Good morning, everyone. My name is Saurabh Paliwal, and I welcome you to Aster DM Healthcare's Q3 FY 2022 earnings conference call. We declared our results last evening. Hope you got a chance to review them along with the other materials which were released to the stock exchange as well as uploaded on our website. Today we'll discuss this quarter's performance and future business outlook. We have the senior management team at Aster DM. It includes Dr. Azad Moopen, Chairman and Managing Director, Ms. Alisha Moopen, Deputy Managing Director, Mr. T.J. Wilson, Executive Director and Group Head Governance and Corporate Affairs, Mr. Sreenath Reddy, Group Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Amitabh Johri, Chief Financial Officer, GCC, and Mr. Sunil Kumar, who's the Head of Finance for India. I would also want to take this opportunity to remind everyone on how we will conduct the call.
All external attendees will be in the listen-only mode for the duration of the call. We will start the call with opening remarks by the management, followed by an interactive Q&A session. During the Q&A session, you will get a chance to ask a question by raising your hand by clicking on the Raise Hand icon in the Zoom application at the bottom of the window. We will call out your name, after which your line will be unmuted, and you will be able to ask your questions. We would request you to please limit questions to two per participant at a time and join the line again by raising your hand. Post the completion of your query being answered, we will lower your raised hand in the application. Finally, the safe harbor related to this earnings conference call.
Certain statements that will be discussed in this meeting that are not historical facts might be forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties like government actions, local, political, or economic developments, technological risks, and many other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the relevant forward-looking statements. Aster DM Healthcare Limited will not be in any way responsible for any action taken based on such statements and undertakes no obligation to publicly update those forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. With this, I would ask Dr. Moopen to start with his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Saurabh. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining our FY 2022 Q3 earnings call today. Just as we thought that the global COVID cases were coming to an end, Omicron was reported in November 2021 as a variant of concern by WHO. It spread rapidly around the world, including in India and GCC, as it was found to have high transmissibility but is less virulent than previous strains, producing only minor illnesses in most cases. The large number of healthcare workers getting it had created some challenges in manning our facilities, but luckily didn't produce major disruption as hospitalizations of patients were less.
With vaccination coverage improving to 75% of adult population in India and almost 100% in the UAE and other GCC countries where we are present, we appear to be in a good place. COVID is predicted to become an endemic disease like influenza soon. God forbid for another potent variant is created through mutation. I sincerely hope and pray that we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and are getting back to normal life soon. There has been a significant volatility in the financial performance of some of the healthcare providers in India and GCC during the last two years. However, Aster didn't have major swings except in quarter one and quarter two of last financial year.
Looking at the performance for the 3 quarters in 2021-22, we have come out of the impact of COVID during the financial year. There has been good growth in revenue and profits in this financial year, especially in India. For the quarter ended December 31, 2021 at a consolidated level, we posted a revenue of INR 2,650 crores, which is an increase of 19% when compared with the same period last financial year. The Q3 EBITDA was INR 397 crores, an increase of 21% when compared with same period last financial year. The profit after tax post NCI was INR 148 crores, an increase of 61% when compared with quarter 3 financial year 2021.
With respect to the GCC business, revenues grew by 15% year-on-year to INR 2,032 crores. EBITDA increased to 296 crores as compared to 277 crore in the same period last financial year. The Aster India business, however, is growing very well with revenue growth of 34% to INR 618 crore and EBITDA increased by 100% to 102 crores as compared to the same period last financial year. EBITDA margins improved from 11% in quarter 3 FY 2021 to 16.4% in quarter 3 FY 2022. During this quarter, after our new HR head, Saurabh Paliwal joined, we commissioned an external advisory firm to conduct a financial community perception research study of Aster.
The objective to commission the study was to utilize the findings towards strategic course corrections with the enhancement of communication and disclosures to the financial community to look at realignments which the financial community thought would be best in the interest of Aster and its stakeholders. I thank all respondents for their feedback and would like to highlight the following. First and foremost, increasing share of India business revenues remains our topmost priority. At the same time, we continue to focus on better sweating of our assets in India. This is evident from the growth in revenue and EBITDA, and EBITDA margins year-over-year, especially in India. India contributed 27% of the group EBITDA YTD. The strategy is to grow the India business to a level where it would be contributing 40%-50% of the overall revenue and EBITDA in the next four years.
Regarding liquidating our non-core, non-performing assets in GCC, few discussions have happened and some progress has been made. We will inform the stock exchange and update you when a definitive outcome is achieved. We aim to utilize proceeds received for such liquidation towards debt reduction or to distribute dividends to the shareholders. We are actively pursuing suggestion which came from investors and analysts that we must focus on brownfield CapEx in low CapEx investments to increase capacity. We are adding 210 beds to our capacity with an investment of INR 40 crores by way of taking over the O&M of Aster MIMS Mother Hospital at Areekode, Calicut, and converting a hotel to hospital attached to our Aster MIMS, Calicut.
There are many other brownfield hospitals under discussion, and we hope to add many more beds in the next financial year under this model with very low CapEx investment. We have acted on suggestions and on enhanced disclosures in our investor perception study, which you may have noted, especially related to our India business. We have now included cluster-wise performance and operational metrics for our India hospitals. More disclosures related to diagnostic labs and pharmacy for it can be expected in the next financial year. This should help all of you to track our performance more closely. Our current ESG practices, strategy and commitment to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals has been summarized in our investor presentation and has been showcased in detail in our financial year 2021 Sustainability Report. The sustainability report was prepared in accordance with the GRI standards and is more comprehensive than earlier reports.
It is available on our company and stock exchange website. I'm very happy to report that Aster has been ranked 94th among Global 100 sustainable companies by Corporate Knights after rigorous assessment among over 6,000 companies with more than $1 billion revenue. Proud that Aster is the only company from India and Middle East and is part of a list containing giants like Apple, Intel, Tesla, Unilever, et cetera. Finally, we plan to hold an analyst event in the coming months. The event would be an in-person event to be held in Mumbai, most likely after the announcement of our quarter four results. If a physical event does not materialize due to continued COVID-related uncertainties, we will host a virtual event to ensure the safety of all. We will share more details on the event in due course.
