Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Data Patterns India Limited Q1 FY 2027 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Prayasi Patel from Go India Advisors. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Huda. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Data Patterns India Limited call to discuss Q1 FY 2027 earnings call. We have the senior management of the company on the call, Mr. Srinivasagopalan 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 may face. May I now request Mr. Rangarajan, sir, to take us through the company's business outlook and financial highlights, subsequent to which we will open the floor for the Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Prayasi. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to all of you to the Q1 FY 2027 earnings call of Data Patterns India Limited. We sincerely appreciate your continued trust, support and participation. I hope all of you have had the opportunity to review our earnings presentation, which has been uploaded on the stock exchanges and on our company website. Before Venkat takes you through the financial performance, I'd like to share a few key business updates and our outlook for the coming quarters. The quarter marks another important step in our long-term growth strategy, as our strategic investments over the past several years are beginning to translate into tangible business opportunities and stronger market positioning. We continue to witness healthy customer engagement across multiple defense programs with increasing opportunities for larger value and complete contracts.
We secure orders across avionics, radars, electronic warfare and automatic test equipment programs from various customers, including Ministry of Defence, DRDO and BrahMos, reflecting the growing confidence in our technology capabilities and execution track record. We also continue to pursue several large opportunities that are currently at various stages of discussion and evaluation. A key milestone for us has been the successful transition of several products from the development stage to complete system solutions. This significantly expands our addressable market, enables us to participate in larger and higher value programs. With differentiated capabilities, we're trying to convert them into singular opportunities. We're also leveraging our existing technology platforms and reusable building blocks to develop new products faster and more cost effectively, improving both scalability and speed to market. Our order book stands at INR 2,654 crores, including orders negotiated, providing a healthy revenue visibility over the coming years.
Our international order book currently stands at INR 39 crore. We continue to actively engage with customers across global markets to expand our export footprint. We also remain confident of securing around INR 2,000 crore of fresh order inflows during FY 2027, over and above the orders already received and negotiated. Policy environment also remains highly favorable. The government's continued focus on higher indigenous country defense procurement is creating significant opportunities across the ecosystem, including the armed forces, defense PSUs and private sector companies. With a strong in-house design capability and proven execution track record, we believe Data Patterns is well-positioned to benefit from this structural opportunity. Another encouraging development during the quarter has been the initial traction in our drone and counter-drone business, where we've started receiving orders.
We believe that this business will become an important growth driver as demand for indigenous unmanned and counter UAV solutions continue to increase. Coming to the quarter, our revenue trajectory continues to remain on track. As indicated earlier, we continue to invest in strengthening our engineering talent and future capabilities, resulting in higher employee cost base, is expected to remain elevated over the coming quarters. In addition, changes in the product mix also impacted margins during the quarter. There are conscious investments that strengthen our long-term competitive position and prepare us for larger opportunities ahead. Looking ahead, the outlook of the Indian defense sector remains highly encouraging. Supported by a robust order pipeline, expanding product portfolio, increasing export opportunities and favorable policy content, we remain confident of achieving our full-year growth guidance of 20%-27% revenue growth by maintaining EBITDA margins in 35%-40% range.
We remain committed to investing in the technology, innovation and indigenous capability development while creating sustainable long-term value to all our customers. With that, now I hand over the floor to our CFO, Venkat, to take through the financial performance in greater detail.
Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you all for joining us today. Let me take you through the financial highlights for the first quarter of financial year 2027. Revenue from operations for Q1 FY 2027 stood at INR 116 crore, registering a healthy 17% year-on-year growth, driven by continued execution across our diversified defense programs. Gross profit increased to 16% year-on-year to INR 91.5 crore, while gross margins remained strong at 78.9%, reflecting the high-value nature of our product mix. EBITDA stood at INR 31.4 crore with an EBITDA margin of 27%. Margins during the quarter were impacted by high employee costs associated with scalability expansion and changes in the product mix. Profit After Tax stood at INR 22.1 crore with a PAT margin of 19%, reflecting a temporary impact due to uneven quarterly revenue.
The company continues to maintain a strong balance sheet, remaining net debt-free with cash, bank balances, and investments of INR 530 crore as on 30th June 2023, providing ample flexibility to support future growth initiatives. Our order book stands at INR 920 crore as on 30th June 2023. With orders received in July and orders negotiated, the order book currently stands at INR 2,654 crore. We remain focused on disciplined execution, operational efficiency, and prudent capital allocation as we continue to invest in technology and support the company's long-term growth. With that, I would like to open the floor for question and answers. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Hardik Rawat from IIFL Capital. Please proceed.
Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, first question would be with regards to other expenses. While our gross margins have largely not changed much on a YoY basis, and despite only 17% sort of growth in revenue, our other expenses have risen by 64%. Is there anything that is peculiar about other expenses in this quarter?
Increase in other expenses is due to some additional repairs and maintenance cost, which is incurred because the facility is now going through some revamping. We had to spend some additional expenditure on repairs and maintenance. Also, close to INR 2 crore we have additionally provided against the long-pending receivables as per our policy. These two have contributed increase in the other expenditure. Otherwise, it's in line with our budget.
Got it, sir. Sir, on revenue, in the press release, sir, alluded to the fact that there were some temporary delays in customer approval, and we are expecting normalization in the coming quarters. If you could provide some information there, sir, is there any quantum of revenue that was basically slipped from recognition in this current quarter because of this issue?
We can't be specific because it involves customers, and I can't talk about it open to channel. We had these issues in the past also, where products are ready.
Yeah
Inspection team doesn't come because their own requirement to deliver is probably got delayed. Automatically, they don't come to inspect. These are all aberrations which will continue to be there. As long as we are dependent on them with the order book model to revenue model being very near. These issues will come into picture. We try and manage it by other orders executing other orders, see that our projections are maintained. Sometimes it is not feasible because we are not a quarter-to-quarter business. We are a yearly business, and all the projects are long-term. It's not a production month-to-month, day-on-day production business. Obviously, it has an impact on our revenue quarter-to-quarter. Having said that, the important thing as to how to alleviate this quarter-to-quarter performance deviation is to see that the order book substantially goes up.
At least three years of our revenue projection. We will be able to position to say what quarter-wise we should do and how do we deliver this. Data Patterns is leaning towards getting a sizable order book in the coming year or so, two years. See that we cross the three-year order book revenue projections. We should be able, in a better position to handle this kind of problems. I think you bear with me for some time till the order book starts coming the way we want. We've invested substantially in product development, continue to invest substantially in differentiated products where we stand alone in some of the markets, and these are very desperately needed by our MoD. As and when that happens, our order book will substantially increase.
We believe that our revenue projections will be met quarter to quarter as we go along. It's going to take a bit of time. Till now, we need to be patient on a yearly model of growth, what we have been.
Got it, sir. That's really helpful. Sir, one last question before I fall back in the queue. Sir, our order book orders negotiated but not yet a part of our order book now stands at about INR 17 billion from INR 1,726 crores. Sir, if you could just help us with the timeline, as in, how should we expect this to turn into order book? Should this convert into order book in the, say, for example, the next six to nine months? What is the average timeline to conversion to order book for these orders that have been negotiated?
Okay. This question was asked during our AGM in the morning, and I somehow slipped answering this question. Anyway, we will write to them the, w hich our shareholder addressed this.
See, this order book normally should not take this long a time to get converted into contracts. In this particular situation, because we were long in a big program, and the program position delays on finalizing the program before the order can get placed, it went through certain approval stages, and it took a lot more time. It's taken additional 6 months than what it is. The whole program has been stretched by more than one and a half years. Without the contracts, we expect a lot of the programs, negotiation is completed, order couldn't happen. What I'm told now is they've taken additional extension for another 2 months from us. We expect in another two months those contracts should happen. Also some of the orders we expected, the order has got postponed. We didn't negotiate those orders.
We did some negotiation, but got a lot of protracted negotiations. That's also coming to an end now. That also should happen. That's why these orders will get converted in next few months. Actually, it has converted in a week, two weeks time, but may be converted in few months, to give a safer side. The order book is there, and we have already negotiated this contract. These are all long-term, larger contracts, and that is how the decisions on delays are happening.
On top of that, we've also told as part of opening remarks, other than the contracts which you were seeing now with order book, we're also pursuing some very large similar contracts to the extent of another INR 2,000 crores, which we expect to happen through the course of this financial year. I think orders slowly started going the way we want. In the coming years, it'll grow substantively, is what we believe.
Got it, sir. That's really helpful. I have more questions. I'll call back. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Trishika from Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.
Good afternoon, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, could you please share an update on the testing of jammer pods for Su-30MKI, along with the revenue contribution you're expecting from this in the medium term? That's my question. Thank you, sir.
