Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Ashok Leyland Q1 FY2026 earnings conference call hosted by Access Capital. 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 touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to [Mr. Nishad Jalal] from Access Capital. Please go over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Q1 FY2026 Four Seasons Conference Call of Ashok Leyland. We are pleased to host the senior management team of the company today. We have with us Mr. Shenu Agarwal, Managing Director and CEO, Mr. K M Balaji, CFO, and also the Investor Relations team. I'll now hand over the call to the management team for their opening remarks, post which we can have the Q&A. Over to you, Shenu.
Thank you, Nishad. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining in and for your trust in Ashok Leyland as always. I am pleased to share that we have had yet another quarter of remarkable performance with highest ever Q1 revenue, EBITDA, and PBT. Our net profit in Q1 FY2026 was at INR 594 crore, higher 13% on YoY basis. Revenue was at INR 8,725 crore, higher by 1.5%, and EBITDA at INR 970 crore, higher by 6.4%. EBITDA margin was at 11.1%, higher by 50 basis points over Q1 of last year. Our cash position net of debt continues to be positive at the end of Q1 at roughly INR 800 crore. At the end of the same period last year, our net debt was INR 1,200 crore, reflecting a swing of approximately INR 2,000 crore on YoY basis.
Our MHCV market share, excluding defense and EVs, in Q1 this year improved to 31.1%, with a weak 29.8% during the same period last year. The 0 to 7.5 LCV Vahan market share also improved to 12.9% during Q1, which is 120 basis points improvement on YoY basis. Our focus on product premiumization, cost leadership, and service excellence are helping us deliver improved profitability while growing our market share. This corroborates well with our strategic imperatives of profitable and sustainable growth. While the domestic MHCV industry volume in Q1 declined by 2%, this was on a high base of last year, where in Q1 last year, the industry volume had grown by approximately 10%. Despite the decline in the industry volume, Ashok Leyland's domestic MHCV volume, excluding defense, grew by 2% to be at 25,641 units for Q1 this business.
Ashok Leyland's domestic LCV volume was at 15,566 units, higher by 1.4% YoY. LCV Vahan sales was at 15,436 units, higher 8% YoY. Our export volume was at 3,011 units, higher by 29% on YoY basis. Our home markets outside India, with GCC, Africa, and South Asia, are going well despite all the geopolitical uncertainties. Ashok Leyland products are gaining increasing acceptance in these markets with our approach of developing strong local presence and building products suiting the local requirements. Our non-CV businesses are also growing as per the plan. Our aftermarket revenues were higher 8% YoY, and revenue from power solutions business was higher by 28.5%. Our defense order book and tender win pipeline is stronger than ever, due to which we are confident to post a double-digit revenue growth in FY2026.
Material cost as a percentage of revenue for Q1 was at 70.6%, at the same level as Q4 FY2025, and 1.6% lower than the same period last year. This was a major achievement given the material cost pressures created by steel safeguard duty and tariff volatilities. This was achieved by our continued focus on material and other cost savings, along with better price realization and a healthier model mix. As mandated, we introduced ACs across our product lines in Q1. The migration was smooth, and the entire operations and supply chain was fully aligned in the transition. To offset potential impacts on mileage from the AC in production, we introduced Ashok Leyland's new IVAC system, which is the Intelligent Vehicle Acceleration Control System, in many of our products to improve fuel efficiency.
We are preparing to launch a slew of new products in the balance of the year in both MHCV and LCV segments. These include our foray into 280, 320, and 360 horsepower tippers, tractor-trailers, and multi-axle vehicles with industry-best peak power and torque, heavy-duty aggregates, and a host of other premium features. We are also preparing to launch our first offering in the LNG segment later this year, with multiple models catering to different applications. On the anvil are also our upgraded 13.5-meter bus and an entirely new 15-meter bus with a very unique value proposition. We shall also be unveiling the bifuel product in the LCV range to cater to the demand in the large metros. Many upgraded products for our international markets are also slated for launch this year.