Moving on to the operational update, starting with India. As part of India-focused growth strategy, the Aster Aadhar expansion is now complete, with a total of 63 beds having been operationalized in the third quarter. In terms of capacity expansion at our existing hospital, there will be an addition of 100 beds in Aster MIMS, Kannur in 2 years with a cost per bed of just INR 35 lakhs. We have signed a lease agreement to build a 200-bed tertiary care multi-specialty hospital project in Kasaragod in Kerala at a cost of INR 140 crores to be completed within the next 2 years. We envisage to complete this at less than INR 70 lakhs per bed.
We hope that we shall be able to repeat what we have done at Kannur, with a break-even in less than a year in view of the huge demand-supply gap in the Kasaragod region. We continue to work towards augmenting our hospital bed capacity, especially in clusters where we are already at good capacity levels of 70% and above. Apart from O&M beds being mentioned above, we expect the bed capacity in India to increase significantly from the current capacity beds of 3,920 by end of financial year 2023. Aster Labs, our diagnostic vertical, continued to enhance its presence in both Karnataka and Kerala. As of December 31, 2021, there are 8 satellite labs and 57 patient experience centers and 1 reference lab.
We have an aggressive growth plan for this vertical and aim to reach 33 labs and around 400 experience centers by the end of FY 2023, which will also involve geographic expansion of our footprint into other states. As mentioned last quarter, we entered into an agreement with Alpha One Retail Pharmacies Private Limited to license the Aster Pharmacy brand to run the retail stores and online pharmacy operations. During Q3, ARPL also forayed into state of Telangana. As on 31 December 2021, there are 90 pharmacies, 69 in Karnataka, 13 in Kerala and 8 in Telangana. ARPL plans to launch around 130 pharmacies by the end of this financial year and around 300 pharmacies by the end of FY 2023. For us, it reiterates our 35th foundation day promise that care is just an Aster away.
In the GCC region, we hope to commission 80-bed Aster Hospital, Sharjah and 145-bed Aster Royal Al Raffah Hospital, Muscat in Q1 of FY 2023, where the equipment installation and approvals are happening. As part of improving our presence in GCC region, we also recently announced plans to be present in Salalah, Oman through a tie-up with Maxcare Hospitals. On our proposed international expansion beyond India and GCC, we are critically analyzing and evaluating how and if we should proceed with Cayman project, a subsidiary of our GCC company. Appropriate strategic partnerships to bring in funding and expertise from U.S. will be explored if we decide to proceed. Before I conclude, I would like to reiterate that we remain excited at the growth prospects for Aster, both in short-term as well as in the medium to long term.
We are continuously looking to grow and expand our business with sustainable, suitable partners, both in GCC and India. Strategic options in terms of right corporate structure along with aligned growth levers are being evaluated and being worked upon. I now request the Deputy Managing Director, Alisha Moopen, to elaborate on the GCC business, the digital transformation and other strategic initiatives undertaken by Aster. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, everyone. We have seen, as Chairman mentioned, one more quarter of COVID impact. None of us really expected Omicron shall become a new variant. Thankfully, the strain has been less intense and does not require much clinical intervention. While it did again disrupt travel, given the virulent nature had far fewer people getting affected quickly, but life continued. Dubai had its Expo 2020. Our resilience to resume normal life was yet again tested, but we are all learning to live with COVID. Life has continued, and we are all working to move ahead with this new normal. The revenues for GCC saw an increase of 13% over quarter three and a 7% sequential growth over quarter two. This has been led by growth in hospital revenue by approximately 8% over the same quarter last year. The clinics revenue also saw an increase of 19% over Q3 last year and an EBITDA increase of more than 23% over Q3 last year. The pharmacy segment is also showing signs of improvement, with revenues increasing 17% sequentially, and EBITDA has increased from INR 57 crores in Q2 to INR 76 crores in Q3 of this year. This is really indicative of the recovery and growth in the business environment in the GCC. Our digital journey at Aster is continuing along its planned trajectory. We are steadfast to leverage our digital foray to provide comprehensive patient care.
Our app, One Aster, will be and will become the primary omni-channel mode of engagement and shall allow us to have a unique integrated view of the patient care across all the healthcare touchpoints. We launched version 1.1 in this quarter. We've kept it to a limited launch because we really wanted to enhance the feature set at the end of this quarter. Our patient base on the app has risen almost 3x between October to December and then again, October to December 2021. This period also saw the repeat customers also has doubled in the span of the 3 months of the quarter. We had some interesting insights on the num. As Aster, we touched the lives of over 3.7 million unique patients in UAE, and out of that, we have almost 800,000 patients with chronic conditions. In our pursuit of patient care, we have also been reaching out to our chronic disease patient base through digital mediums for advanced care and launched extensive programs for diagnostic and general well-being. There's a big focus now internally for personalized and guided care to our patients through the digital CRM initiatives. This initiative, we have launched it in this last quarter with 150 patients, which includes 100,000 patients which are from the pharmacy and 50,000 from our Aster Hospital segment.
With this proof of concept, we saw more than 7,000 incremental encounters in our hospitals and pharmacies and revenues of more than INR 6 crore. We're seeing improved patient compliance and repeatability. Patients are showing tremendous response with as high as 25%-30% click rates through SMS and email, whereas industry average is typically around 10%. This really indicates a strong Aster brand equity amongst the customers. A double-digit percentage of these patients are attending digital ePharmacy bookings, and we're trying to rebuild the entire digital ecosystem to build an omni-channel access to our business. We'll be launching the same in the clinic soon, where end primary care will be our focus. Our goal is really to scale up the DCRM across more than 1 million patients by the next earnings call. Specifically, we're seeing that with the proof of concept engagement, it has led to more than 40% compliance on the patient visit. This, as we all know, on chronic patients, is extremely important. We are seeing very positive outcomes within 30-60 days of engaging with our patients. The COVID has also made people a lot more aware of actively safeguarding their health, so the actions we are seeing with our patients is very reassuring. Right now we are engaging largely with SMS and email, but we will soon be adding WhatsApp as well as, of course, the One Aster app, which will make it much more easier. We are also launching a data lake digital initiative across Aster. This cross-vertical data lake is to leverage the native data across our verticals and shall help in unlocking cross-vertical engagement opportunities and engagement.