Okay. That product is going on well in the development stage. Customers had a view of the product, a review of the product. They have said they're quite happy with the progress which is there on the pod. We are going through the qualification exercises to maybe equip the Su-30MKI aircraft and plane. We believe that should happen before December. We should have the first trials to start by then. Maybe a few months of flight trials. Once we satisfy the requirement or specifications, I think the commercial functions should start after that. I don't want to outcase. I have a number in mind, of course, you know what we're working on. Otherwise, you don't invest in money. I think it's not appropriate to talk about a future order.
It's not yet come as an inquiry tender to say how much business we're expecting out of it. There are two kinds of contracts we're expecting. These are all INR 7,000 crores. At the present moment, we are unique to negotiate in these contracts. Exact value we would not like to disclose at the present moment. Towards closing the contract happens, I expect maybe next two years' time, this contract should start happening. That's the right time to announce that this. Yeah, we're working with really large opportunities. We took money from the QIP only to fund such development programs. We are confident that our IP creation and our preliminary results. It's a multi-engineering approach, building a pod, building a cooling system, building the electronics, building the algorithms to see that it's a complex system, goes to flight trials.
We're taking it as a challenge to do this because we need to scale our business substantively in the coming years. That is why we are doing deep work kind of product development, which is going to be larger horizon to maturity. We are on track.
Thank you, sir. Sir, secondly, could you please share more color on why did we have lower margins this quarter? How are you expecting this to pan out in the coming quarters for FY 2027?
Actually, we didn't have lower margins. I don't know. Look at the gross margins. The gross margins are higher than probably than last quarter last year. Last year first quarter. What happens is the overheads are fairly high because whether we deliver products or not this year, this quarter, we continue to spend on legal expenses, which is probably one of the highest in our industry, we spend on that. We could explain to you that the other expenses, write-off of certain costs, depreciation and all.
Basically, uneven revenue in quarters. You have to look at it only annually, because the revenue is not distributed evenly through all the quarters and the expenditures remaining almost the same quarter-wise. The contribution from gross margin that is distributed with the higher cost, the margins are seen lower. Otherwise, we are confident of achieving the full year targeted margins.
Yeah. Our budgets was towards the yearly year-end targets. Quarter to quarter, it will vary depending on what is the level of turnover we achieve.
It's very much in line with our internal targets.
If revenue is one quarter is one fourth, then the margins will be same. Since the revenue is not equally distributed across the quarters, we're finding this so-called EBITDA margins coming down. That's not true because the gross margin remains very healthy. That's the actual factor.
Sure, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dipen Vakil from PhillipCapital. Please proceed.
Hi. Thank you for this opportunity. Congratulations on recent execution. Sir, my first question is on order inflow, sir. Sir, one thing is that we have negotiated contract worth INR 17 billion, and of that, I believe that last quarter we had mentioned that HAL has an order of more than, say, INR 10 billion. Whenever it gets converted into order book, what would be the timeline of execution of that order, considering that it's one large order from a single client?
Okay. See, this varies with the contract, varies with the customer delivery, because now if you take HAL, they deliver aircraft over a period of years. Though the order is given one lot, execution takes over a period of time. That is one. If it is a project order, the value is high. Project execution may be about 18 months, 24 months. The project gets executed within those time frame. If it's small subsistence orders, which is on BDO, then the deliveries are faster. Larger contracts take a longer delivery time based on the actual application and the demand of what has to be developed and delivered, and integrated, and accepted. This actually varies from few months to maybe two years. Unless we work with every product order, I can't answer the question correctly.
Of late, in fact, HAL also wants a pretty decent delivery in over two to three years' time. We actually expected far higher delivery delays, but that they are saying, "Okay." This is being negotiated. Whatever we have talked now on the orders negotiated do not include HAL contracts. We are under discussion on all these things. Negotiations are in place. I found that a lot of people were asking questions to me directly, seeing on a GeM portal release that we are L1 in one large contract. I didn't comment on it because we are undergoing negotiation. It's a significant contract. Negotiations are initiated, and we're going to deliver. As and when it happens, we will publicly announce it in the stock exchanges and on our website.
Got it.
Pardon?
Got it, sir.
That's it.
Encouraging to hear that it's out of beyond the INR 17 billion negotiated contracts already. Yeah, that helps. Sir, my second question is on the lines of counter-drone business and export business that you mentioned that are gaining traction. What will be the product portfolio likely that is gaining traction, and are we supplying the complete platforms or we are looking at more of from a subsystem play for the counter-drone business as well?
