made perfect sense for us to be able to enter into this relationship. We also hope that in doing so and as we go forward and build the relationship, the opportunity is truly that while Amazon is uniquely focused on a complete e-commerce relationship, and medicine is just a small part. Apollo Pharmacy, Apollo 24|7 is only focused on health. We believe that this will serve Amazon Prime customers very well to have a deeper engagement. In doing so, the first step is to be able to list and make medicines available.
This is a relationship that took six months to craft, and I think that it is we believe it'll be the best in class to service many more Indians than we are currently doing. I'm happy to take questions at this point. Our team is available. We have our CEO, CFO 24/7, and of course the Apollo team is here.
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 touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Anyone who would like to ask a question, please press star and one at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Anup Agrawal from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon to all. Just trying to understand this relationship better. Let's say between offline and online, we are very close to about $1 billion revenues right now from the pharmacy business. This part, this relationship with Amazon, in next three-four years, what kind of extra revenue can it add? I'm just like, can it add another half a $1 billion, $1 billion revenue as well?
We have, in our forward-looking statements, that is, that's the intent. Because we do believe that while we will continue to grow our business to our online and offline together, we will grow at a compounded 30%+. We believe that the upside from this will continue our growth trajectory, even higher.
Would you want to give some indication to us like, what kind of incremental revenues is possible with some time frame here?
We have a stated intent of doing at least $1 billion of business together in the next three years.
That will be largely on top of the guidance that you have given of $2.3 billion for your online, offline. This $1 billion will be on top of that?
I think some of it will be cannibalized. I don't want to at that point give you what it would look like. The first statement I would say is that it de-risks our existing forward-looking statements that we gave you from 24|7 about the INR 2.3 billion. It de-risks that. Over and above, we certainly believe that there's going to be a serious upside.
Okay, that's helpful.
This is just beginning. We hope to start next month. I think you need to give us a little time on that. It's definitely going to provide an upside.
Just for clarity on the margins, suppose we make, I'm just putting a number. Let's say 5% margin on the end-to-end delivery, everything controlled by us on 24/7. Same medicine when it's, let's say being sold with being delivered by Amazon, what kind of margins we're talking about? 200 basis points lower, 300 basis points lower? You want to give some rough idea here versus 24/7 versus Amazon.
I think that this is very dynamic, both from Amazon and from us, and it's evolving. It's also case sensitive. Anything that I give you now is too preliminary because even as we see it now, discounts that are out there might not be the discounts that you'll get three months from now or during a season or, you know. It's such a dynamic space at this point. All I can tell you is that we have the wherewithal to be able to compete very effectively in this market. I think that's the important thing to focus on.
Okay, just last question, then I'll join the queue. That's, do you get access to the customer data? Let's say if a customer goes and buys Apollo's medicines from Amazon platform. First of all, does he see that? Is it? Will it be visible that he's buying that from a drug store of Apollo? Is he buying Apollo medicine? Will the customer realize that?
As of now, the e-commerce laws for pharmacy make it mandatory that the pharmacy has to be listed. Every customer has to have the billing of where it's coming from because I think that's important for us also because we need to keep those records for 10 years as per law. seven years as per law.
Okay. Customer will know that he's buying Apollo medicine on Amazon platform. Will you get the complete customer data that his mobile number, his location, et cetera? Because Amazon is doing the delivery, that's the reason I'm asking that.
Legally we have to.
How the fulfillment will be done? Like, if I'm located near Apollo store, will Amazon delivery boy pick up the medicine from the Apollo store and deliver to me, but if I'm not located nearby?
That is their cost. Delivery is
Yeah. I'm just trying to understand the fulfillment model. Will they deliver from the central warehouse? Will you have certain of your pharmacists there in central warehouse and managing that, or will Amazon take care of it completely?
You can't have the reason that Amazon is very excited about this partnership is that we have the ability to do hyperlocal. We have large warehousing, all this. You use a multitude based on what the SKU is. It's not a, you know, it's not a one answer fits all.
Okay, sure. Fine, sure. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prakash Agarwal from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Again, some math here. You mentioned, you know, already done 5x. What is the current base?
The current run rate that we have. Let us come back to you. It'll be during the earnings call. I think it's at that point this will be audited and shown.
Okay. No, I was just trying to understand the ballpark base where we are operating today and that would be only HealthCo, right? So and in the past you have said that we are investing more than what we are making. Would that statement still hold good?