This shall have use cases across marketing, clinical, and operations. This is planned to be undertaken over the next couple of quarters as we work towards engaging with our technology partners. Data integration, besides unlocking various opportunities immediately, it'll also enable, help and enable the One Aster online engagement platform, where we'll have the e-pharmacy, the teleconsult, the home diagnostics, home care, all converging together. Teleconsultation is already live, and pharmacy will be enabled in Q4, at the end of Q4. We shall have diagnostics and home care being launched over the next few quarters. With this, Aster will have a truly unique omni-channel health platform for its patients, and it will become a true differentiator for Aster in the UAE. This will all drive best-in-class engagement, care coordination and one experience for our patients. We plan to replicate this omni-channel model in our top core markets in India, post successful launch in UAE in a phased approach by Q3, Q4 next year. I will now request our Group CFO, Sreenath Reddy, to take us through the details of the financial and the segmental performance for the quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, Alisha Moopen. Good morning, everyone. On a consolidated basis, our revenue from operations for the quarter has increased by 19% to INR 2,650 crore year-on-year and sequentially by 6%. India revenues have increased to INR 618 crore, up 34% year-on-year from INR 459 crore. Revenue from our GCC operations is INR 2,032 crore, an increase of 15% year-on-year and 7% sequentially. Consolidated EBITDA for the quarter is INR 397 crore, an increase of 21% year-on-year and 16% sequentially. EBITDA from India operations has doubled year-on-year to INR 102 crore, and EBITDA from GCC operation is INR 296 crore, an increase of 7% year-on-year and 23% sequentially. EBITDA margin is 15% as against 14.7% in the same quarter of the previous year, an increase of 30 basis points. PAT post NCI increased by 61% from INR 92 crore in Q3 of FY 2021 to INR 148 crore in the current quarter. In terms of performance for nine months, consolidated revenue from operations increased by 21% year-on-year from INR 6,218 crore to INR 7,525 crore. EBITDA for the period has increased from INR 742 crore to INR 1,021 crore, up 38% year-on-year. India's contribution to the group EBITDA has increased to 27% compared to 15% in the previous year. PAT post NCI is INR 300 crore compared to INR 42 crore during the same period last year.
Coming to the segmental performance for the quarter, GCC hospital revenue is INR 868 crore, an increase of 8% year-on-year. However, EBITDA loss from our Sonapur facility, which is now put into operations for secondary and tertiary care, has contributed to the losses. The facility was earlier used for COVID patients referred by Dubai Health Authority. Increase in remuneration for frontline workers has also added to our costs, resulting in decrease in EBITDA and EBITDA margins compared to last year. GCC clinic revenue is INR 637 crore, an increase of 19% year-on-year and 8% sequentially. EBITDA increased by 23% year-on-year to INR 142 crore, and EBITDA margin increased from 21.4% to 22.2%. GCC pharmacies revenue increased 22% year-on-year from INR 498 crore to INR 608 crore. EBITDA increased from INR 59 crore to INR 76 crore, an increase of 29%. EBITDA margin for this segment also increased to 12.5% as compared to 11.9% for the same period last year. Consolidated net debt as at December 31, 2021 stands at INR 1,912 crore compared to INR 2,004 crore as at March 31, 2021. A reduction of INR 92 crore. India net debt stands at INR 311 crore compared to INR 306 crore as at March 31, 2021. The GCC net debt has reduced to $215 million from $231 million as at March 31, 2021. Capital expenditure during the nine-month period was INR 345 crore.
We hope the additional disclosures in our investor presentation this time has helped in giving a better perspective on our India operations. We would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. I now request Saurabh to open the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, Sreenath. I'll request people who have questions to ask to raise their hand using the Raise Hand icon at the bottom of the Zoom application. We just wait for a minute before we start the Q&A session. The first question is from Aditya Khemka. You can go ahead and ask the question.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. First off on the reorganization plan that you know you had alluded to last quarter, just wanted an update, where do we stand there on the reorganization part, and have we narrowed down on you know what sort of reorganization you want?
Yes. We have a ppointed an investment banker who identified a few of the prospective partners for the GCC business, we are in discussion with them. That is going as per plan, and we hope that we'll be able to come to somebody who, I mean, sort of with our philosophy and all who match with us and who can also match our expectations regarding the pricing and all. That's going, Mr. Khemka, as we speak.
Got that. Secondly, on the India business, could you take us through what, you know, sort of would be your CapEx plan for FY 2023 and 2024 for the India business, given the brownfield expansion that you guys have alluded to?
Yeah. Aditya, like what we had guided in the previous quarters as well. The total CapEx in the current year, what we are estimating is around INR 580 crores, right? Out of which, INR 300 crores would be in India. That is the broad estimates. We are looking at similar kind of CapEx in India for the next two years. Overall the CapEx outlay for the next two years will continue to remain in the range of INR 500 crores-INR 580 crores, out of which major part of it, close to INR 300 crores, will be in India.
Got that, Sree. Thank you. I'll get back in with you.
Thank you.
Thanks, Aditya. The next question is from Rajat Sharma.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the good set of results. My question is, basically, on the GCC region. When I see your 6-month presentation and your 9-month presentation, especially on the 0-3 years hospitals, I see that 6 months you were trending around 17% EBITDA margins for the newer hospitals. For the 9 months it's come down to 14.7%. That would basically mean that, last quarter, 0-3 years, you would have done around 10% EBITDA margins in your newer hospitals. I also see that your occupancy levels have increased, and also the ARPM have increased in this segment. What has led to this EBITDA margin contraction?
Over three years in some of our facilities, right? In Medcare hospitals, we have got the Medcare hospitals. During the quarter three, we have seen a little bit of slowdown in our Medcare facilities. That is something. This is a little bit seasonal. It could be temporary, so we are not expecting this to continue that way. Our higher and upper end segment, which was Medcare, which all the while was doing very well, right? That is slightly the over that we have seen. We have been seeing a little bit of slowdown in business. That has led to the contraction in over three years. Alisha Moopen, you would like to add anything over here?
Yeah, Rajat, I think you were talking about the 0-3, right? We've had
Yeah. I'm confused because I see that
Your occupancy levels have actually increased by 2 percentage points. Even if there was seasonality effect, occupancy should have come down. Both occupancy as well as ARPM have gone up, but the EBITDA margins have contracted.
We've had some operational.
