Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Data Patterns (India) Ltd Q1 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call hosted by Go India Advisors. As a reminder, all participants' lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this 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 over the conference to Ms. Monali Jain from Go India Advisors. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thanks, Pari. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Data Patterns (India) Ltd Earnings Call to discuss the Q1 FY 2026 earnings. We have the senior management of the company on call, Mr. S. Rangarajan, Chairman and Managing Director, and Mr. Venkata Subramanian, Chief Financial Officer. We must remind you that the discussion on today's call may include certain forward-looking statements and must be therefore viewed in conjunction with the risks that the company faces. May I now request Mr. Rangarajan to take us through the company's business outlook and financial highlights, subsequent to which we can open the floor for Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Monali. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am pleased to welcome you all to our Q1 FY 2026 earnings call. I hope you had the opportunity to review our earnings presentation, which is available on the stock exchanges and on our website. Before Venkata takes you through the financial performance, let me start by sharing some key updates and strategic commentary from my end. We have delivered a reasonable start to the year, despite some delays in customer approvals that impacted the pace of revenue recognition. Nevertheless, the quarter has met our expectations. Our order book now stands at a strong INR 1,079 crore, with more than INR 320 crore of orders received since the start of the financial year, including some orders from BrahMos and the MoD.
Our export order book remains healthy at over INR 100 crore, and we are seeing increasing traction from international markets. As the operations endure, we are witnessing heightened urgency from the government to procure and deploy indigenous defense equipment, some of which aligns well with our capabilities. However, to participate meaningfully in such opportunities, it is critical that companies have fully developed products and complete internal trials before submission. This underscores our strategy: we must build first to be eligible to win. At Data Patterns, we have consistently invested ahead of the curve to expand our addressable market, especially in areas where there are no existing domestic products. Our goal is to identify these opportunities, leverage our core competencies, and develop differentiated capabilities that give us a sustainable edge. We remain deeply committed to R&D and product development.
We have already deployed over INR 120 crore in new product development activities, with a focus on building indigenous capabilities across radar systems, EW, communication systems, and air model systems. Our continued efforts in product development have resulted in products of international quality. We are optimistic that these products will soon be tested and potentially lead to bigger contracts. These initiatives align with our long-term strategy to scale our total addressable market, and we are doing that with discipline and foresight. At the same time, we remain unwavering in our focus on profitability and value creation to our stakeholders. To conclude, the environment is shaping up positively, both domestically and globally. Our pipeline is strong, and we are confident we are seeing full-year growth guidance of 20%-25%. Revenue growth will maintain healthy EBITDA margins in the 35%-40% range. With that, I will now hand it over to Venkata to walk you through the financials in more detail.
Thank you, sir, and good morning, everyone. Let me take you through the financial highlights for the first quarter of FY 2026. Q1 FY 2026 revenue stood at INR 99 crore, down by about 4.6% year- on- year due to customer approval-related delays that deferred dispatches and revenue recognition. Cost of goods sold declined by 30% year- on- year due to favorable product metrics. EBITDA came in at around INR 32 crore, with margin at 32.3%, showcasing operational efficiency even on a lower top line. Net profit stood at INR 25.5 crore, with a PAT margin at 25.7%, highlighting our continued focus on profitability. We expect pickup in the execution and revenue growth from Q2 onwards, backed by a strong order book and visibility. As mentioned earlier, we remain firmly on track to meet our stated guidance of 20%-25% revenue growth. With that, I now open the floor for questions. Thank you.
Thank you. 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 remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Dipen Vakil from Phillip Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, sir, and thank you for this opportunity. Sir, my first question is on the lines of, this quarter, out of INR 183 crore of order wins, majorly we have won orders on the AMC side of services side of contract. Can you tell us more about these contracts in terms of their execution period and the cyclicity or when we can, how is the ordering pattern for it, whether they are awarded yearly? Can you give us some more light on these orders?
The main AMC contract we received is from BrahMos. This is for a five-year AMC, but it's pre-dated AMC from starting from last January. I think January or March.
February.
February. This is normally, we do the AMC three years to five years for BrahMos, and this is a five-year AMC contract, which is billable yearly.
Okay, so we can expect similar contracts to come in every five years or every year?
What happens is this five-year contract is for orders executed and post-warranty. These contracts have come for what we executed earlier. We also have orders for additional BrahMos deliverables this year. We are also expecting additional BrahMos orders because more orders are now coming for BrahMos from the Air Force and Navy. Those back-to-back orders we expect also from our Data Patterns. We are also expecting seeker orders. It's a question of the older orders we get AMC. As and when the new orders come and their warranty period is over, we again get an AMC. It's a comprehensive AMC we get from BrahMos. It's been going on for 10 years+ now.
There are some few products where warranty is still continuing. Once that warranty is completed, we will get AMC contracts on those systems also.
Got it, sir. Talking about the order pipeline, you also mentioned that there's a strong order pipeline right now, and also recently government had granted AoN for a fire control system for BrahMos. Sir, possible for you to give us that out of INR 2,000-INR 3,000 crores of order inflow that you're expecting in 18- 24 months, how much of can we achieve more than INR 1,000, INR 1,200 crores in this year, which will help us to sustain like decent execution visibility going ahead? Can you give us some more clarity on that?