I'm sorry I didn't get that question.
No, no. In the past, we said that on the HealthCo platform that we are making, given the software costs and expansion costs, we are, you know, marginally losing money is what I remember. Would that be correct?
I think that in a growth phase, most e-commerce would go through that kind of.
Yeah, yeah.
that kind of transition. I would only say that we of course by being an omni are highly mitigated. The kind of losses you see that will go on forever are not what we are, is not what's happening on our platform.
Understood. With this deal happening, how should we think about the margins? Like in the past, for the matured, we have talked about 10+, for the new and the blended is about 6%-7%. How do we think these margins are? How much we share with Amazon for this deal?
I think that it is. You should look at it as our BAU, and this is additional. Whatever we're getting in terms of how we look at it additionally, it's a growth factor that we have to look at it being in this space. And like I said earlier, highly dynamic and case sensitive. For me to give you a figure at this point would actually be wrong. What you have to understand is that our stores at a store level will continue to have, you know, continue to find a business headroom, and this is over and above that. We're looking at it as a business opportunity.
Okay, last question here. Growthpath is totally clear as it adds on to the additional, you know, distribution channel, where Amazon has large, you know, PIN code, et cetera, where they service too. What I was trying to understand of the, you know, retail margin and the distribution margin, do we have to share some bit with Amazon or
As always, it's a channel relationship. Definitely, we share the losses, we share the profits.
Okay. You are saying what you were hinting probably is that with the growth that is coming and the operating leverage that would add, it would be, you know, at least company level nothing. Is that how should we think?
Definitely in the future, because we are not, I think that Apollo is too cautious to do long-term business at a loss. That, you know, will not be in the interest of the shareholder.
Okay.
We'll grow this business large, agile, dynamic, but we will do this on the terms that are value accretive for all Apollo shareholders.
Okay, perfect. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Chirag Dagli from DSP Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. I have three questions. Conceptually, when you look at this deal, should one think about it that you know Amazon essentially gets paid for customer acquisition and for delivery, while Apollo's value addition continues to remain to you know manage the backend and the frontend?
If I was Amazon, I would look at it like that. If I was Apollo, I would look at it like I'm getting a lot more business and so I'll continue to gain from that. I'll also have the ability to sell a lot of my private label on their channels, and I think that's another growth channel, and also the opportunity to create other healthcare services.
Understood. Can you share, you know, do we pay anything for customer acquisition either to Google, Amazon, at the moment on our business that we currently do have? What is the kind of customer acquisition fee that we must be paying? Ballpark range will help me.
Yeah. The current CAC, Sanjiv, I think that the current run rate of CAC.
Yeah. Current cost of acquisition for us is about INR 150 per user. Yeah, this is the direct answer.
Understood.
This is blended because many of our channels which there's hardly any cost of acquisition. As we go along, this figure has really been coming down.
You know, by virtue of having this deal, so let's say assuming hypothetically, you know, you get access to all these customers. Would this number of, you know, 100 or 150, whatever, per user, this be materially lower for the, you know, Amazon customers?
No. I think that the Amazon customers are their customers. We'll find areas for us to have a relationship. It is not in our, I mean, it doesn't behoove us as a partner to use their data which is you know, we keep it only for regulatory means. In future we can use this as a joint relationship to leverage a deeper engagement within the Apollo ecosystem, but that is completely with Amazon and Apollo together.
The way we should think about this is that we'll continue to pay INR 150 for every incremental customer that comes through Amazon.
We don't pay them. Sorry. I think that the question that you asked us is what is our current CAC in or for our-
No, I understand, madam. I mean, there'd be a, you know, the deal will be structured in such a way that they get paid this kind of money, right?
Their deal is just, you know, if a customer order comes, we fulfill the order with that. Look at it as more of a fulfillment engine with this. It's slightly different. They don't come in like, you know, they don't come in as our customer unless in future we have a joint program where they join our loyalty program for other things that get included as a whole health channel. I don't think the question of CAC and all comes into this relationship.
Understood. Okay. Okay. Fair point. Does this deal now-
This is an opportunity for us to do a billion-dollar business in pharmacy.
I understand, ma'am. Okay. That is helpful. But does this also mean that we don't need now any capital, because there have been media, you know, discussions around there being a strategic, you know, you looking for a strategic partner or, you know, et cetera. Is the capital raise out of question now?