We are not in the platform business as of now. We are in the sensor business. We have two or three areas where we can do counter-drone. One is active detection, that is in radars. We build the full radar. We get required in quantities for counter-drone requirements and operators that we fully develop, and we have some unique products there which meets MoD requirements. It is not yet addressed in India. It is imported now. We believe we have a good order pipeline, which we have. We've already started getting contracts. As we go along, we expect a far more healthier order book on the active detection. Second is the passive detection for counter-drones. That is on electronic intelligence and communication intelligence. Decode what is happening in the drone, and then locate where the drone is, direction of the drone, and then this is another area.
We've already done a host of products in electronic intelligence. We're modernizing these counter things to suit this market size. That also is almost getting ready. We expect contracts to happen there also. The third area is not only just detecting but also do a countermeasure as to jamming is to be done. We have products which are built for the jamming also. See that the signals are jammed on communication signals are jammed, but also it may. There's a group of us working on those products. We believe this will cover the entire specification. Some of the applications are also very varied because they're kamikaze drones, and they want to even target the drones into the end projectile. There also the direction or the radar and tracer subsystem is required by them. There is a requirement.
Varied kinds of requirements are coming up from the market, MoD has decided to place an order with multiple of these vendors to experiment 10, 20 systems in each. A number of them have started approaching us for suitable sensors for all these applications. We're working with them, and I think in the next three to six months' time, these contracts should start getting ratified, and we should grow this. This is on the counter-drone area. On the exports, we continued to build for the last so many years single process for radars, airborne radars for a U.K. company. Now we started getting a first order we got last year for an antenna, redesign of an antenna for an absorption management for a fighter aircraft system. We will be delivering it in the next six to eight months' time.
There's also a lot of interest from the same organization. It's a multinational, very large corporate in Europe. In other areas, we've given proposals to many of these systems, and they're very keen to see that we use these systems because the timeframe which we're talking about is far, far lower than what they expect their own organization to build. Especially with Europe having manpower shortages in this area and sudden requirements of contracts. Scaling up, we find a lot of opportunities are getting created for us with our competency in building products, delivery timelines, which is very short. I expect that business also in the next few months' time to a multimillion-dollar business we should start getting. Third area, we are also looking at civil aviation kind of obsolescence management and upgrades. Again, very large OEMs in the U.S.
We expect that those contracts will also start coming in the exports. Our normal business has been in DRDO, MoD, public sector. That is what the business has been here. We want to now look into new markets, which is the export business. Where we do product development, our IP goes into their requirements, and the market sizes are becoming much bigger. There I can also look at a business which is giving annuity business, not just a project-only entry. Very keen. We're putting an export group to address the market. I think in the next two to three years' time, scaling substantially into export business should also start. Yeah.
Got it, sir.
Next question, please.
Sir, just one last question, if I can squeeze in. Sir, can you comment on your acquisition on ST Advanced? What is it targeted at, namely as to what kind of product, whether it is like how it can increase our market opportunity. Are we targeting it mainly for MiG-29 upgrades and Su-30MKI upgrades, or there is a much wider application for this acquisition?
It's technically a very sound company. A small company, very sound, a very innovative organization. We believe that in sensor radar business, you also have to have requirement of composite for radomes, both for electronic intelligence as well as for radar requirements. It's one area where we're already getting contracts with it, we are getting the products there from them, which is working very well for us. It's also supplying to Bharat Electronics and other organizations, the advanced composites for aircraft systems in MiG-29, etcetera. The important is to try to see whether we can enhance these capabilities, hold it into larger requirements which we have in India and abroad. Both India and abroad, along with our sensors and parts of systems, there's a requirement of composites.
If we can combine these together and build a whole system rather than purchase a system, customers are much more happier because they take a full contract, develop all the systems. We thought this is the right approach, to build an ecosystem which can feed each other's capabilities, and grow it as overall sum game, it will go up. That's the reason we took it up, and we need to do a lot more work to bring this company up from where it is today to a much larger scope of business. We have a lot of ideas with that kind of capabilities, which the promoter of the company has, and we've had some discussions with him. We want to spend more time, ideate with him, invest in the company to see that infrastructure is created, and to build long-term development plans for these contracts.