There are a number of contracts which we're executing, which we expect. There is, you know, this Sweeney contract. This is still not, we have not got the order. We either got an order. Back-to-back discussions are on. We expect the contract maybe in the next three to five, six months' time. That also should come this year. There are a number of contracts for airborne radars, which we have done development. This is also expected to fructify in the next five, six months' time. Similarly, we have a list of this kind of what we call the order pipeline and where we are a single vendor. The contracts are supposed to happen. We believe in the next six, seven, eight months, probably before the end of the year or early next year, we should get some INR 1,000+ crores orders.
We are also on, the other thing we've also done is development, product development using the funds taken from the market. These are all getting to some level of maturity. We expect that there will be some development contracts for these orders for flight testing. We have a list of such contracts. I don't know whether I can tell you exactly which line item or value is going to be. The order pipeline of this INR 1,000, INR 2,000 crores we're talking about, or INR 2 to 3 billion we're talking about, is all based on those kind of contracts.
Got it, sir. That's really very encouraging. Thank you so much, and I'll get back to the queue. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hardik Rawat from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity and good morning, team. My first question would be with regard to the delays that were mentioned. Sir, could you please tell us exactly which orders have raised these delays in customer testing, and what would be the quantum of slippage in revenue recognition that was seen in the quarter?
I don't want to name customer and value. Value I can tell you around nearly INR 27 crore. They just started testing now. Last 10 days, work has started. Customer acceptance has started. If this goes on properly, we should be able to build it the coming quarter. This is what is planned. At least every quarter we plan to build it this quarter. Because of inspections getting delayed substantially, we are not able to do this for the last one year. The inspection has started now. Hopefully, that will get built probably this quarter.
Got it, sir. Sir, another question was with regards to commenting on the order inflows. Your commentary is quite encouraging. It would be a fair assumption that roughly INR 15 million+ worth of order for the full system is something I was looking at, INR 15 million- 20 million on an overall basis.
There are contracts likely to happen. Unfortunately, we are not able to comment the exact time on the contract because there are some delays happening, which is beyond our control. Yes, INR 15 billion can happen, maybe slightly less or slightly more. It depends on how government really moves these kind of products. More than what we've already done, there are other products which are going to MoD FET. This is what's called part of the tender. They're going through a field evaluation trial on EW . There are a few products that are going to EW . We successfully crossed one EW product. We expect the grant a bit to be open. Hopefully, we will try and we will get the order. Some more are in pipeline this coming month and next month. These are all products which are 100% designed in-house.
These are not the other companies which we import and integrate. It's been designed in-house. We expect some traction in EW programs on ELINT and COMINT and ground systems. There are requirements like this. Similarly, there are requirements of single tendering for radar warning receivers, which is going to be airborne for SU530 and other platforms. Those are also expected. Timing may vary now and then, other than the pipeline which we have talked about. The new requirements for MoD have come up because of these operations. We also participate in those kind of contracts now. We probably started over two years back developing these products, truck-mounted systems. These specifications are meeting, and we are continuously improving specifications to see that we meet the international specs and meet the customer requirements. We expect some more contracts on those areas also.
Plus, our seeker for BrahMos is successfully drive tested. We expect some contracts to happen in the next coming month. After that, once that is delivered, we're talking about some hundred systems, etc. Most of the seekers now, all the seekers now are imported seekers for BrahMos. The idea is to make this indigenous. If this happens now, I expect a substantial increase in order as we go along the coming year.
Got it, sir. Sir, speaking of BrahMos, what would be a value of order that we could see, say, for example, 100 of these systems, assuming that we receive that order? What could be the potential order size?
It's a bit premature. Let me get closer to it. First, we'll get the development order executed, and then towards the nearing that date, we'll be able to tell you the size of order because I don't want to predict the value business before the inquiry comes from BrahMos. That will not be correct. I can only tell you it will be substantial. These are all the things which will give me yearly. I see what we're trying to do is you can't have a one-year contract order book for that. That does not order well for defense agencies, especially in capital goods. You need to have at least three, four years of order book, and then only we can invest in scale. We are doing the ulta here in India because we need to have products and to address the market.
We are actually putting our money and developing hundreds of crores. We are putting money and developing, getting the products online, then going through evaluation trials and things like that. It's a very hard way of growing. That's the only way accessible to us. Otherwise, it has to be only collaboration. We have taken the hard route and going through what we think we are competent and where there are no such products available in India. We're trying to be unique in that and building products and putting our money and effort on this. It's a different strategy with what we're doing. I think it will pan out in the next five, six months. We'll see that some traction is happening in all these areas.
Appreciate it, sir. Sir, one last question before I get back to the queue. You know, our employee cost has seen a 27% YY estimation. Just wanted to understand what has driven this. Is this headcount driven or simply wage inflation?
No, it is headcount driven. It is wage revision plus headcount driven. See, suppose we want from the INR 700 crore to be a INR 5,000 crore company in the next, let's say, four years, five years. We need to build not just the products. We are building upfront products, going to flight test, getting it qualified so the orders can come in the next two to three years' time. Once you do that, we also need to have people to see that we produce the kind of, we cannot scale like this. These are all complex products. Though we do automatic test equipment to produce them in numbers as we go along, the types which we do are so large. It is not the same type of product which is done in 100,000 pieces, which becomes very simple.