Our e-trucks, both on BOSS and AVTR platform, are gaining traction and proving their technical superiority as we continue to gain more customer orders. We hope that these products will further help us improve our market share across all the product segments in times to come. We are continuously augmenting our fully built capacity to cater to the growing demand. Our new plant in Andhra Pradesh, inaugurated in Q4 of last fiscal, is in the ramp-up phase and will reach a capacity of 200 units per month by the end of the year. Our newest and most modern bus plant at Lanka, which is under construction, will be operational from Q3 FY2026. We are also looking at enhancing capacity at our bus plants at Alwar and Prithla. We continue to expand our domestic network.
We added 23 MHCV touchpoints and 13 LCV touchpoints during the quarter, with most of the additions in the north and central part of the country. With these additions, total touchpoints for MHCV are now at 1,073 and for LCV at 851. By the end of the year, we hope to cross 2,000 touchpoints for both the product segments combined. Internationally as well, we are expanding our network in all our four home markets with South, Africa, GCC, and RTS. One of our key initiatives towards premiumization of our products is to achieve global standards on customer experience by transforming our service operations. This initiative has already started yielding initial results. Ashok Leyland's ranking has improved to number one in dealer satisfaction index and number two in customer and sales satisfaction index. Switch India is going from strength to trend.
While last year, Switch India turned EBITDA positive, we are happy to share that in Q1, the company has achieved PBT break even as well. As indicated earlier, our goal is to achieve that positive status for Switch India in FY2026. The current order book for Switch India stands at 1,500 + buses. Regarding Switch UK, the redundancy process is in progress, which is likely to get concluded by early Q3 FY2026. This will lead to complete cessation of manufacturing and assembly facilities in the Sherbourne U.K. facility. The production of e-buses for U.K. and European markets is being moved to our other global production facilities. Our OHM Global Mobility subsidiary is operating more than 850 buses with fleet availability of 98% +.
During the quarter, OHM added more than 200 buses to the operating fleet and is progressing well on its target of operating 2,500 + buses within the next 12 months. All the GCC projects under execution are at healthy double-digit IRR. OHM is working diligently on the 10,000 + PM E-Drive tender to further add to their growing fleet. Hinduja Leyland Finance and Hinduja Housing Finance continue to do well. HLF standalone AUM was at INR 50,430 crore, and HSF AUM was at INR 14,265 crore, both registering 25% YoY growth. Total income for the finance subsidiaries was at INR 1,855 crore, and the book value at the end of the quarter was at INR 7,222 crore. On a consolidated basis, the NNCA has come down to a healthy 1.63%.
Very recently, HLF also received the finance clearance from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to initiate a merger process with Next Digital, paving the way for its listing. We are making continuous progress on our ESG commitments as well. We have now signed four franchisee partners for AL Harris, our platform for RVSF-registered vehicle scrappage facilities. In our commitment towards RE100, we have achieved 81% RE status as against 69% at the end of FY2025, with our Tamil Nadu plant now at 95%. Our Road to School and Road to Livelihood programs continue to grow, extending their reach to about five lakh students now. As part of RTS, the capacity building sessions and career counseling were delivered to more than 11,000 students in the last quarter. More than 200 women from 15 villages were enrolled into the Road to Livelihood program.
Looking back at the quarter, we believe we have moved well on our strategic goal of delivering profitable growth. Given the high base of Q1 FY2025, we've achieved satisfied delivering record revenue, EBITDA, and PBT in Q1 of this year. We are optimistic about the growth prospects in both MHCV and LCV, given the low base of Q2 last year, where especially the MHCV market was down. The fleet utilizations are holding up, and freight rates and operational profitability are moving northward. We have remained largely immune from tariffs and other geopolitical uncertainties. We believe the uncertainties pertaining to commodities, especially steel, would also settle down in the coming quarters. RBI interest-based stocks have not yet fully transmitted to the ground but are likely to happen soon. The government's CapEx spend also has been higher and is expected to further improve.