Yeah. Alisha, let me see the thing is that, like what I was saying, right? Let's say even Medcare as a facility, when slightly it goes down, the Aster is something, Aster is doing better, right? In terms of the realizations, Aster occupancy even if it is going up and the realization per bed in Aster is going up. But when you compare as a group as a whole, EPI, the contribution of the EBITDA in terms of ARPM is significantly higher, right? That explains as to why you see something like that in 0-3 years.
Also, one of the new facilities which was opened up, Rajat, the Sonapur facility, there are some operating losses which has come in from that new facility as well.
Yeah. That is in the bucket of 0-3 years.
Yeah.
Which Sonapur, like what I said in the opening speech, that this facility we had in the past we had put it into operations. However, it was mainly for the COVID patients, so it was given on contract to the DHA, and we were getting revenues off of it. Now during this quarter, in 0-3 years, in this particular bucket, this hospital was commissioned for the secondary and tertiary care. That is our regular business. This regular business being the first quarter of the regular business, this has contributed to the losses. In this bucket, you will see that, unlike the past, the losses over here because of the losses, the overall EBITDA margins would have come down in the hospital segment.
Got it. Sir, on your India occupancy consolidated basis for both 0-3 years and 3 years, I see that we were doing around 70% occupancy levels over in the first half, but now it has come down to 65%. What is that occupancy?
Yeah. That again is, like what I said, seasonality, right? See, if you look at quarter two in India generally is a peak quarter, and quarter three is slightly lower in India, generally broadly speaking. Also during quarter two, right, because we had some of the COVID patients and others who were getting filled up, especially in the Kerala cluster. Right, because more of that hospital beds were getting filled up. Now, this has slightly reduced, but we expect that in the coming quarters we should again go back to that earlier outcome experience.
Got it. Thank you. Sir, one last question, if I may. Your GCC clinics business seems to have seen some bit of turnaround, both, like I think you've reported highest ever revenues in the clinics and EBITDA margin also seems to be back to pre-COVID levels. What has changed within a quarter, if you could just throw some light on that?
This is something the clinics during the COVID period last year, there was pressure both on the clinics as well as on the pharmacy spread. However, now, because of the COVID, the RTPCR testing, the clinics have been benefited. The increase in revenues and the profitability is mainly on account of the RTPCR testing. At some point of time, this will get normalized and it will go down and the regular business of ours in the clinics will come back. For maybe another quarter as well, the margins in the clinics will be high. Eventually it will settle down. It'll come back to its normalcy. When we say normalcy, we are looking at somewhere around 18%-19% as the EBITDA margins in clinics. It all depends on how long this RTPCR will continue. Till such time the RTPCR testing continues, the clinics will have higher margins.
Got it. Thank you, Sreenath. Thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you, Rajat. The next question is from Kunal Sharma. You may go ahead and ask your question.
Thanks for the opportunity. Good morning, all. I just wanted to know about the diagnostics segment. What would be the price range of the radiology and the pathology? And please throw some light that how does it compete the price range as compared to the pure play diagnostic player in India particularly?
We don't have diagnostics. In the diagnostics, we don't have radiology. This is only lab which is there. I just want to tell you that we are looking at this as an ecosystem. It's not that we are just, I mean, spreading labs out there for the lab per se business. It is there, but more importantly, this is creating an ecosystem of our hospitals, pharmacies, labs, and the home care along with virtual care. That's the whole idea. The price definitely will be competitive, and it will be in line with what the normal standalone labs are charging. For us, it is much beyond a normal lab. It is an ecosystem to provide one-stop solution for the patients in the geographies where we have already hospitals, by bringing all the pieces together, so that from primary care to the quaternary care, they can get the treatment as a single stop shop. That's the whole idea. Exactly coming to the rates that we are charging, it is at par with what the established players are doing.
Okay, got it , I just wanted to know about the technology and the digital spending. It was like on the before speech, you spent some time, but could you please throw more light on the same?
I didn't hear the question clearly. What was the technology of what?
Yeah, technology and the diagnostics and the labs. Could you please throw some light on, like, on the digital spending on the same?
Like what Alisha mentioned. There are two pieces. One, the lab per se. We have a very highly efficient referral lab. Along with that, the satellite labs. All the advanced tests will be done in the referral labs, where we are going to that level where except genetic testing, we have everything else which is already there in the referral lab. This lab is presently taking care of the samples from all our hospitals. It is managing our hospitals in India as well as the samples from the GCC come here. Now, it also has the other satellite labs and the patient experience centers from where the samples come into the satellite labs, where the technology will be at a lower level. But whatever is required beyond that will be sent to the referral lab which is in Bangalore.
Now, the next part is how are we going to do the connect with the patient, which is what Alisha mentioned about the One Aster app, which will connect the pharmacies, the labs, the hospitals, and the home care, and we will be far ahead of others when we are providing this service to the patients.
Got it. Got it. Thanks.
Yeah. In terms of the tech spend, it has been for the current year until December, it's INR 44 crore. Out of which, INR 20 crore is capital in nature. In terms of labs, the amount that we have incurred to set up this labs is INR 45 crore till 31st December.
Thank you.
Thank you, Kunal. The next question is from Amrish Thakkar. You may please go ahead.
Amrish?
Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Hello, yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on a very good set of results. Thank you also for the extra transparency on the India business, as well as I see we now have a management picture at the back end, which I assume completes our management team, which you had talked about in the last call about the five heads for the India business.
Yeah.
My question is, if you could help me understand a little bit more about the lab and the pharmacy business. I think I got the point about the ecosystem. I understand the concept that we will have a brand that can be trusted, and therefore we will be able to provide a better service to our patients. They will have the confidence to come to us. Firstly, also, we need to think about it in financial terms. Is there something you can help us understand, first of course, on the lab side, how do we think about what is the lab in terms of revenue or EBITDA? On the pharmacy business, what is our relationship with the RPL and how does this translate? Any broad brush, because of course we can see the numbers for GCC. Anything that you could help would be appreciated.