The types are so large and so many and all are complex. It is necessary to have quality people, trained people to do this. We start recruiting people, training them for their requirement as we go along. The second thing, third thing we are doing also is creating infrastructure, production infrastructure, and anticipating these contracts to happen. We will be spending now so that we will be able to deliver in three years from now or two years from now. The contract happens in delivery. You can't deliver, suddenly take INR 700 crore to INR 1,500 crore or INR 2,500 crore. It is not practical. You can't do it. We need to put in the infrastructure, see the delivery model happens. These are all consciously done, and we are going ahead and investing in people and training. That is how the cost is going up.
Got it, sir. Thank you so much. I have more questions. I'll get back to you. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Dixit from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity. A couple of questions, sir. The first one is, if I look at the order inflow texture, FY 2024, 2025 orders have largely been, order inflow has largely been on the production side, but Q1 FY 2026 has been queued on the services side. I just wanted to understand whether this is the kind of pattern that we will see going ahead, also that services would be a major portion, or it is just that certain orders have been delayed and we expect the normal order profile to be back to 70%-75% of production. Whatever services we get, it will be, of course, plus or in the back.
See, it cannot be a service-oriented business what we have because we don't have too many contracts actually delivered to customers. Order delivered today, mostly in the last 10, 15, 20 years, has been to DRDO. That doesn't, you know, mature into a services contract or AMC contract later. Only when it goes to the actual users, services contract starts happening. This has just started. Our life has just started with the users. Direct deliveries to MoD , Army, Air Force, it's happening now. That will then mature into services contracts. What you see in BrahMos is the long term. From 2006, we've been delivering BrahMos launches. The services contract is happening with more and more BrahMos deliveries, more services contract happening from that. It's one of the few contracts which is happening like this.
Many more should happen only once we put, populate more hardware orders with the users. This will happen in the next few years. Our main order book will be on actual delivery contracts as well as development contracts. I think from this year onwards, the development contracts will become lesser, and we think the delivery production contracts will become more. We've taken a lot of development contracts earlier. These are all hopefully in the next year or so, mature to production contracts as we go along. Now that we are doing our own in-house development for MoD requirements, we expect direct delivery contracts to happen for production contracts to happen with the MoD.
Got it. The second one is on the recent AoN recorded for INR 67,000 crore. If we look at it, there are several items that actually fall within your purview. Any broad idea of TAM you would like to provide from that INR 67,000 crore? Also, on the execution side, we saw that Q1 FY 2026 was skewed toward BEL. Is it the kind of revenue profile that we will see during the year, or is it just in this particular quarter?
I can't comment on the AoN because what is realistic out of those contracts when you bulk it together, I won't be able to comment on it. We only look at contracts which are accessible to us. Not just the order of the AoN goes is published. We don't really look at it very seriously. I can't comment on that. On the second area which you're talking about, it all depends on the kind of contract, whether it's BEL or HAL or MoD, and depending on the timeliness of when they want the delivery to happen. That depends on that. Not necessarily it will be only BEL-oriented or any other organization-oriented. It depends on the mix of contracts which we get. Ours is not a quarterly revenue business.
That is why we are saying that towards the end of the year, a lot of contracts will get delivered towards the end of the year, maintaining our whatever we are positioning we've taken, say 20%-30% growth. Actually, what I expect is a top-line growth is farther. My own worry is on the bottom line. We want to meet 18%, 30%, 20% bottom line growth. It's what we plan to do. That is where our focus is and also increase the scale of the business.
Okay, understood, sir. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Jyoti Gupta from Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
Morning, sir. My question was on a similar line in terms of BEL. Two things that I wanted to understand was, one, is there while you have different platforms where you are actually delivering, is there a cause where the margins I had anticipated slightly higher? Is that are we getting lesser margins from BEL compared to other platforms, or is it like this quarter has been a little bit of a washout? Second is you will be delivering the radars of the EW for HAL, and that is it looks like five, but if the numbers for LCA Mark 1 s increase for FY 2026, which is likely to happen given the engines will be delivered on time, higher than what we expected, like we were expecting five LCAs, but I think we should look at something like a seven to eight LCAs this year. Will that not also help you improve your revenue as well as your profitability? Please share thoughts on that.
Okay. On the first question which you had, you said our margins have come down. Actually, our margins have gone up. Gross margins have gone up to 80%. I thought we have done very well on the gross margin.
Yes, you have.
We're talking EBITDA. EBITDA is a different story because the top line comes down. Expenses remain the same, so EBITDA comes down. Our gross margins have increased, so the profitability has actually increased, not come down. As and when the revenue goes up, the EBITDA also will go up because there is a fixed cost to the company which will go up. I don't think we are worried about our profitability at the present moment. Whatever you're delivering, we'll move over at risk. It doesn't matter which the organization is. We have IP-driven products. Our profitability has only gone up. The point is the revenue has come down because of non-delivery of certain items, because of customer acceptance delays. That is what was explained earlier also. That is actually the reason why we could not deliver what we want to deliver. That is getting compensated in the next quarter.