On the back of these and based on our upcoming new product launches across different segments, we remain optimistic of volume and margin uptrend for Ashok Leyland in the second half of the year. Thank you once again for your continued trust in Ashok Leyland. I now hand it over to moderators for Q&A.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to withdraw 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Gunjan Prithyani from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, on the margin side, can you give us some colors on what were the key variables? We did see commodity prices in this quarter. There was this mandatory AC cabin regulation as well. Despite that, we've somehow managed to keep the margins, gross margins stable. If you can, give us what were the drivers to it and how should we sort of think going forward? Are there more commodity prices to bear in mind in the next couple of quarters?
Yeah, I'll give you a short answer, then I'll ask maybe Balaji can give you a more detailed one. Like Gunjan, we told you last time, you know, while we were all worried about the AC introduction, whether we will be able to pass on the cost to the market. To our surprise, actually, there is a huge amount of traction that we have seen in our customer base to adopt air conditioning. A lot of customers actually asked us even before the implementation date if we can provide 1080 vehicles. I think there is a kind of a mindset shift happening in the customer base also. We are very happy that we could pass on the complete cost impact of AC.
Beyond that, we were also able to improve our pricing and, to some extent, our model mix as well because multi-axle vehicles, which are the higher margin vehicles for us, really improved on volume in quarter one. Overall, it was a good period. Commodity, we had a certain pressure, especially on the steel side emanating from the safeguard duty. I think that is also coming down right now. When we look at the stock price in the market in July, it is actually moving south now, steel prices. We'll see how it goes in quarter two. We think steel should also settle down to favorable levels.
Yeah. Going on the overhead side, you would have noticed our other expenses we have reasonably controlled, compared to the last quarter where it was around INR 1,000, INR 1,050 crore. You would have seen, in absolute terms, the fixed costs have come down. In terms of lower revenue, the percentage looks a bit higher, but in terms of absolute amount, it has come down. As Shenu indicated, it is the combination of better mix, price recovery, commodity cost controls, as well as overhead controls. All this has helped us. On top of it, the rest of the businesses, like the spare parts, have registered a good 8% growth year on year. The power solution business has registered a growth of about 30%, 35%, 49%, 28.5% compared to the same period last year in terms of revenue. Exports have gone up.
Export numbers, volumes have gone up to, it has crossed 3,000 vehicles in the current quarter. Compared to the same period last year, it is up by about 29%. All this, the non-CV businesses have really contributed to the bottom line.
Okay. Got it. My second question is on Hinduja Leyland Finance, and congratulations. I think this was long, long due. What is the process forward? How soon do we see the conclusion of this restructuring that we were pursuing? If you can also sort of comment on what is happening to the financing landscape for CVs because when I go through a lot of lending, lender or NBFC commentary through this results season, it has indicated that there are some asset quality issues cropping up on the CV side. Is that something that you are also seeing either in Hinduja Leyland Finance's book or otherwise from your customer segment? Just these two.
Yeah, we have a very long-term process. Initially, you know, the shareholders of both the companies, they like to meet. You like to, I mean, fix the ratios, the swap ratios with the shares. You allow to go to the company logboard, the NCLT. You have a long list of processes which need to be complied with. It will take a minimum of two, three quarters, in my guess. I don't want to hazard a guess because, I mean, whatever time it takes, it takes.
Okay, on the financing side?
Yeah, Gunjan, on the financing side, you know, we have been hearing in the news about some distress on the CV side. However, upon deeper checking, we think this is normally the phenomenon at the end of Q1, beginning of Q2, as well as when the monsoon starts appearing, right? Because, I mean, monsoons definitely, the fleet utilization goes down substantially. Therefore, every year, this is what it is. We have internally checked with Hinduja Leyland Finance, and they don't see any red flags right now.
Okay, got it. Thank you so much. I'll join back to the queue .
Yeah .