No, 100% we're on the capital raise because our INR 2.3 billion which we are looking for, you know, for the HealthCo requires that kind of investment. You know? We'll continue to invest in growing this channel, you know, in all, not just pharmacy, but also in diagnostic capability, in insurance capability, and in clinic consults, and also the condition management, which is, you know. We think that continuum of care is the way that we'll continue to function. Apollo 24|7 is a channel that is on the fundraise, and we'll use that money to deepen its engagement with customers across the country.
Understood. That is helpful, ma'am. Just a last question. You know, clearly, back-end distribution is a very critical component of this scale-up that you are hoping to achieve. You know, our distribution remains in the promoter's book. Is there any change in thought of bringing this into the listed entity or you know, into the structure which can you know, sort of have no uncertainty in the future around this aspect?
It's an interesting thought at this point. We will be aligned with whatever is best for the HealthCo moving forward in future.
Okay, ma'am.
Thank you.
Okay, madam. Thank you so much, Deshpande.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sunil Bajaj from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for this. Just first question is, what's going to be the rollout plan for Amazon? I mean, is it going to be pan-India? Would it be piloted first? What's the timeframe? Is the deal exclusive for both sides?
Amazon is a marketplace. I think that the ability to have the kind of availability, presence and the capability, there are not many choices for people to be on a marketplace as sensitive as pharmacy. Because this is, you know, it's to do with a lot of regulation. It's to do with a lot of, you know, the way that you look at it. I think that Amazon also will be cautious. It is a marketplace, so they will by and large, they have the ability, just as we do. We think that the Amazon channel is a great channel for us to be able to sort of de-risk our ambitions and to grow.
If there are such opportunities that present in future, that we might be open to those also. Amazon, when we'll start, we're looking for somewhere mid-February. Definitely it'll be in. We'll start with a pilot, and we'll keep opening up geographies just as Apollo and Amazon normally do in their other business cases.
Okay. If I've understood correctly, it's not exclusive on both sides. They can get more and you also have an option. That's what you're saying?
Absolutely. The choices are so limited.
Yeah, of course. Fair enough. Very clear. Second is how do you see the evolution of online industry, online pharmacy industry in India? I mean, the market is what? Give or take $20 billion-$25 billion, the retail drug market. And I think right now what is probably gone online is maybe 4% or thereabout. If you take a five-year view, where do you think, you know, the market is headed?
Very frankly, one day it'll all converge. Because online is just a capability. At the end of the day, it's a customer getting a medicine, and you can't do it unless you're omni. So it's only the capability. So it's just like Amazon setting up stores or Walmart becoming online. It's the same in this space. So the very fact that, you know, that we're starting at probably the highest. I keep telling people, you know, for us, we're already doing 108 million-200 million prescriptions a year. All I have to do is double. That itself will be, and that would be around a 20% market share. Whereas everyone else which is starting from such a low base of this thing, just imagine how long their journey is.
They will have to go omnichannel. They'll have to go through the pain of trying to open stores or to partner a franchisee, then it becomes even more slightly painful because then you don't know what quality that you're getting. Because at the end of the day, you have to stand behind that customer. I would only, you know, I think that Apollo is so fortunate that we had that runway. Sorry to, you know, pontificate about it, but you know, we've been in there for the last 40 years almost. We have that runway. We actually have that ability to do the right thing for the customer. While everyone else will do all this stuff, ultimately they'll come down to our model.
We just have to become the super best at it.
Okay, great. One final from my side before I get back in the queue is, you know, what I understand is Amazon has probably not, you know, taken this route in other countries or other markets. I think it acquired PillPack in US, mail order business, and then, you know, that's how it grew its pharmacy. Is this very differentiated, very different, route that Amazon is taking in India versus other markets?
I think in many cases we have to respect what India is. It is a different market. Amazon has realized that they have to do it by Indian rules. We saw a lot of flexibility. We saw why they were very real sticklers for the rules just as we are. I think that was the fundamental of a good business model, that they understood this is the way to do business in India, and they respect whatever Apollo brings to the table. At this point of time, I think that our minds met there because one thing that we'd certainly respect them for is their excellence in what they do.