Some of the orders which we have taken up have taken a long lead time for manufacturing, design, development, and manufacturing. It doesn't fall in the quarter-to-quarter category. This will happen during the course of this year. The larger orders, one order we've already executed last year. One of the large orders, INR 180 crore, we expect to execute this quarter or next quarter. It's been a one and a half years kind of development timeframe. Those take a lot of time to build. It's a very, very complex system. It is taking time. That is the first question. I think you misread our numbers. On the second or LCA Mark 1A, we don't actually do much in LCA Mark 1A or LCA. We're doing the cockpit displays, and that is the one thing which we will honor and order. They want more for the additional 97, and the inquiry has come.
We have not quoted because what we already developed and the deliveries have not happened to HAL. After HAL picks up the delivery and pays us, then we will make quotes for other things. We do have orders for LCA Mark 2. We do the glass cockpit, which is called the Large Area Display LAD order. It's a very modern system, thinnest system in the world, like an F-35. That will be delivering in the next three, four months' time. We do the machine systems for LCA MARK 2. We have the order to do that. We expect that we should populate LCA MARK 2 with a lot more of our products, including the EW. LCA Mark 1A, also, we had the EW, which is flying very well. Unfortunately, the government decided to import it from ELTA.
ELTA radar and Uttam radar is not being considered presently unless there's a change in things. Accordingly, because it comes to the package, we didn't get the RWR, though it's flying very well. We will be considered for the Mark 2 and we are also getting considered for the supply 30 for that. There are a number of such programs which we are working on. LCA Mark 1A, we are not really sure what is the level of contribution unless they take our new radars and port it to LCA Mark 1A. This is all on a discussion stage. No, I can't comment on it at the present moment. We're very, very bullish on the future. There will be one or two programs we are not in.
On an overall level, if you take, since we have done a lot of product development, we are very bullish about scaling the company, looking at contracts beyond INR 5,000 crore, INR 10,000 crore in the next few years' time. That is the way we are trying to pitch our business.
Okay. Sir, I would like to understand one more thing on jammer port that you had worked on. Where all is it being, who are the, I mean, which all platforms are they being used and what's the kind of order that you received on that?
See, we can't receive an order. The government has no provision to place an order on private sector at the present moment unless it goes through an RFP and a proposal of RFI, RFP, and an open tender. However important or needed the whole contract is for them, they cannot do this. It is proceeding very well. We have developed the part. It is going through air trials now. Air trials mean, you know, aerodynamic trials and, you know, the liquid coolant trials are all going on. It will be finished in the next one month. Our own methodology of jamming technologies, techniques is being tested. The hardware has been fully realized. That is being tested. Hopefully, in the next one, one and a half months, we should finish it. We've also made an offer to Air Force to fit it into the 230.
They have taken it very positively because this is a self-protection jammer, which has to be fitted to all the aircraft. All aircraft, it goes on the wing tips of both the, of both the wing tips. It is a 360 degree jamming coverage. Since they've done this and they've seen it, they've taken a very positive view about it. Internally, they are discussing how to give us a Su-30 to do a no-cost, no-commitment trials. We believe in the next one week, we should get clearance to accommodate a Su-30 for us, specifically to see that we do flight trials. Once the flight trials are over, then the inquiries will start for flight tested equipment. We believe that there is no other company in India. Of course, DRDO is there. They are already having a part, and that is also going to go through flight test.
We will have an alternative. We believe we have done a very good, very modern, low weight, better aerodynamic part with more jamming efficacy, more power. We believe we stand a very good chance in this. We have to go through the rigorous flight testing. It will take us a year, year and a half to do this. Because of that, the requirements are large. In January of this year, the MoD escalated back for INR 7,400 crore for the jammer for the EW suite. We have the RWR. We have all the antenna, everything on the jammer part, plus the jammer part has been designed in-house. We become automatically a player to be considered as long as we do the flight testing. Air Force has promised us that they will give us a Su-30 to flight test.
Government is very positive on industry participation, the industry-driven R&D. After verifying validation with five systems in the ground, they are willing to even spend on flight testing on their own, which is a welcome difference in the last 10 years. We believe we are very well positioned there. For all this to happen, because this contract value is about INR 10,000 crore, requirements are there. We believe that we are well positioned in it. All this will take time for it to, this is all the time I'm talking about. This is the upfront money we've taken to develop. We have done our end of the job. We believe that we will continue to do well. Probably another year from now, I'll be able to answer your question more clearly.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Krishna Dojipam, Ashika Stock Services. Please go ahead.
Good morning, sir, and thanks for the opportunity. While most of my questions have already been answered, I have a question that right now we just mentioned that the development contracts are going to go down while we are going to see an increase in the production contracts. Just trying to understand, sir, how is it going to impact our margin?
It doesn't matter what contract we take of development or production because our company normally funds the development ourselves. The price is given for the production value only. The price is given to customers even during development contract. We don't charge a non-recurring development fee in most of the contracts we take up. I don't think there is any difference between production and development in terms of gross margins. During production contracts, there is also government compensators for the U.S. dollar exchange rate and the appreciation. All this is also taken care of when a production contract happens. Typically, we don't think we have a problem between margins and type of contracts.