Where we have a sustainable business model for its growth. At the present moment, it's a bit too early because yesterday only we finalized the book, and we need to spend more time and work on the strategy. Yes, it's a small company, but we believe it's an important acquisition to both that company as well as us, where we can give a product offering as a whole, and also look at some export business which will directly go to him as well as to us, seeing that we increase our business.
Got it, sir. Thank you so much for answering my question, and all the very best for FY 2027.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vineet Prasad from Investec Capital. Please proceed.
Hi, sir. Good afternoon. Just a couple of questions. One is, if you can broadly highlight larger platforms which you are focusing on to participate in, not as a platform, but more as a systems or subsystem developer. That too, not from a near-term perspective, but over the next three to five years, where all can we participate and contribute? That's number one. Number two, just wanted to hear your take on Project Himshakti project. Where is that? We were going to receive a few orders. Have we received those, or what's the project status there?
Okay. On the larger platforms, there is a AEL program and bigger, some HEL programs, which have taken up. Large programs have come for tenders. As a sensors developer, most of these are all now on the existing vendors, are all of imported origin. We believe we should make a mark in providing our products in these areas in terms of radar warning receiver, comm intelligence, electronic intelligence, the IFF, radio relays. There are so many other areas, SATCOM, down links, data links. There are so many areas which we can work on as a full system to give indigenous contribution to these kind of big programs of larger platforms. We're actually engaging with two, three companies to offer them to these four to five tenants with them, see that the repeat requirements can come in numbers as you go along.
The market is changing from man to unmanned, so there's a lot more opportunities to come. The same thing also will be applicable outside India. On a combined system, if we can do this in India, along with the platform, we think it should also be exported. These are exciting new opportunities, where we already have existing competencies and products which are already flight-proven, and you tweak it for their particular platform in mind, and see that we go through trials with them. This is one area we are looking at. We're also looking at the smaller drones for various other surveillance applications, where we can outfit their systems. We are continuously getting calls from various UAV manufacturers to see how can we give sensors for their birds.
We are exploring all those opportunities where competency exists and a mutual benefit in terms of giving our product to the end customer at a very high, fast turnaround time can be addressed. These are areas which we can do in terms of platforms. We are also now looking at how to build these kind of products for naval platforms. We only start discussion now on giving very modern systems for these agile platforms in Navy and also some of the upgrades which India is going through for various aircraft upgrades, which goes through same sensors which we are talking about in terms of EW and radars can get provided with that. Again, we are looking at fixing those markets.
The first question which is asked on the SPJ is one such requirement for the electronic warfare suite being developed for the Su-30MKI platform, which is going to have 230 aircrafts. As soon as the aircrafts are there, multiple systems are happening, and DRDO is also taking up a number of airborne Netra-2 and whole lot of other projects, which MMA and things like that, where we feel that our sensors can go fit into the programs as we want and it will have specifications. On a product level, we have the SSC markets and seen that we can deal with these products for various applications. There are number of such applications. It will take a lot of time to go through it, but I'm giving you a flavor of only drone business.
There's a lot more areas where we can actually look into the applications or fit the products on those kind of end applications. With regards Him Shakti, I think we delivered the original products. Now the requirement is on SMS, it's another program. They're having a discussion with us. I can't tell you whether they receive the RFP and back to back, can we do something? I don't have full data with me. Yes, interactions are on for some of the products which is proved in Him Shakti. They are also talking to us to see whether this can be fitted for the next generation platforms. In the meantime, we are also upgrading our technology services, adding more value in terms of not just the hardware and software, but also the RF contents, also the antennas.
We have a large antenna division now, we design it. Optimally solutioned end product is not depending on foreign companies, and designed for the applications giving much better product performance. Also, we have done, we are not keeping quiet the last 2 years. We've done a lot of development in all these areas, and development is still on for future generation programs and communication intelligence, RWR, and things like that. We're not waiting for the contract. We are ahead, moving ahead, building the product will be ready in the next 12 months time. We expect that with the technology edge which we have, should be able to convince the customers and the end user that these are the appropriate products for their requirements. I can't comment exactly on when the contract will happen.
Understood. Sir, lastly, on the HAWK radars which you've developed, have we found any application out there or any way to monetize what we've built? Could that find a way into Su-30MKI upgrades or some of those larger platforms? Any discussions with the customer, any indications where we can monetize such a fantastic product? Anything on that front?