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Kapil Singh from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, sir. Congratulations on the resilient performance and also the dealer satisfaction ranking. That's quite important. My question is on the demand, MHCV demand itself. You know, we've talked about a lot of positive variables we have seen, like the freight rates and operator profitability. It's somehow not translated into demand and also replacement demand potential, which we have previously discussed. Just to get your assessment of the situation, what is holding back that replacement demand to come back? What is your outlook for the full-year demand, for both domestic as well as international?
Yeah, Kapil, thank you for that question. Let me just comment on the domestic part. Definitely, you know, we are all expecting that this huge aging of the fleet that we are seeing, you know, kind of more of a flatish industry for the last couple of years or maybe three years. I mean, this doesn't gel very well, especially given that macro factors, macroeconomic factors are quite, quite okay. I mean, the only reason we can say what is holding it is that the CapEx on the ground has to really be a little bit more higher. Last year, we were in a situation when the CapEx was not that good as we were expecting. Now it has started turning out well, and now the interest rates are also getting better.
At some point in time, it should open up, you know, but it's hard to say when it will be. Like I said, Q2 had a low base, so maybe Q2 could be a trigger for a better cycle. July already, we have seen that the MHCV market has grown by about 5%. Let's see. All the factors are pointing towards something better, some better demand. Let's see when that happens.
is the outlook, sir, for the full year for domestic?
Full-year, the outlook remains the same, which is mid-single-digit growth for MHCV and slightly higher than that for LCV, but still mid-single.
Okay. On the international side?
For the international side, we are seeing a very good growth. I mean, from all the markets, actually, Bangladesh or SAARC and Africa have been a little bit shocked against our plan for Q1. Those were temporary reasons. I think SAARC and Africa would also bounce back. In Q1, we had a 60%+ growth in GCC. We are actually running out of capacity in our UAE plant now. I think GCC is going very well and will continue to do well, both UAE and Saudi. 29% growth in Q1 we have achieved, and we do hope that we will continue the momentum in the balanced part of the year.
Thanks, sir. One question I also had on OHM. We have put in some capital, I think around INR 300 crore over there. What is the total investment plan that we have for these entities? We're talking about a number of buses that will cross, I think, 2,500 buses in the next 12 months. How much capital requirement is there for these 2,500 buses if you could help us understand that? Is there a plan to monetize this investment or make the balance sheet lighter?
Yes, we are looking at some of those options. Just to clarify, OHM has 800 buses right now, which are on their balance sheet. They will induct another, I would say, maybe 700 more by March of the year. The rest of the 1,000 buses that they would have would actually be on the Switch India balance sheet, but OHM would be operating those, right, because these are the tenders that Switch India had won prior to OHM's existence. However, OHM is actually running those because OHM is an EMAS company. Coming to the funding part of this, previously, we had invested INR 300 crore. Now we are investing INR 300 crore more. This will be sufficient to take care of OHM's buses and OHM's operations up to March of 2026. Beyond that, we are very open to looking at some other options of fundraisers also.
We'll let you know in maybe a few months from now.
Okay, thank you, sir. That's it.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Chandramouli Muthiah from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, and thank you for taking my questions. I have questions just around the upcoming capacity that you discussed in the prepared remarks. You mentioned that you expect mid-single-digit demand, growth in volume through the course of the year. Interest rates have been getting fussy. I just want to understand, in the context of that, how do you think about volume growth in the medium term? What is the current capacity utilization? What is the current plan in percentage terms in adding capacity over that time?
Yeah, thanks so much, Chandramouli. On the capacity front, our overall capacity is fine for, I think, the next two to three years. We don't need to really look at the capacity expansion. However, in certain areas, we are expanding capacity. For example, the fully built bus capacity. What has happened in the last two to three years is that the whole bus demand is now shifting more and more towards fully built buses. Earlier, people used to buy chassis from us, and then they would go to external bodybuilders and get a body made. I think that was more efficient at those times. There was also this tax advantage because the bus body had 18% tax while the chassis would have 28%. I think customers are now realizing that that is very cumbersome for them.