Okay, sir. Is it possible to quantify what sort of orders we are expecting when it comes to the emergency procurement? What will be the quantum of the orders that we are expecting?
Very difficult to predict, Pam, because emergency procurement has a bunch of requirements, out of which some of them we can address. These have to be demonstrated. Field evaluation trials have to happen. If you pass the field evaluation trials, then your lowest quote gets the contract. These are all competitive bids. Most of the emergency procurement contracts go towards either PSUs or direct imports through an Indian agent or made in India, some kind of a company. We have our own designs where IP belongs to us. I n EW, we have done a lot of work. Similarly, some of the systems in avionics, their procurement is happening now, and they are participating in these kinds of replacing import systems with Indian capabilities. What we will turn out in terms of contract book, I cannot tell you.
We are confident that EW, some of the things we will be able to convert because we've done all the development in-house. We should be cost-effective is what we are thinking. Only when the commercial bids are open, we will know. I can't really detail out the extent of value of contracts. This has to come quarter- to- quarter as and when we win the contract.
Okay, sir. Just a last question. It was regarding the export side. Now that we are seeing the NATO rearmament plan, and as we already know, we are doing a substantial export to the U.K. market, just trying to understand how are we going to scale up there, and is it that now we are seeing better opportunities in export also? Like earlier, I remember you saying that our focus is the domestic demand. Are we now shifting our focus towards export?
Yeah, our focus still remains domestic because there's a huge untapped market. We import 80% of our defense requirements in various forms. Though it is finally called Indian-made, a lot of systems, subsystems in that are imported. The focus is to try where we have competencies and technologies and IP capabilities. We can differentiate our rest of Indian companies. We would like to focus on that because there is an immediate need, and it's a long-term need to see that we can address those needs. We will do that. However, we don't want to not look at export. We would like to look at export. This NATO country, whatever you're talking about, those are the requirements just to scale up defense equipment, etc. They have the local supply chain. It's very difficult to break that supply chain to build available systems.
New technologies, normally, they try to do within their own country. None of the countries like to import defense equipment, different technologies. Nobody likes to import. Western countries don't import defense technologies from outsiders. What really comes down to company countries in India is manufacturing contracts to reduce their cost. That is really what happens. Though we do manufacturing also, our focus is not a pure and fire EMS line. We are an IP-driven organization. We try to build add value and then build IP and then sell. Where that is possible, we are trying to do that. Yes, in the U.K., we've been doing some work. We expect that to increase. We're also trying to do some more work with that same U.K. company. They're transferring certain technologies and manufacturing. These are value-driven products, not, you know, manufacturing for manufacturing's sake.
Similarly, we're trying to also look at collaborations in certain disciplines where we can not only look at contracts abroad, but more importantly, these can get, you know, indigenized and made Indian company for Indian markets. We can produce them. We're looking at some opportunities. We have to expand our scale. We go along. We'll put a marketing organization for it. This is a slightly longer-term goal. It takes us three years to put a marketing infrastructure and then address U.S. and European markets. What we can do is once the products are done in India, full products are done by us, we can also sell to Far East Asian countries. Other than Western countries, we can also sell the contracts and systems too. There is automatically a byproduct of what we do in India can get exported because all products are technologically advanced and second to none. We should be able to address the market, but that's going to take a bit more longer. First, we need proof in India, then we can export it.
Understood, sir. Thank you so much. That's it from my side.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Jai Chauhan from Trinetra Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Hello. I'm I audible?
Yeah.
Good morning and thanks for the opportunity, sir. I just have one question. With companies like Astra Microwave also working in RF Microwave and radar drones, what are your key differentiators when competing for vendors and how does it work exactly, sir?
See, we also do RF and microwave. We don't do only RF and microwave. We also like them. We started like a subsystem and some part of the system. We're graduating also to a complete systems company now. We have more than 100 mechanical engineers doing mechanical design on thermal, structural. We put in people to design full systems on radars, overpassing, and everywhere. Similarly, it's IP for EW, IP in radar, IP in communication. I think these are the differentiators. We are not on RF microwave alone. We do RF microwave also. That's not the only end to what we do. We want to build complete systems.
Right, sir. Understood. If I look at the competitor, like for example, Astra case, if you take an example, they're also doing complete subsystems in radar domains. I just wanted to understand how does this work in the tender system when you apply for the key competency that you have in the specific product? How do you win tenders for the same? Is it divided between the companies? How does it work exactly?
See, there are two kinds of business. One is it goes to end user. End user buys complete equipment, not parts of the system. The second is you design it and send it to the development agency, which is called DRDO kind of organizations. They design the system and ask the subsystems to be tendered out or components to be tendered out. They're all of us complete for the component subsystems. Whatever you're talking about will be applicable to the second part where you sell to our core tenders with DRDO as in the components, lowest fourth kind of business goes. Some of them go because you have competency other people don't have. They do single vendor cases. Some of them open tender or limited tender and competition happens. It depends on the end use, really.