Sure. The number regarding the lab, what is the plan and where we are now and what we are planning, even though it may be a little forward-looking, Sreenath and Sunil Kumar, our India head, will be able to give you those details. Even the pharmacy, how it is performing now and what we are looking at. Roughly what I wanted to just tell is that it's in a very primitive stage, and we are catching up. Major part of the business now comes from the own business from the hospitals. Our B2C business is increasing, and that's what we are focusing now. That should increase our EBITDA and all. Now, our largest part of business coming from the hospitals who take the profits, it is not reflected in the lab. As soon as the B2C business catches up, which is growing as we speak, as we are increasing more and more of the patient experience centers and the satellite hospitals, our margins will start increasing. Our hope is that by next year we'll have a fairly good situation regarding the EBITDA and the profits and all. The top line also is going to significantly increase. In the pharmacy, as we are having a very fast rollout, in the next year, we are planning another 150 pharmacies, so that will be altogether 300 pharmacies.
The one good thing which has happened is that we have not gone into that discount mode where which is being followed by most of the online stores. Our discounts are very low, and we are still maintaining a fairly good margin. We are in a situation where the sales also is increasing. Every month there is an increase in the per store sale as well as the overall volume. Of course, the number of stores are increasing. I think we will be able to go into a break even on the pharmacy side. Sunil, you can just come in on what we are planning and what is the overall plan regarding the lab and the pharmacies. Sunil?
Thank you, Chairman.
Yeah. On the labs, as we already know, you know, we have around 66 labs. That's basically one reference lab and eight satellite labs and 57 location experience centers. Currently, as the Chairman was saying, you know, majority of around 30%-80% of business currently flows from our Aster business. Our non-Aster business is a minority, currently around 15%-20%, which is expected to, you know, grow to at least 40%-46% by end of next year. In terms of profitability, we are almost reaching the break-even state and expected to have a positive EBITDA in the next financial year. That is on the lab bit of it. On the pharmacy bit of it, already, as Chairman has suggested that, you know, we have already plugged in around 100 stores up to December. Our per day sales also is ramping up very rapidly. You know, we are almost reaching to almost INR 10K per store. We are doing that. With respect to ARPL, the connection what we have is that we have a brand licensing agreement, you know, from Aster business. That's how they are able to launch the business.
Adding to what Sunil has said, see the lab business at this point of time. Majorly it has been this business, a very small component which comes externally. Beginning from next year, we'll have a separate vertical segment being disclosed both for the pharmacy as well as labs. Pharmacy, we have got a wholesale business, and the retail is being done by ARPL under a brand license arrangement from Aster.
Thank you. Thank you, thank you all. This is very exciting. Look forward to next year on this front. Just one quick clarification on, again, a follow-up from last call. We talked about some form of demerger of the Gulf business, GCC business. Is that now off the table because we're now focusing, will anyway grow the India business or is that still something that we're looking at?
Yeah. I was just talking about in the first question which came in. We are still considering that, and we would like to have these two businesses, I mean, separately. That's a very important strategic consideration where the India can be looked at by the India investors and analysts and all. Whereas the GCC is a different set of investors usually who like to invest into GCC. As we speak, we are looking at getting a partner who is interested for the GCC. If we find a partner who goes well with our philosophies as well as with a good valuation, we will be willing to have this being done either as a demerger or a sale of the GCC business to some, we will definitely be on both sides, and for us along with a partner, that's what we are looking at, Amrish.
Okay. Thank you very much. Wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Okay. Good luck.
Thank you, Amrish. The next question is from Harith Ahamed from Spark Capital.
Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity. So my first question is on the Aster Pharmacy rollout. The arrangement we have with ARPL, just clarification on that. Do we book the revenues at Aster Pharmacy stores, or is it just a brand licensing arrangement?
Yeah, Harith, we don't consolidate the revenues or the profits or losses of the ARPL. Only to the extent of investments we take that. We don't consolidate the revenues over here because it is something which is not a subsidiary, so it's a different entity altogether. We have got 15.7% stake. Therefore, we don't consolidate.
Any specific reasons why we have this Aster Pharmacy rollout under an associate and not u nder of the parent company or under a 100% subsidiary?
Yeah. Harith, we have got a wholesale business, right? We concentrate more on the wholesale business. This wholesale business would also cater to this particular ARPL over and above the other wholesale business, so what we are doing. Due to certain legal challenges, we ourselves can't get into retail. That is the reason we thought it's best to have a brand license arrangement, wherein ARPL on its own can roll out the retail pharmacies. We will just concentrate on the wholesale.
Yes, because we have given the brand license and other things, they are supposed to follow certain conditions under which this brand license arrangement is being brought.
How much of ARPL sourcing is from our distribution or our back-end network currently and how should we think about it maybe in the long term?
Most part of the ARPL business, right, in terms of the procurement will be mainly from our wholesale business. They can procure from others, but for most part of it, they will be procuring from our wholesale business.
Okay. Thanks for that. My second question is on the COVID vaccination both in India and GCC. In GCC, is this an opportunity for us? Is there some upside from vaccination in our GCC business? If yes, under which segment are we booking this? In India, how significant was this in the third quarter?
Yeah. Harit-
Harit,
Yeah.
Yeah.
In India as well as in GCC, this is not an income source for Aster. In India, of course, initially it was, but very limited now. As well as in GCC, this is completely run by the government, so it is not a source of income for Aster.
Okay. Understood. I'm assuming in India, in the third quarter it was not a very material number.
No, not material numbers. Sreenath, how much was the vaccination income in quarter three?
In quarter three it was only INR 2.62 crore.
Okay. Last question from my side. In our GCC hospitals, the mature hospitals cohort, we've been at an EBITDA margin of around 16%-17%. I'm just trying to understand what's the margin profile excluding the Sanad Hospital. I understand that we've put the expansions there on hold. Any updates on that front at Sanad in terms of an exit or you know the expansions, how should we think about it?
Alisha, you would like to answer that?
Harith, you're right about the margin profile. We expect our steady-state mature hospital to be around 18% in the hospitals. Definitely Sanad is pulling it down because Sanad is closer to 4%-5%. If you adjust it, Sreenath, we might be closer to 17%-18%, right?
Yeah. I think that's.
Yeah, that's right.
On the Saudi asset, as Chairman mentioned in the opening remarks, we are looking at some potential monetization on the Saudi asset. Hopefully, we will have some news in the next couple of months.
Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you, Harith. The next question is from Shyam Srinivasan from Goldman Sachs.