It takes a lot of time, and then they don't get a final product with one manufacturer behind it. I think this whole shift is coming, not just private, but also STU. STUs are now more and more interested in buying from the OEM the whole bus. While we were still expanding the capacity, when we started the Lanka plant, and then we started to revive the Hippy plant, the shift has caught us by a little bit of surprise. Now we are seriously considering enhancing the capacity of fully built buses even more. We have a capacity of about 950 buses per month right now, and we want to go to 1,650 buses a month, including Lanka. We are putting those efforts in to increase that capacity. Otherwise, overall, whether it is LCV or trucks, ICV, or heavy-duty, capacity-wise, we are fine.
Overall, capacity utilization is still at around 70% or so.
Got it. That's helpful. Second question is just around one of your competitors who has been proposed acquisition of a European trucking company. I think with Iveco in the past, you have disclosed that they have been technology partners to you in prior years. Just want to understand if control of that entity changes, if there is anything to disclose in terms of technology sourcing and alternates that you have to think about.
No, not. I'm sure that we had a partnership with Iveco, but that was several decades ago, many years ago. Right now, there is no existing relationship for the last many years of any kind, whether it's technology or product platform sharing or any other kind. This recent news would not impact us in that manner.
Got it. That's helpful. Thank you very much and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Pramod Kumar from UBS Securities. Please proceed.
Yeah, thanks a lot for the opportunity. My first question is just a general reminder to us on the financial or the economics of Hinduja Leyland Finance and Hinduja Housing Finance for the equivalent shareholders. As to what is the carrying value you have and what are the latest financials you have there in terms of financial performance and anything you can help on credit cost and quality parameters?
Currently, prior to this investment of INR 200 crore, Pramod, in Q4 of last financial year, our holding position was about INR 60. Now it has gone slightly up, at around INR 64 per share. That is, I would say, much better. This is our holding value.
Balaji, anything on the latest quarterly financials in terms of credit costs? There's been concern about asset quality on the CV financing side. Just any clear costs there.
We covered. Shenu has already covered this. Their assets under management on the Ashok Leyland AUM is INR 50,000 crore. The PAX number, anything on the ROAs or INR 160 crores. Their NNCA is about 1.63%. Their capital adequacy ratio is about 18.2%. AL shareholding is at 61.12%.
As a part of the process, will you be operating in equity in that entity, or will you continue to be holding your stake at the same levels?
We like to see, I mean, how the swap ratio and all is going to pan out, etc. I'll also take this opportunity to just respond to this, Gunjan's question. Actually, I was going through this, just steps and the series of processes that are involved in it. Actually, a board approval, then appointment of valuers, then the swap ratio, then intimation to RBI and the stock exchanges about the swap ratio, then notice to ROC, then meeting of shareholders on direction of NCLT, then filing of scheme with NCLT, approval by SEBI and RBI, holding of extraordinary general meeting, and then filing of schemes with NCLT, and approval of schemes by NCLT. All these are there. There is a series of steps which are involved in it, and it is going to take more than three quarters.
Yeah, two to three quarters at a minimum.
Minimum.
Okay. Fair enough. Thanks for that, Balaji. Second question is related to the margin and the volume linkage. You did talk about, in the opening remarks, that you can generally see uptrend in the profitability of the company as well. I'm just looking at the fact that last year was a record year for you with 12.8% kind of EBITDA margin. Just to know, how should we look at that margin in context of the volume assumptions you make and the fact that even the last couple of years the industry has been hopeful that the volumes will see uptick, but we have not seen that. Just in case the volumes were not to see uplift, what would be the implication for your margin prediction on a YoY basis? If you can just share your thoughts there.