We are trying to, we worked with DRDO for the last 25 years, learned a lot from them and through contracts from them. Today, I think the time has come not only to look at only DRDO markets, but also have to look MoD market MoD market now is opened up to Indians. Just not 15 years back, not open to Indians. They only want full systems. Our focus today is to build full. If you want to build scale, you want to be a INR 10,000 crore company. It's going to be very difficult to do this by making components and subsystems. It's going to take a lot of time. Everywhere, there's one more competitor who will come with a slightly lower cost, and you will still lose the business. It also takes development to production, takes a lot of time.
We decided that we will build a competency matrix and a product capability, build the product for the end user. This is the game changer, which is what we are putting a lot of money and development effort to. The company is changing from a component and a subsystem vendor to a system vendor. This is what's happening. That is the change which we will see in the next two to three years. All the Data Patterns will be making a complete shift in the way the business is done by us from the last 20 years to what we're going to do in the next 10 years.
Okay, sir. Got it. Thank you. That's all from my side, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of CA Garvit Goyal from Nvest Analytic Advisory. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hello.
Yes.
The first question is about the delay that's happening this quarter due to some customer approval. You mentioned some trials that are going on. My question is like, we are saying that the testing is happening now, and at the same time, we are saying Q2 we will start ramping up. What is giving you this confidence that even if the testing doesn't result in execution in Q2, still we will be able to grow in Q2? That's my first question.
I don't think you understood what we've been talking about at all because what we talked about is the delay in delivering a single contract for the last one-odd year. We've been postponing quarter to quarter because customer acceptance has got delayed. That is what we talked about. Now the customer is coming into our office, and the acceptance is happening. Products will obviously meet the requirements. It's a production order. It is not a development order. There's no development in this. The repeat production, which is what we delivered first in 2005, is what we're talking in 2025. The only thing they have to come for is acceptance. Without acceptance, I can't ship it. That is the way the delay has happened. They have been here now. As long as they continue to be here and acceptance goes on till September, we should be able to dispatch if not accepted. It's got nothing to do with Q3 or Q4.
No, actually, my question goes a little different from what you understood. I'm just trying to understand, like you mentioned on Q2 onward, ramp-up is going to happen. We will be able to see decent execution, right? I'm just trying to understand, like this quarter was affected by the customer delays, and that delay is still continuing in Q2. What is giving you the confidence that on Q2 onwards we will be able to execute in a decent manner? Is it any other project that we are working on or any other contract that we will be delivering? This is what I'm trying to understand.
Any contract, this can happen. This is the government of India. Any contract can happen. I have no control over the government of India. I can only answer questions as I see it today. Tomorrow, if the guys don't come for inspection again, the delay may happen. I have no control. We believe this will not happen because there's an urgent need for them to develop. Already, they are two years behind schedule in developing everything. The customer is shouting at the customer. Hopefully, they will not put any spokes to delivery from our side, is what we hope, because there's an urgency to pull and a pull from the customer and customer. Whatever I say, finally, if the government PSUs, they decide when they pick up a product, when they don't pick up a product. I can't be sure that it will happen.
At the present moment, whatever indications we have, I don't think they're going to issue a problem in the next quarter, quarter three. They don't have a problem because they need the products urgently.
Got it. On the margins front, on why on why basis there is a price shift in the margins? I want to understand what is the key reason for the change? We are still sticking to our annual guidance, so I just want to understand what is the key reason why on why basis our margins are low?
See, margins are governed by product mix. Sometimes we take contracts with very low margins or not normal margins because we believe it's a long-term, this product will have value to the company. I can create some IP. I can create an order book which is going to scale multiple times and scale the company. Based on some strategic decision-making, we take some contracts with low margins. Ideally, we don't take most of the contracts we don't take with low margins because if it's going to be L1 business, we're mostly not there. Most of the businesses, we can also compete, but our focus is trying to build more products with more IP-driven products, which is differentiated from the rest of the competition. That is how we are trying to take contracts. That is the first part.
On the second part, what you are talking about, year- on- year, it's come down. What has happened is because of that one or two contracts which have taken with, you know, lesser margins, say last year over last to last year, the PAT percentage or EBITDA percentage might have come down. What has not happened, if you look at, is my overall PAT has gone up 20%, 25% as committed by you. The PAT has gone up. The margins are a question of the mix of contracts which you have taken consciously to see that it adds value to the company. If you look at this quarter, our gross margin is higher, but since the revenue is lower, EBITDA margin is lower. That is what I explained in the first question to Philips. That is where it is.
Got it. Lastly, on the products side, in your annual report, this time we have highlighted many new products. I just want to understand, in the PPT, also you mentioned about some new products are in the testing phase for which we will be able to get some order. I would just want to understand on the products part, like these products, is Data Patterns the only one that has this kind of portfolio for these products in India?
As I understand, yes.
Who are the customers for, like, can you give us the names of the areas we are catering to via these products?
See, this one is, let's say, fire control radars, airborne. We are looking at upgrade opportunities in SU530 and MiG-29 for Air Force and Navy. This can also go to LCA Mark 2 if they choose to buy it. This is a DRDO decision. We can't decide for them. We are pitching for this as and when the capability product is established, we'll pitch for it. similarly, EW, again, for the upgrade contracts, as well as a new aircraft which is being designed in India, we can pitch for both of them. Why we pitch for the upgrade contracts and build products have been issued is that there is no single company in India who has a complete product which can look at the upgrade.