Okay. With your permission, one last, if I may. See, right now what we do is from the Keimed, you know, is the back end. It then supplies to your, you know, kind of SAP business, the offline model, and then it goes to the, you know, the walk-ins or the customers. In this case, I'm not so sure. How does the back-end supply chain works? Will it be same Keimed to or to your retail pharmacy and pharmacies where Amazon pickup boy will pick up and then deliver? Or is this going to be any different?
Same route, and all the advantages that come, you know. Thankfully during COVID, having such a secure back end really helped Apollo Pharmacy. I think that our availability never came down below the 95%-96% time, unlike other pharmacies around the country. That and having such an awesome back end with those kind of partners, it's again a model which everyone is trying to replicate.
Yeah, exactly. This is very helpful and it makes it very clear. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Damayanti Kerai from HSBC Securities and Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Ma'am, I want to understand one point clearly about your relationship with Amazon. You mentioned obviously Amazon gives you a huge platform in the e-commerce space. Like what will be investment from your side? Like you will be just paying a fee for each delivery done through Amazon, or you need to deploy some capital or investment from your side?
I think at the beginning also I was clear that it optimizes our existing investments. I've made huge investments. Anyone trying to replicate 4,500 stores and the kind of back end that we have would have to spend billions of dollars. We have it. We're just optimizing it, and we think that Amazon's business is much more suitable.
Ma'am, right now, I'll say you are optimizing your current investment and it will be just some fee sharing model with Amazon. We are not expecting any, I mean, capital investment for this relationship.
No capital relationships. I mean, no capital investment, but we'll continue to open. We open 400 stores a year. We'll continue to do that.
Okay. That's on your, like, own business part, which you mentioned will grow as usual. Right?
Yes. Absolutely.
Okay. Ma'am, with this relationship, should we expect that Apollo 24|7 we should achieve a breakeven much faster than what we earlier anticipated? I guess you earlier mentioned within two years or so we should be achieving the breakeven. Can it come much faster?
You said two years. I think I said three years. You're saying that I should be breaking even this year. That's gonna be kind of tough. Let's just give it and when we say that we're going to break even, it's something that no other e-commerce platform has ever said in their lives. The fact that we are actually talking such sweet words is so important. Just let us do it at our timeline. It's growth and profitability which will continue to be our focus.
Okay, ma'am. That's helpful. I'll get back with you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shyam Srinivasan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. Just going back to some press articles of November 2020 when there was a talk of Amazon Pharmacy themselves, and it talks also about them giving up to 80% off on generic prices, 40% off the brand. Does this relationship now subsume that or is that? What about their own plans as an Amazon Pharmacy, is that now not there? If you can clarify that.
Sorry. I think you should ask them.
Let me rephrase the question then. In terms of, you know, Amazon, I think, has been under the scanner from regulators on predatory pricing. The way they approach pricing has been probably lower than what maybe regulators would like. Now in a dichotomous world where you're doing Apollo 24|7 through your platform, Amazon does whatever it wants in terms of pricing. Is there a challenge where we're looking at cannibalization from your platform to theirs because they could be cheaper?
I think that in the short term there'll be cannibalization as there is, I think. I mean, there's so many platforms that are offering crazy pricing. Now the customer can get anything anywhere because they're all using your money to fund their discounts. Sometime when all that goes away, the last man standing will be the one who gives the best service and who has the best network. I think those are the things that while we continue to play it intelligently, and I'm not saying that we won't give great discounts, but we're not going to give it blanket. What Amazon does is for Amazon to do. Just like other platforms do their own. At this time, I think that pricing is insane business.
Sure. Okay. That's helpful. The second question is around you know how does this pan out in terms of the related question on competition. Since others can also list there and I don't think there is any strategic stake that Amazon is taking right? This is you know you started with saying it's not a buyer-seller relationship but how is this different than any other listing that they do?
First of all, we chose not to need their money. I think that's important that we just felt that our relationship is best served if we went down and said that we have this capability and so if Amazon can find someone at the level of efficiency that we are, I mean, of course they should. I think in most of the PIN codes, if you see the PIN codes that we are present, we'll definitely be the pharmacy of choice. Even in India today, we don't want to be the only player. Why? There'll be many pharmacies. There are 600,000 pharmacies, and all of them are there with this. Anyone that does a good job will continue to survive.
We're not being monopolistic at all about this. What we do believe is that our market share will definitely be the highest because we deliver that trust and efficiency.