Hi, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. Just the first one is on the opening remarks by the chairman on the India contribution over the next four years, right? So we are at 24% revenue from India today, and I think the comment was 40%-50%. So just want the broader vision around how we plan to reach it, maybe the split between hospital, maybe early days to hospital, pharmacy, you know, labs. Maybe it's just driven largely by hospitals. But just want to understand the path. So is it gonna be continued expansion in beds? How do we look at the pricing strategy? Do you think ASPs will keep going up? Just help us understand how we reach the bridge from, say, 24%-25% today to 40% on the lower end.
The strategies are different. One is the sweating of the existing assets. We have still, I mean, beds which are sitting there which are not operationalized. About 300-350 beds are sitting, which can be operationalized and which will bring in significant revenue. Second, as we speak, we have this new strategy of adding on these brownfields, and that will be revenue which will start coming in without much delay. Along with that, we also have greenfields in pipeline. Apart from the hospitals which we mentioned, we also have other projects which are in discussion, like in some of the areas like in Trivandrum as well as in Bangalore. We are looking at additional beds in those areas.
With all this, there'll be a significant increase in the number of beds. That is one part which will definitely contribute to that increase in the revenues. Maybe there'll be some pull-down because of the greenfield projects, but we hope that many of these places will be able to go into a breakeven, which we have done in Bangalore or in Kannur and places like that within a very short period. Answering your question, large part of this will come, one, from sweating of the assets better, where there'll be an increase in the utilization of the existing beds, operationalization of beds in the existing facilities. Then adding beds to our existing hospitals, which is one of the most important areas. For example, Kannur, we are adding 100 beds.
We are planning to add 100 beds in Calicut, means where already 70 beds are added through the brownfield. Another 100 beds we want to add. In Kochi, we have sufficient space to add another 100-150 beds. Those things, along with like what we did in Kolhapur, there'll be an expansion happening in the existing hospitals. Answering your question, in the next 3-4 years, there'll be significant increase by way of increase in the number of beds of the existing hospitals and then also new hospitals by way of brownfield and as well as greenfield. Now, the other areas, we have now not been very aggressive on our pricing. If you look at our pricing strategy, many of our hospitals haven't taken significant price increase in the last 3 years.
We have now started looking at a price increase, an annual price increase of 5%-10%, which should increase our revenues. Last 3 years we have not taken any price increase. That will be another important thing which will definitely improve the revenue as well as the flow into the EBITDA. Apart from that, the most important is the ecosystem which I spoke. We are going to have exponential increase in the number of patients as well as the overall revenues and profits by utilizing the ecosystem of putting together our pharmacies, clinics, the labs, the home care, along with the hospital, and providing a sort of a one-stop solution for our patient needs.
That is going to place us in a position which will be far ahead of anybody who presently hasn't tried that out. We hope that we'll be able to do that and have significant improvement in our revenues, both in GCC and India. As this is being done in GCC now, we'll extrapolate that into India and get that benefit. That's our overall strategy.
Got it.
Sure.
Doctor, yeah, thank you. Thank you for that elaborate answer. Dr. Azad Moopen, if you can, and maybe you can do it, say, when you're doing Q4 or when you're giving your analyst day, just the walk on the number of beds from 2,900 today to if you say it's like 3,500 or 4,000, whatever is the number that you have there, so that forms the basis for this particular thing. That will be useful to get. I think maybe that is one suggestion that I can quickly give. Flipping over the question on the other side, which is when GCC reduces in size in terms of significance. Just looking at GCC hospitals, I'm doing two-year CAGR on hospital business alone. It has been low single digit, right? 4%-5%. O ccupancies are like around 50%. Is there something that we think that's the rate it can actually do, or you think there is any scope for improving growth in GCC hospitals?
Yeah. I'll answer the first part, and then I'll ask Alisha and Amitabh to answer the part two. Now, the part one of your question, definitely we can provide that because we have a strategic plan which is already built for the next four years, and built to 0-5. We have all the numbers which I mentioned being put in there. What are the number of beds which are going to increase in different categories? How much will be increased in our existing hospitals? How much will be the brownfield, and how much will be the greenfield? All these are being, I mean, being finalized.
We'll be able to give that in the investor meet when we have that. That will definitely give you more definite information regarding what is being planned so that you can also look at how we are doing that. We will provide you those details as we go forward in the investor meet for India. Regarding GCC, if Alisha you can just take it up and with the
Sure.
Yeah.
Shyam, I think what we've been seeing here is between the different segments, there's been different competitive pressures happening. Our Aster units are performing quite well, so we're seeing high occupancies in them, and that's where we've been expanding more so, right? On the Medcare segment, there has been more units set up over the last 1 year in the market. There has been some pressure on occupancy, which is seen because of that. Having said that, we do feel that with some of the initiatives that we started, whether it's the referral leakages with the digital CRMs, we are pretty confident about the growth in the occupancies. Here you don't see the occupancy rates like in India at 75%-80%. We would still be aiming for closer to 60%-65% as a blended.
Aster probably at around 70%, and then Medcare probably because here a large part of the income also comes from the OPD. It's if you look at Medcare for example, it's pretty much equally split between OPD and IP in a hospital. In Aster it's a little bit more skewed, where it's probably around 40% OP and then 60% IP. We don't look at only the occupancy when we are looking at how these assets, especially hospitals, are performing. Here there is a large amount of revenue that comes in from the OP as well. Amitabh, anything you might want to add?
Sure, Alisha. Thank you very much. Just complementing what Alisha is saying, clearly in the case of Aster hospitals, we have seen occupancy for Mankhool in the range of 90% and Qusais in the range of 70%, so blended could be in the range of 75%-80%. While what we see in Medcare is around 52%-53%, and that's largely emanating from the fact that, you know, there are specialty hospitals over there. Because of which the occupancy could be lesser. We're trying to increase that with referrals, especially from the clinics, which is inside clinics and our own clinics and outside clinics. Another thing that we are trying to work towards is to work with the insurance companies to increase the networks over there. Because once we do that, this GCC market is an insurance-driven market.
The expansion of networks and getting more of, those aligned to the Medcare group will help us increase the occupancy through patient flow. That is something that we are planning for the next few years to come.