Point number two, the upgrade opportunity is a volume business, and that will be finalized in the next two years' time, three years' time, which is a substantial business, which is more than INR 10,000-INR 15,000 crore. When there is an open market and the competency doesn't exist and a product doesn't exist in India, in the private sector, we said we can do this. The other companies have to come in with the multinationals, import foreigners, but foreigners will not work with the Russian companies, Western companies. The market is then only to India. DRDO is also doing their own products in these areas because Air Force has given them money, Navy has given them money to build the products through them. They're in parallel doing this. We are also in the industry.
It's an industry-funded, our funded product development program, which we think that we'll probably build a product ahead and meeting the requirement and exceeding the specifications. This is the kind of gambit we've taken and building products. Those are all kind of products that you see. This is unique to an Indian industry context, but not unique to the Government of India. The Indian government is also doing what they're doing. We are trying to pitch it to our systems against to see whether this can match their requirements and we can get an order book which is substantial.
Got it, sir. Thank you very much. All the best for the question.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one on your touchtone phone. The next question is from the line of Rupesh Tatiya from Shree Rama Managers PMS. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions, one on BrahMos and one on MPA, Maritime Patrol Radar. On BrahMos, sir, I heard you say that you're on one subseeker order. The clarification I am looking for is, is this for BrahMos or is it for BrahMos NG?
Okay. I think you misunderstood my statement. I have not received the BrahMos seeker order. We had a seeker order which is tested now and proven successful. We have inquiries now. We expect the contract to happen in the next month or so. If once that contract is done as a pre-development contract or production contract, we expect that production orders will start falling, which is sizable value. We are focused on making it a success. We've already started development of those activities so that we can do an outstanding product for BrahMos seeker. Hopefully, we'll get a product.
Is this BrahMos or next generation BrahMos NG?
BrahMos NG is not part of the Indian context at the present moment. We've not even signed any memorandum of understanding with the Russian government or NG. It is still not in the play, as I understand. Yes, there is an NG around, but I don't think we have it with us.
There is some, I mean, I read some news articles that in a couple of days, there is some manufacturing facility coming out.
News articles. I don't know. 90% of the news articles I'm unable to believe. Although I'm in the same subject area, 90%, 95% I'm unable to believe. Every week, every two days, some articles are coming up. I really don't know where they pick up the data, really.
This is for, okay, this is BrahMos gimbal ARH you are talking about. Any timelines you can give around these orders?
Some initial orders are supposed to happen in the next one month or two months' time. They're supposed to call us for negotiations. Once we deliver this and qualify the system, then they said that they will place orders for production. Maybe a letter of intent for production also will get placed along with this. We'll wait and watch what happens. Maybe six, nine months from now, we should get a production order is what I'm thinking. Again, this is my guesstimate. It is finally BrahMos has to decide when it will happen and when the approvals happen for the first lot which we deliver. I think in that timeframe, we should be able to do this. This is what I'm thinking. The second question you could have is on the maritime patrol radar.
We have done our end of the work and given it to DRDO. DRDO is bike testing it. Bike testing is still not completed. Since bike testing is not completed, at the present moment, Navy is planning to import the radars on ELTA. Negotiations are on from HAL to ELTA. Negotiations are on now. We may miss the bus for the patrol radar because it is up to DRDO when they will position the radar and who the flight tests the Navy. If that is done in time, maybe it will get considered. If they delay it, then it will not get considered. What DRDO is saying is other than the Navy, there is also a Coast Guard requirement for 30+ radars. That also is likely to happen. Timelines are something which I am not in a position to comment on.
For this MPA, this is in context of which program? This is Dornier 228 upgrade you are talking about or NUHII because that part is not clear to me.
Dornier 228.
What you're saying is Dornier 228, we might have missed the bus.
We don't know that. As of now, the contracts have not been placed. Until DRDO approves the product, because we have only done the hardware there, they are putting the software and flying it. Unless DRDO approves it to Navy that all the flight tests are over and completed, it will not get considered. We are all hoping that they have flight tested and approved it.
These 30 radar orders, which will be which platform subsequent from ELTA then from another point up to
Coast Guard.
Fourth lot might have ELTA radar. The second lot onward, there might be this citizen.
No, no, no. There's not first lot, second lot. One is for Navy. The second one is Coast Guard. What Navy buys the second one? Coast Guard. We don't know. Coast Guard is a separate organization. They don't have to take inputs from what Navy has done.
My final, final questions, these are NETRA. NETRA, maybe Mark 20, Mark 1, Mark 2, all three programs. If you can give some idea about where these programs are, what is our contribution, and when can we see some orders?
This is DRDO's decision who they pitch the contract to. We have FlightPo1, ESM, and that is EW. ESM and RWR are already FlightPo1 and NETRA. For NETRA 1 and NETRA 2, if they consider it, that will become a contract for us. The rest of the subsystems is all on tender.
The radar and primary radar, carrying radar are all on tender if at all happens. It will be L1 basis. We will pitch for it, but we are not predicting any of those things because any contract which is L1, we do not know whether we'll get it or not. We don't add it to the pipeline.