Sure. Very helpful. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question from the line of Kunal Gandhia from Edelweiss. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon, everyone. Ma'am, if you can just expand a bit more on the discount. I mean, the e-commerce which are offering, let's say 18%-20% kind of discount. So if Amazon, let's say, doesn't get the kind of, you know, or the number of orders that they expect, do they sort of pressurize you to, you know, give more discount on their, you know, website? How do you sort this issue out?
First of all, with Amazon, it's a business relationship. They don't pressurize us to give more discount. Whatever that they're getting in terms of a business arrangement is there and that will happen. It depends on volumes. It happens dynamically. They'll continue to do whatever. Maybe they'll have to fund their losses like others are doing. At some levels, we might have to increase our discounting for certain use cases. I don't think that this is a blanket word that we can just generalize. Definitely the whole industry, e-commerce industry is under pressure of pricing. They're also getting realistic.
I do believe that cycle in the next year or two when we meet again, that won't be the crux of our conversation, the discounts. It will start getting a lot more rationalized. We really want to take a long-term view on everything, whether it's the relationship, whether it's the way that we entered into investing into online, the way that we're going to do our omnichannel and the way that we're building 24/7. It's, you know, long-term in this.
Sure. Sure, ma'am. Just as a follow-up, I mean, how long do you think this 18%-20% kind of discount can sustain?
I think it's the case mix. It's the way that it it's the way that the industry evolves. There might be certain areas where you can give those. There may be areas where you just definitely can't. It's very case sensitive, so I can't make broad statements like this.
Sure. Sure. Second question is, ma'am around, so does this deal pave the way for you to offer other services also on Amazon maybe in future, you know, let's say something like diagnostics, where once you have the backend capability to handle a lot more orders, do you sort of do this in future also?
That is forward-looking. I can't agree or deny. Definitely what we're building is a relationship to having discussions.
Sure. Sure.
I think we have the finest loyalty program in India with Apollo Circle that really encompasses everything for the patient. Anyone, whether it's an insurer, whether it's a platform like Amazon, it behooves them to get into, you know, to give this to their customers. It just is such a better customer experience.
Sure, ma'am. Sure. Understood. Just one more around any sort of delivery timeline commitments that Amazon has shared? Or because, you know, I mean, you also deliver within two hours, right? Which is probably the best in the industry. I'm just wondering whether, I mean, this is quite difficult to beat. I mean, how would Amazon be doing it? Maybe, you know, give it within a day for Prime customers. How are they going to fulfill this?
Amazon is the king of delivery. If we've set the bar at two hours, they might also try to do it at two hours. One thing they'll definitely beat us at and which we learned from them is they have the finest courier for intercity. Intracity, we're fantastic, but we still have a learning curve on intracity, and Amazon has that courier network across the country. There'll be some places where we are much better than them, places where they're better than us, and we'll continue to have that learning. For us, I'm very excited about the opportunity to you know offer customers this enhanced experience.
Sure, ma'am. That's very helpful. Thank you, and all the best.
Thanks. Are we done?
Thank you. The next question from the line of Abdulkader Puranwala from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, ma'am. Thank you for the opportunity. Just, ma'am, I wanted to know under the 24/7 platform what would be the number of PIN codes which you would be serving this over 200 million prescriptions? With Amazon coming in, how would this range get expanded?
18,000.
Right now we are serving over 18,000 PIN codes.
Got you.
Amazon, of course, I think they have a slightly different capability. They're definitely better in the West than we are in the Mumbai region.
Sure, sure. Just last one question on, you know, as you mentioned in the opening remarks that the discussion took well over six months. Just wanted to know what the challenges for the deal are and, you know, it looks more like a regular buyer-seller agreement on the platform. Why would, you know, the discussion take over six months? Could you just highlight what the challenges were?
I'm really sorry. I couldn't hear you at all. It was really distorted.
Is it better now?
Yeah, slightly.
Okay. No, my question was basically on the challenges for this deal. As you mentioned in your opening remarks, that there were discussion which took well over six months. Just wanted to know, I mean, on the face of it more looks like a buyer-seller agreement. You know, what were the challenges faced from both the sides, you know, to come into a formal agreement for this deal?