Sure. We've done the hardware for both the MiG as well as Su-30MKI, but we need the software for them. Original concept was we get the software from somebody. It didn't work out, the hardware we contain and develop is world-class. We are in discussion with DRDO to see whether we can collaborate with them for putting this together. We are also in discussion with the Russian counterparts on the OEMs to see whether both are going ahead. I can't very clearly say which will happen when faster. We expect the next two to three months time should get some breakthrough in this. The software can be ported, and we go to flight trials after that. We're also investing in next generation, the HAWK program, next generation radars, which will be what is production-oriented line.
We're going to develop for the next six months' time. As the first contracts come in, we'll be ready with the second, the more advanced systems of that nature will also be available to give a technology edge to the end customer. We are waiting for all of this to happen. In the meantime, we are also developing our own software now. We just started developing our own software, airborne platforms, using UAVs as the platforms for our trials, which is what some of our customers are wanting us to do. We are also going on the third thing that we develop the systems. As a complete system when we develop, then we are not dependent on any organization or technology to drive the business orientation. That also we've initiated.
It will take a few more months before we get a correct path as to where it's going to go. Yes, we are determined to see that these products work and fly, and are putting efforts to see that they're more organizing the system, learning from mistakes, correcting it, building additional software capabilities, doing a whole lot of other stuff to see that this project is successful. It takes some more time before I can give you more data on when the possible success can happen.
Understood. Fair. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kavish Parekh from 360 ONE. Please proceed.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, do we have an update regarding BrahMos? We have been supplying fire control systems for the same, and also have been working on developmental orders for seekers. Any color on timelines for receiving commercial orders for these seekers?
We expect this will happen this financial year. The approvals and qualifications take time. Products are ready. As and when the qualification gets completed, through a flight trial, I think the contract should happen. Even when the qualification goes itself, contract should happen. We believe that it should happen this year. We expect earlier, but there's some delays. Anyway, we can expect this to happen before the end of this year. One of the corrections which we have for this year, revenue in terms of order intake. Not to revenue, but to order intake for this year.
Further, do you have any comments on development of new subsystems for BrahMos? If we do that, what incremental wallet share are we targeting to gain here? Lastly, again, we've seen BrahMos has seen increased interest from a few countries, and we have also from other suppliers to the program about them ramping up capacities for those respective components. How are we placed to meet the growing demand for BrahMos?
What happens is, once you develop a product, various vendors are developed towards the BrahMos missile, with DRDO and BrahMos together. Those who have done that are getting contracts for particular things which we have done. I don't see it so easy to change the supplier, redevelop and qualify their systems. I don't expect that much to happen. The volume is coming with the more orders from them, back-to-back orders will come to us, what we expect, and we'll deliver this. That is one part. Second, they're talking about our next generation BrahMos. If the next generation BrahMos happens, and they don't select us for some of the programs in this, we'll be very happy to see that our volume business with them also will go off. We have the capability, but whether it will happen or not is something that we cannot guess.
Capability exists to a whole lot of stuff. In the last 20 years, nominal capability build has happened in Data Patterns across domains. We can be very fast turnaround time depending on the market needs. That's all I can say today.
Got it, sir. Thank you so much. All the very best.
Thank you. A request to all participants, please restrict your questions to two questions per participant. For more questions, please rejoin the queue. The next question is from the line of Neelotpa l Sahu from JM Financial. Please proceed.
Hi, sir. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yeah.
Sir, my first question is on this existing order book of INR 2,600 crores. Can you give us some color of how much of these are production and what level would be development orders?
I don't know. I've not classified it accordingly to give you a direct answer. Venky, do we have a classification of this?
We have it.
Sorry, sir. Can you please come again? Could not hear you.
No, I have not classified it. I don't have an immediate answer, but Venky is looking into the orders and giving you the data. Come to the second question if you have.
Sure. Secondly, on this order prospects that you have of INR 20 billion-INR 40 billion, these would include the potential HAL order as well as the BrahMos seekers order. Is that understanding right?
Yeah. BrahMos seeker also is a potential order. Until the contract comes through, everything is potential only. Yes.
Yes. Included in our prospects, right?
Pardon?
These are included in our prospects for INR 20 billion of single vendor orders that we are targeting?
Yes.
The HAL order would also be included in the same prospect?
I believe so. Some portion of it, I believe so.
INR 20 billion.
Yeah. As part of the additional order.
Additional INR 20 billion, it is included.
Not as part of the negotiated list.