Pramod, there are a lot of aspects you need to look at the margin. Margins are not simply relatable to the volumes per day. There are many other factors which are involved in it, like the mix of the revenues. The more we do on the non-CV business, the more will be the margins. Even within trucks, you have various segments. In trucks, if we do more on the higher tonnage vehicles, the more will be the margins. On the buses' side again, it all depends on various factors, including the business mix, including the mix, the segment mix within the businesses. Of course, you have the commodity costs involved in it, the cost control measures which we are initiating, the recovery of the passing on of the price increases to the customers.
All these are involved in it, and it is very complex, and it is very difficult to say what will be the margin outlook on a full-year basis now, Pramod.
Directionally, we can tell you that, you know, we have at least for the last three years, we do not sacrifice margins for the sake of market share. Market share, we are very clear, has to not come through short-term measures. It has to come through the premiumization of the product, which gives us the ability to charge better value, better price. It will have to come through our service excellence, which we have started as a very large mission in January, February of this year. I say 18-month project. We are six, seven months into it, but we really want to create a best-in-class, globally benchmarked service experience at our workshop. Of course, running the company very frugally on a tight leash as far as cost circumstance, you know, whether it is material costs or any other costs.
I think those are our three levers other than, you know, focusing and expanding our non-CV business, which is a non-CV, non-domestic business, which is also a very high-margin business for us. We are very, very focused on these three or four aspects, Pramod. Of course, the numbers will tell the stories later. Like I said, this year, we are coming up with this high-horsepower range. We are going to position it at a very premium price because we think that the product would command that price. The product has that kind of a capability to command the price. We will be having the most powered, highest powered, highest torque, the most heavy-duty aggregates. In some of the sectors, customers, we think, would lap onto these products. That's a journey towards margin improvement and market share improvement.
Our overall aspiration, our overall aspiration would be to beat the last year's margins by a handsome margin.
Okay. That's good to hear, Balaji. Thanks, Shenu. Last one, do you think at this point of time at Euro 5, stage 2 norms and safety norms and every norm being thrown into the agency market in the last 5-10 years, is there a significant technology arbitrage between, say, European markets or other Western markets and Indian markets where a balance or an acquisition could be a significant factor? What are your thoughts on that, Shenu and Balaji? What do you think on that? It's not as if there's always a worry that as India migrates and goes through the technology uplift on emission and safety and cabin safety, everything, the foreign players will have a bigger play, but we're not seeing that much of a rise in terms of neither market share nor margins. What are your thoughts on the journey from here on?
Yeah, I think it's a long way out. I mean, I would say 15 to 20 years out from now, maybe. Basically, the difference is not so much in the technology. I think that this difference is in the sizing itself, right? Because these trucks in Europe or America run at 100, 120 kilometers per hour of cruising speed. In India, the maximum speed on our highways is 80, and therefore, the cruising speed would be anywhere between 45 to 55. That is the main difference because then you need much bigger engines, much more. If the engine is bigger, then you need much, much more heavy-duty aggregates, and then you build all that cost. It makes sense for Europe to build that cost because their trucks can do much more trips, much more tonnage kilometers in a year because of that high cruising speed, right?
India, I don't think, would be like that, at least in the next 10 - 15 years because India would need a lot of time to upgrade its infrastructure to the levels of Europe and America.
Good. Thanks a lot, and we'll follow that. Thank you.
Thanks, Pramod.
Thank you. Before we move to the next question, a reminder to the participants to ask a question. You may press star and one. Next question is from the line of Raghunandhan NL from Nuvama Research . Please proceed.
Thank you, Shenu and Balaji, sir. Good to see continuing margin performance. My first question, in Q1 for the cargo and the 3D industry, there was a fall of 4% YoY. Within that, the share of about 25 ton trucks has reduced a little bit. How do you see the mix for the remaining part of the year? Do you continue to see a trend where intermediate and medium commercial vehicles do better compared to heavy commercial vehicles? Do you think the about 25 ton segments can do better in the remaining part?