What are the timelines? I mean, number of aircraft you can, you can, because I think I am hoping after operations in Dur, hopefully there is more requirement.
It's already two years since the program has been approved. Again, because of money sanctions, it has still gone back to CCS. Once CCS clears it, it probably might be taken. I can't comment on timeline. It's best that you talk to the government officials.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for answering my questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Lion Rock Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Can you hear me?
Yeah.
Thanks for the opportunity. I just wanted, I'm relatively a bit new to the company. You've consistently mentioned a pipeline of orders of about INR 20 million-INR 30 billion over the next 18- 24 months last quarter. Is it possible for you to either kind of give some sense of what are the key programs one should be looking at to get a better sense of when those orders could come? The other way to look at it would be, you know, obviously, the India defense budget is going, but are there any specific areas we should be following up on to get a better sense of the opportunity in front of Data Patterns over the next few years from an ordering perspective?
Okay. Last, second question first. We do not do pipeline based on the budgets, defense budgets. That's got no relevance to us because that is a very big number. We can't whittle it down to what really comes or where we can address the market. We don't look at those kind of numbers. The pipeline is made up of contracts. What we believe will be repeat orders from those contracts already delivered and approved, you know, developed and delivered to customer. We expect the repeat order to happen. That is all based on what our previous deliveries have done. That pipeline is what we talk about. Where the order should only come to us and not to anything else, it's not competitive bids. At the present moment, I won't be able to give you line item-wise because we don't have inquiries for them. The inquiries have to come, and we should not preempt the customer. It's also sensitive information. We won't be able to discuss it in public.
Okay. Is it like any, I understand, obviously, radar is a big part of the business.
Radar, EW, a whole lot of other subsystems, avionics, what you've already delivered. All this will come into repeat. We've done for naval systems. A lot of things are done with DRDO, you know. All the VMR, repeat orders will happen either with HAL or Bharat Electronics. They'll be the overall agency to put the systems together. Finally, it will come to one of those companies. The timing and the value proposition, I won't be able to tell you. I have some idea, but I can't tell you exactly the open discussion.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. Due to time constraints, I now hand over the conference to management for closing comments.
Thank you all. Thank you for the patience. Thank you for tuning in and asking questions, listening to our commentary and the interest shown in Data Patterns. I just need to conclude saying that, again, we're very bullish about the future markets and what we're doing here. I think we're doing a lot of right things in Data Patterns. We have a differentiated product. We're building competencies in a very differentiated rest of India. We're building products which are equivalent to what Western countries are offering in Europe, in the U.S. We believe as a product, what we're trying to develop will be second to none. There's a huge need in India to make it in India. Though we talk about making in India, the processes to tune to make in India is also very tough. It has to be an Indian content kind of quality requirement.
Design in India content is not specified. It also allows import to happen from various quarters and does some value add here and sell to India. This also allows a lot of imports to happen. We have taken a hard route of trying to design and develop in India and address the market with Indian IP. If Indian IP is developed, we can also export it to the rest of the world. We believe that is a way to go about it in a longer term. We've taken the longer route and harder route, considering that we've been in business for many years. We built up ground-up development thanks to ISRO and DRDO. We've done the product development in-house. The competencies are developed in-house. We've decided that that's the right way to go.
Since there's a huge untapped market in India, I think we should be able to get a percentage of the market. We have products to address the market. That is why we took money from the market of INR 500 crore to do the product development activities. Those are spent wisely, and we are counting the pennies to spend the money. We built the products in EW. It's a very, very modern product for EW suite. We also developed fire control radars for SU530. We're already doing the replicated systems, transferable SDR, and a whole lot of other products. We make two programs for EW ground-based and radars, which we are trying to participate in. I'm sure some of them may be successful. The combined market we are trying to address in all this is more than INR 20,000 crore.
Even a percentage of the market, I think, is substantial. Though we're not going to be happy with the percentage, we would like to take the whole market. Being ahead of others, we're trying to see how to do this. The customers have been positive. Navy and Air Force particularly have been very positive to whatever products we're demonstrating and showing to them. They're willing, they're giving their full support to us. They're offering the aircraft to us to see the upgrade and type testing can happen, on which they'll probably spend more money than we have spent on product development exercise itself. I think everything looks good now. The products are coming out very well. It is going to take some bit of time to convert these large opportunities and make it as an order for our revenue.
We are also putting infrastructure, build the capability to manufacture them, build people to see that this can be delivered, and also support these systems. All of them are happening in parallel. We're investing strategically ahead of time. See that the company in the next three years' time to scale to a multi-thousand crore company revenue. This is what our interest is. Having been in this business so long, we want to be leaders in this business going ahead. We're also going to focus coming down on exports to see that we're not only dependent on government business in India, and we can distribute. This is across many other agencies, and we are part of a larger organization outside India. We will put our efforts going ahead to see that we build an organization which can also be export-friendly. This is what is the idea. This is the strategy. We are working towards this. As of the present moment, we believe that we are going in the right direction. That's all I want to leave you all with. If you have any questions further to this, please send it to Go India . We will be more than happy to answer the questions. Thank you once again for listening in and the interest in Data Patterns . Thank you all.
Thank you. On behalf of Go India Advisors, this conference, thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.