Understood. Also, sir, can you highlight some of the prospects that are currently under development aside of BrahMos, wherein you are expecting conversion to production orders over the next two to three years? Okay to not mention the quantum, but just broadly on the product lines.
See, I don't know how long you've been following Data Patterns, but we spent a substantial amount of money in developing air defense long-range radars. Those are very well appreciated by the customer. The systems have been delivered. They believe they are of strategic importance to India. There is a drive from the customer base. There are multiple such contracts that have to be executed across India to see that we are protected from the space, sea into airspace and things like that. Back to back, I expect in the next one and a half to two years' time, substantial business running into INR few thousands of crores for such contracts, where we have our competency established in terms of electromagnetic systems, cooling systems, electronics, software, everything put together, the complete radar. We will be the first company to do that in India.
Under development with us, it is then gets received by the customer. We believe some more orders will come. This is a very exciting time for us, already there are some inquiries in this area, modified systems which has already been delivered for applications, which is on air defense. There is a number of contracts we're expecting out of that, which are not shown in this INR 2 billion or whatever INR 50 billion we talk about. This is expected probably, because still no inquiries have not come, so we're not included all of those things. Once and when it happens, and we get a hold of this, when the contract comes, we'll announce it. Yes, we think we are looking at a larger business proposition of a addressable market of more than INR 40 billion to INR 50 billion. For this billion. INR 4,000 crores. I know.
It should be around INR 40,000 crores to INR 50,000 crores. Is what we are trying to address markets with our products. We're looking at a very large size product mix and a lot of complex systems in this. That's where the direction of the company is being driven today. Bringing a very large growth as we go along if we are successful. Of course, these are all in future. Yes, the government products we're talking about in this already work well. We expect repeat contracts in all of these areas as we go ahead. We are expecting substantive growth in the coming years based on already executed contracts, new products under development.
I don't want to be specific on what products we are going to develop on an open forum now, We are very clear which markets we want to address, and we want to address it. Then we are developing products for those markets. Even what we delivered has got a substantive potential for several thousand crores of additional business going ahead.
Got it, sir. If I may squeeze in a small question lastly. What is the CapEx plan that you have for the next two years?
Yeah, that is another thing which we are going to spend money. We're spending money on product development. We're also spending a whole lot of CapEx, maybe INR 100 crore plus we should be able to. Maybe we are spending more than that in the next two years' time for infrastructure abilities. We want to build a nine-story building with car parks and things like that, and also some clean rooms, some integration facility. In the large contracts, data instead of the volume will come into picture. We need to set up production assembly lines and test equipment in process testing, see that the reliability is maintained and delivery schedules are also met, meeting customer requirements are done. A lot of investments will have to happen. We've started the investments, actually. We started the foundation work already on the building.
Some of the infrastructure equipment also placed order, and a lot of the pieces of units are coming here. The large investments will happen in the next one to two years' time as we go along, because we'll do this in parallel to order execution. The execution process is kept in mind to do this. We can't do it sequentially. We are doing it parallel. The substantive will come, but it will be more than INR 200+ crore . INR 150-INR 200 crore minimum. Maybe it will go more than that. Based on the requirements. Today, we're also investing a lot of server money because of AI. There's a lot of investments also happening in computer servers, IT infrastructure to support the AI-driven initiatives the company's taken up very seriously. These are investments which will be made in the coming year or two years.
Got it, sir. Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Arnab Bhatt, an individual investor. Please proceed.
Hello, sir. Am I audible?
Yes.
Sir, I firstly just wanted to understand. There's a question put to you, I think one year or two years back around space and at that point of time, I think you had basically deferred it. What is your stand now in that area of thing? I believe that we are seeing sort of some traction in that sector. Do we stand the same?
We discussed this in the board meeting yesterday also. Yeah, we discussed this. We have a capability to do different satellites, we need an order book to do that or an indication of a contract for us to invest in. We have the money. We have the competency to do this. We have taken money to actually invest in building those satellites. We are actively doing a basic design work which is doing. Whether it will be commercialized and go ahead, this is depending on our interaction with the government to find out whether the funding will happen and the actual need. There is a need, that has been postponed because mostly it's the Department of Space addresses this need. Now what happens, there are a lot of startups in the space. They are all doing everything free of cost.