Raghu, thank you for that question. We definitely think the heavy-duty trucks will do much better after monsoon storms because we are seeing a lot of offshoots in the heavy-duty segment, whether it is in the mining sector, construction, or even like car carriers or other things. We are actually more optimistic this year in the second half, I mean, after August, September, about heavy-duty than for the ICV sector. ICV, of course, performed better in the first quarter up to July. In the first half of the year, ICV always did slightly better than MHCV, than heavy-duty. The second half, we think skippers will do very well. We think trailers will do very well. We also think that multi-axles will also do well.
Got it. Cool. Thank you.
Even in the first quarter, our multi-axle vehicle growth has been quite good. It is much better than the industry growth, Ragu.
Got it. Cool. That is also one of the reasons which has positively impacted your mix in Q1.
That is right.
On the defense side, you indicated that a full-year growth can be in double digits. Any color you can indicate about how large is your order book, or what is the expectations in terms of how much is the potential going forward?
Yeah, Ragu. We are actually very bullish on the defense for this year and also for the next year. The reason is that while Q1 last year, we had a large order that we had shipped out in Q1 last year. Therefore, Q1 this year is optically looking not so good. We have a very, very strong order pipeline. We have about INR 1,000 crore + of orders in hand. We also have one tender, the value of which is INR 2,000 crore +, for which we are awaiting the orders. Orders will come very soon because tenders have already been won by us. We have a very strong pipeline.
I think going forward, orders are not going to be a concern for us for at least next year, year and a half because now we have to just execute these and get these orders out as soon as we can. We are pushing some capacity there. There was a question on capacity earlier, so I had answered about fully built buses. Defense also, it does not require a mammoth CapEx. It just requires a little bit of a tweak here and there. Defense capacity, we are also increasing on a month-to-month basis.
Thank you for that, sir. Can you clarify Q1, how much was the decline in defense revenue?
Quite a bit, actually. How much? I think.
How much?
400 to 150, roughly.
Yeah.
Yeah, INR 400 crore to roughly INR 150 crore. We can give you the exact numbers later.
It will catch up.
It will catch up because last year there was a huge order of a particular vehicle that we had shipped out in Q1.
Yeah, 120 versus the 400. Shenu is right.
Got it, sir. Thank you. On OHM, you indicated that the company is operating at a healthy double-digit IRR. Just wanted to understand, will the operations be covered under the payment security mechanism, for existing and the new addition?
Not the existing, but everything that will come from this new PM E-Drive tender of 10,900 buses, that would be under PM, under the payment security mechanism. Existing buses are mainly from existing orders, mainly from Tamil Nadu and Bangalore, which have been very, very good pay buses. Not overly concerned about the existing buses. Any new orders which will come will be covered under PSM.
Thank you, sir. Just a last question. Can you share how much is the plan for investments in FY 2025, given that you have done some funding for OHM and also whether there will be an incremental funding on the Hinduja Leyland Finance?
Incremental funding on HLFL, we will not be doing anything this year. If any of the other subsidiaries require any funding, then we might give them funding. For example, Switch India is doing really well, and they have become profitable now. They might require some temporary funding to meet their working capital requirements since the cost of the buses is quite high. Keeping manufacturing them and keeping them as STUs could take time to take delivery of these vehicles. Quite a bit of money would get invested and locked up in the working capital. They might require temporary funds, which we might give. Other than that, we don't see any major investments in Q2 or Q3. We will decide it in Q4.
Yeah, nothing significant, sir, other than this OHM 300. Even if some of the subsidiaries, they need temporary funding, we might not do it through equity route. We may do it through some other route.
Got it, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for the day. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
No, thank you very much. As I said, for your trust in Ashok Leyland, we would continue to improve on our volume as well as margins in the times to come. Especially the second half, we hope would be better. Q2, as I said, last year's MHCV industry was way down. Therefore, Q2 could also be better than Q1. As I said, we are very focused on our strategic strengths, to build our strategic strength, which we will continue to do. Thank you once again.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of Access Capital, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.