Got it. Yeah. Thank you, and all the best. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, Shyam. The next question is from Ruchika Bhatia. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi. Thank you for the good set of numbers. Just wanted to understand what would be the differentiation strategy for setting up hospitals, like expanding hospitals in India?
Yeah. Can you please repeat that question?
Yeah, yeah. What would be the differentiation strategy compared to peers for expanding capacities in India?
Differentiation strategies between GCC and India or,
I'm sorry.
India compared to the peers.
Which is the Indian peers.
Compared to the peers. Okay. As I mentioned, many of our hospitals have got capacity for increasing the beds because we have adjacent land. That is our first preference. We want to increase the beds attached to our existing hospitals. We have found that it is much less expensive as well as it breaks even and provides significant increase in the revenues and profits. That will be the first preference. Luckily we have in many of our places, we have, I mean, land which can be utilized for this expansion. The other thing will be the brownfield which I mentioned. We are going into active search for partners for the operations management to get hospitals into that.
Even though others might be doing that, I don't think this is a strategy others have taken it up. What we see is that when we have a hospital, a large hospital in one of the cities and maybe 50 kilometers away, there is a requirement for a hospital facility and there is a hospital there which we can take over operations management. Maybe 200 beds, 300 beds, whatever, and they are struggling in management because they don't have the people and expertise for that. That increases the delivery of better healthcare in that region because we have doctors who can provide the service there. We can online connect with them. With all that we hope that the care there improves as well as that will also bring in a lot of revenues.
Answering your question, expansion of the hospitals, I mean, which are our existing hospitals. Second to go into the brownfield where the CapEx will be very low. Third of course some greenfield expansion. We also will look at the strategic acquisitions if something is available, but that is not the first choice because you'll have to spend a lot of money if we want to do that.
Right. Thanks for answering that. What I actually wanted to understand is, say, suppose there are already other brands in the same area, say Bangalore or something. Why would a customer choose to go to Aster in that context? I want to understand.
Okay. See as you may recall when we started four years back the Aster Bangalore, we were being warned and told that, how can Aster get a business share there because all the national level players are there and it is very thickly populated. Within one year we went into a break-even. This, of course, in Kerala we are the leading player, and wherever we go, we have the capability for doing that. Our brand is so prominent, and there is nobody else as a national brand who is present in Kerala. We have confidence that with the strategies that we adopt, we will be able to make a hospital successful by attracting doctors and attracting patients.
Now, the most important differentiation which is going to come in as we speak in the future, like what I spoke earlier, is to tie up all this together. Where we'll have the pharmacies, the clinics, the home care, the labs, everything, which will be a funnel for bringing patients into the hospitals. So patient will have a omni-channel opportunity for getting full healthcare, where they will be much more happier than just being spread across three or four providers. Ruchika.
Sure. Thanks for explaining that. One question, I wanted to understand the share pattern. Like these, we have, like, Union Investments Private Limited. Can you just elaborate more on the structure and the business of that company, and why is it set up in Mauritius?
Right. See, we are people who are doing business. As you know, we were in UAE for the last 35 years, and we established business here, and we had significant businesses here. It is at that point we invested into India, and that came through Mauritius, because the India investment, we thought that it is tax-efficient to come through Mauritius. The family, the promoters, invested through the UIP into India. That's how our holding in India is through the UIP. And that is held by the whole family. Rest of our investors, some of them are from outside of India, as well as many of them are Indian investors. That's the structure. Regarding the percentage of how much is the holding, of course, you can readily access it from the stock exchange reports now.
Sure. Sir, is there
Sorry, I just wanted to add to your previous question, that you were asking about the differentiator, right? I think one of the key areas of focus for us as a group is also on the service piece. If you actually look at, you know, whether it's Google ratings, our own sort of, focus on NPS and stuff, we probably have one of the highest scores as far as service excellence is concerned. We take that very seriously. What is every feedback that comes from the patient, how do you sort of improve? Because at the end of the day, and especially in markets like Bangalore, everyone has opportunity and the option to go, to different places with insurance coverage. How do you really kind of become the, preferred choice, right? For us, one, the service is a key differentiator.
Even if you look at, sort of in terms of national rankings on clinical leadership, we are sort of in The Times of India in the top 10. We have our Aster Medcity, we have the Aster CMI project, even in the week survey. Even the clinical competence which is there, we've done probably around 500 transplants in this year. The kind of doctors that we have attracted and the kind of clinical work that we do is also being appreciated and noticed. That really has to be a differentiator.
Thank you so much for answering.
Ruchika, any other question?
Yeah. W anted to understand further in detail about the Union Investments Private Limited. Like, what's the core business right now? Or is it only for the shareholding?
Ruchika, so it's mainly only for the shareholding, and it gets dividends, right? It's a holding company of the promoters, and that's invested into India. Just like any private equity investor who sets it up either at or from Mauritius or whatever, whichever it is. Union Investment, because the advice was given to the promoters, because the promoters being non-resident Indians, the advice was that they should invest through this vehicle and therefore this vehicle was set up.
Okay. Sure. Thank you. Thanks for answering this.
Sure.
Does that answer the question, Ruchika?
Yes, sure. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Amit Khetan. You may please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity. Just one question from my end. If I look at your senior management in your DRHP and your current slide, there is a lot of changes here. Just if you could throw some color on what's really going on here and what are the challenges we have faced, and what are the steps we are taking to address the attrition, if I may say?
Yeah. You are talking about attrition where?
In the senior management team. If I look at your key management personnel mentioned in the DRHP around three years back and what it is today.
Yeah. There has been one major change where the India head, Harish Pillai, he has left and he has actually got a job overseas, and he has taken it up. That's the reason why he has gone. He has not taken up any other local job. He has moved due to that. That's something which has happened in India. In the GCC, there has been some movements, and we always look at people who are capable and who can I mean live up to their KPIs. See, Dr. Harish, of course, it was a movement because of his opportunity. But us in GCC, some of the people, if they don't fulfill their KPIs, we may have to replace them.
Overall, when you look at the core team, that is 10-12 senior management members, of that at least 80% are stable and they have remained with us for long period.
Got it. Can we expect stability in the current management team?