Did I use the word challenge? I used the word understanding because it's two big organizations. So we were looking at it more, you know, as organizations meeting. It doesn't really happen. My God, how long has India taken to do one WTO agreement? So treat it as that. Almost two nations talking to each other. It takes time for a relationship to happen, and I think that was the thing. So no challenges as such. It was just the whole understanding that of, you know, and the comfort level and how we'll go. Because like I said, we want to operationalize this in the next 30 days.
Any other question, Mr. Abdulkader Puranwala?
No, I'm good. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Sujan Shah from Akashi Ganga Investments. Please go ahead.
Okay. Good afternoon, ma'am. I don't have any question, but I have a suggestion actually for Apollo Pharmacy. Can I give that or should I come on concall only for Q3 offline with you?
You know, I would love to hear this offline. I will make sure that you get my email. Please, any suggestion is super welcome.
Actually, I have a different sort of a business model which we can do it in a better way so that the Apollo can get a better traction and can get a better whole ecosystem over there. I will like to mail you the whole prospect of what I am thinking of. Don't-
Don't share it with prospective. Don't share it on this platform, then come and tell us. KK is there. You have his email ID. We'd be more than forthcoming to hear your suggestion. Thank you so much.
Actually, I would love to meet you, but I think due to your time constraint I couldn't. If there would be any possible to offline meet, I will sure come to you.
For sure.
Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anuj Suneja from ICICI Prudential. Please go ahead.
Thank you, team. Ma'am, I wanted to ask on the tech support that you talked about from Google. What are we going to do with the insights that we get, and what kind of insights are we trying to get out of customers? What exactly would we be doing with it? Is there any issue of data security that is?
Sangeeta, are you still on the call?
I'm sorry, ma'am. My line just got disconnected. I'm calling.
No. Let me answer that for you. I think that what I'd like to. You know, this is another great advantage we have. We have the greatest longitudinal data for customers, whether it's from pharmacy or being in the business for the last 40 years, hospitals, all this. That longitudinal data, once it's actually codified into our data lake, we're actually. You know, now we're able to understand disease patterns. We're able to do predictive analysis. A simple use case for you is that when you. You know, that we're able to actually standardize the doctor experience. If we ask like 10 questions, then the probability of what you would have is almost 80% if you can get it to that.
That clinical intelligence engine is something that very few people around the world have. This is something that would be the insight or a patentable technology. Everybody says, what does TikTok do which is so much more brilliant than others? Every day at Apollo 24|7, we think what is our technological, you know, advantage? What is the moment that we continue to create? These are the things that we are investing in. Having people like the best of partners with us, the finest of Google's engineers is just one part to it, apart from the great engineering support we have. If we were just pharmacy, we would not invest that. We have 600 people today at 247.
I think the ability for us to be able to create this advanced digital health network is really something that, for the future, will definitely give us that huge advantage over anyone else.
Thank you. Understood. Second question would be what's in it for Google? Just the data part of it or is there, like what is the relationship, type like?
Again, Google is something that we'll continue to work on a relationship. They said, "Please start with us like this." Then after that they look at it in different ways. While they continue to work with many players across the world, they're a little choosy. Like in the US they have Mayo. They've worked with us over the years. You know, they like. They tend to pick up big healthcare networks, that collaborative experience, you know. Whether it's in Google DeepMind or whether it's in Google Health or any one of these, we're able to tap into that engineering expertise. I think that together we'll. It's the beginning, and we think it's a small beginning, but it opens the doors to greater possibilities.
We'll continue to forge these relationships. Again, it's not an exclusive. We'll have that capability with many others.
Sure. Perfect. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you all for being on this call. It's a bit unusual not to discuss earnings and numbers, but to actually have a call that discusses a lot of, you know, a new business possibility that an entrenched group has embarked on. I welcome all the questions that you've given. I think that we've taken it very seriously in consideration. I hope that going away, that you take away from this is that Apollo is investing in building a customer experience which will be unparalleled. In doing so, we'll be able to service many more Indians than what we have done in the last 40 years. We're using this to broaden our reach.
We're using this to go deeper, faster, larger, and I think that this will be the growth engine that will continue to propel our group for the next decade or so. We're very excited about this, about what it brings. We will always keep while we look forward and grow exponentially, we'll do so with a long-term view that it has to be sustainable also. Thank you so much for the insights, the opportunity to be able to interact with you, and we will always be ready to share this kind of wherewithal. I look forward to future such dialogues. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited, that concludes the conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.