Definitely. That's what we are looking. We think that we have now fairly overcome the issues regarding the management, senior management, some of the people wanting and all. Even at the India level, we have some changes at the India management level. We have now a fairly good team. Attrition can happen at any point in time, but if it is, say, 10%-20%, it's okay. Even that, we hope that it won't happen. Like what you said, that there has been some attrition more than what we used to have earlier in the last 2 or 3 years, because of efficiency related matters. We have now replaced people with the people who can deliver, and it's going to be stable.
Got it. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you, Amit. The next question from Mehul Sheth. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. One question on your cluster-based approach in India business. You are in process to divide India business into five clusters. Dr. Azad Moopen will take control over Western India business. What is the progress on that front?
That already happened, and we have divided it into five clusters. The performance in the last six months has increased significantly after this cluster came in. For the Kerala cluster, we have the regional director, Farhaan Yasin, who is taking care of the Kerala cluster, which is our largest cluster. Then for the Karnataka and Maharashtra, which is put into a cluster, we have Dr. Nitish Shetty, who is taking care of that. Both these people and the other cluster, which is the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, we have Devanand K.T. All these people were with us for long period, and so they are continuing. Two people who joined recently because these are two new verticals.
One is in the lab, that is Anandita Chaodhary, who has joined. He has been leading the eastern business of the lab service, SRL Labs, and he has joined us. Another one is pharmacy, where Ramakrishna D. has joined, who has been the second in command for the Apollo Pharmacies. These are the five people who have joined and started driving, and they are reporting directly to me. This is not going to be a permanent thing. We will have an India CEO. This is something we thought that in the interim, while this is happening, we didn't want to bring another person and create a confusion. Maybe one of them or maybe somebody from outside will take up the India leadership.
Another thing which I wanted to tell is that we are now in the process of even though we have a person who is taking care of that, we are now with the focus on the virtual. We'll be having a sixth cluster, which will be looking at the virtual and the online related areas. That is another cluster which we are hoping to create in the next financial year also.
Thank you, sir. Sir, one question on your effective tax rate. What can be in FY 2022, then, FY 2023 and 2024, what can be your tax rate?
Tax rate. Sreenath, you would like to answer that?
Yeah. In terms of the, there have been some news related to the OECD, where 130 countries have come together and signed certain matters related to the taxation. At this point of time, I think the UAE government has come and said that there will be a 9% corporate tax, right? But that is effective from June 2023 for those companies where the financial year starts on or after June 2023. For us, our financial year starts in the month of April. Therefore, 2023, we will not have taxes. 2024 is when we are likely to have the taxes.
Right now, the regulations are not clear, so we'll have to wait for some more time to see as to what will be the tax rate, because there is Pillar One and Pillar Two. Pillar Two companies with revenues of more than EUR 750 million could be taxed at slightly higher rates. We may fall under Pillar Two, but at this point of time, there is no clarity around it. Maybe a few more quarters, we can get some clarity around the entire tax part of it. I think we will update the analysts and the investors when there is some clarity. At least until 2024 UAE, we will not have taxes. The other taxes will continue, like what we have got in India and the other geographies. On an average, maybe around 7% or so, at this point of time, we have got the taxes in the geographies where we are present on a consolidated.
Thank you. Sir, one question on your pharmacy business in GCC side. So you added store in Q3, and despite this store addition, there is an improvement in EBITDA margin. So, what are the mix for you right now in terms of stores, maturity and all?
Alisha, you would like to answer that?
Mehul, I think earlier we were largely focused on adding units with the clinics. It's not like we have added 8 clinics. These are standalone. We are trying to look more in the malls and good selection of stores which has been showing quick break-even and good performance. That's really. I think last time I'd mentioned we are actively working on shifting the pharma/non-pharma percentages, so we are seeing a positive trend towards that as well, which is helping on the margin. We're also doing a lot more distribution to supermarkets and sort of large accounts like duty-free, which is also helping on the margins.
We are really kind of shifting our focus from just a pharma reliability, which was there earlier, because otherwise it was too connected to what was happening in the clinics was impacting the pharmacies. We said, let's have a very strong parallel track on the non-pharma and the distribution business and our own private labels, which is, showing the positive margins.
Thank you. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thanks, Mehul. Next question from Sunil Jain. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking-
Sunil, do go ahead.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on good number. Sir, you had said that India you may be taking price increase. Can we know how much differential you have with your peers? Specifically in Kerala area where you are dominant player. When can we see this price increase, sir. Is it expected in near term, or you will still wait for things to normalize?
Yeah. Sunil, you would like to answer that, the plan for the price increase and how it is being done?
Yes, sure. Thanks, Sunil, for the question. Yes, see, compared to our peer group, right, you look at the national players also, they also been communicated already in the Q3 itself that they're also looking for a price increase between 5%-10%, right? That is a similar price increase we also would like to take in all our hospitals. If there is no clear-cut timeline to say that, yes, we are going to go and do it in quarter one or quarter two. Usually our price increase be in the quarter one and the quarter three, right? That's how we spread it out. Based on the geography also, we look at it. That's how we are planning to do the pricing.
Okay. This will be more of a calibrated over a period, depending on hospitals and all.
That's right.
One question related to GCC. Here, if I see, there is a good growth in pharma business. If we compare it with two-year perspective, still it is lower than pre-COVID level. Where do you see this business moving from here?
We do expect a much stronger growth, Mr. Sunil. See, as Sreenath mentioned, the clinics are still not at 100% on the pre-COVID levels. PCR is helping, so as that is also restoring the business, of course, the pharmacy will have that associated benefit. We see that coming up. Along with that, all these initiatives on making sure we realize that, for example, our chronic disease patients were on an average only coming once a year to us. How do we make sure that happens three times in a year? All these compliance, personalized to kind of focus on the marketing as well. We do believe that we should be able to see a strong sustained growth in the pharmacies.
As chairman mentioned at the end, it's really going to come on the digital piece. How do you really use One Aster to make people have those interaction much more frequently? Because the requirement for people to go to the pharmacy, we believe, is not two or three times in a year. We can have it as much as seven or eight times. How do you make sure the utilization and the stickiness with this platform will enable us to kind of exponentially grow the retail business?
Yeah. Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Sunil. If anybody has any more questions, please raise your hand through the Raise Hand icon in the Zoom application. Looks like we don't have any further questions. With that, I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today for our earnings call. If you need any further clarifications or have more questions, please feel free to get in touch with us. With this, we will conclude this earnings call and this webinar. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.