They're getting valuations and getting free of cost. They're trying to develop these kind of space systems and satellites. We won't want to take that model. We like to have an understanding. We don't mind investing now, we need to look at the revenue model as we go along, and the bottom line business go along. Capability already exists, I'm still unsure what investments will happen from government. Based on which, we'll take a decision. We are also going to need two, four months time to see that we take a decision on how to proceed with this. That's where we are now. As and when some clarity happens, I will definitely inform the investors.
Thank you, sir. My second question will be around acquisition. I do understand that this is sort of a backward integration for our business. We won't bring any value to this subsidiary. It's this business of ours, right? We are not capable of material science. How do we plan on grow that particular ceramic company from here? What is our stance on it? How do you plan to do anything about it in the future?
Contribution company doesn't have to come only on technology. Contribution company comes from revenue growth, bottom line business, process and proven process and validation, reach to customer, addressing new markets. Many things come when a small company is there isolated, it's very difficult for them to address and even access the market space. They mostly quote on lowest quote basis and make a lot of loss. This is what mainly happens to most of the SMEs. You need to graduate from that, to see that we have access to markets and we have access to investments. We don't get into capital issues, and also to see that the revenue businesses for new markets is also brought in by the larger company.
I believe we will do that for this company, bring in the larger market audiences, have them expose themselves from bigger requirements and larger requirements, which in scale can happen substantively. Bring in the investments necessary, see that we can deliver on the promises made to end customers. Whole lot of other thing on our process, whatever we developed over the many years, strength of our process. See that mistakes don't happen, the quality consciousness, the QA procedures and inspection systems, what we can do. We see that the process is also then passed on. See it commonizing, homogenizing the whole system. This is where we think we can add value, and we will bring substantive business as we go along to this company. This is our belief. I believe we will do this. It'll take some bit of time, but I think we will do that.
Thank you, sir. Just one last suggestion. If you can
Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Arnab, but can you please rejoin the queue?
No. I had no questions. I was done. Thank you.
Thank you. A request to all participants, please restrict your questions to two questions per participant. For more questions, please rejoin the queue. The next question is from the line of Krishang Shah from DAM Capital. Please proceed.
Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to understand one thing, that was the development of the HAWK-based radar that you're talking about. As I understand, Astra Microwave is a DCPP partner for it. I just wanted to understand what are we trying to do there.
The HAWK radar is ours. There's no partner.
HAWK radar is yours. What I'm trying to say is basically that Astra is also the DCPP partner.
It's not a DCPP partner here. Astra is a DCPP partner for MC variant, not the MS50 variant as I understand. Maybe they are one part of the antenna being supplied by them, and BEL was the second customer, supplier. They are developing the products. They have an independent development team from DRDO. We are doing it in parallel. That's where it is. It depends on whether we can qualify our product with, and get a contract, or we don't qualify and they qualify it, and they get a contract. Both are possible.
Okay. Just to understand from my understanding. Basically, the DRDO is going to be making the software bit, and Astra is going to be making the hardware, right? The integration will be done by DRDO. Just to understand, if we are making the HAWK radar, the software will ultimately have to come from DRDO, if I'm not mistaken, right?
Maybe, no. This is one option. The other option, we can develop the software and also put it. Software can come from third-world country also, other country also. It's a full product offering. Air Force per se, do not mind where it comes from. They're willing to give us the aircraft platform to buy and qualify. Those processes we'll have to go through. The requirements have to come up. It is not specific that only this will happen, only that will happen. Market is open. It's up to us to prove that the product is capable and prove to customers that this makes better sense. Then we will get a contract. That is what we're trying to aim. Not really go at loggerheads with anybody else, but it's a parallel path which we are designing and developing. See here, we develop the full system.
Every other part is also developed, not just the antenna, signal processor, the cooling systems, vapor compression machine. Everything else. The entire thing, including the radome, we can develop. With the other partner company we have. A whole lot of stuff we can develop as an end system to take the load off the end customer and maintain that for the next 20 years. There are advantages in one or the other. We're trying to see whether we can give an offer, an advantage, even to DRDO, to see whether we can work together to build a faster program, product meeting end specifications. Can we do that? This is based on technology. We're trying to push it. Let us see where it goes.
Got it. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much. Really helpful.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijeet Singh from Systematix. Please proceed.
Thank you for the opportunity, sir. My question is on the naval program. Sir, there has been a lot of CapEx happening on the naval side. Do we have any plans to increase our share coming from the naval programs? Correct me if I'm wrong, but right now our exposure overall, if we look across the three services, I think in terms of naval exposure, we are comparatively lower. Correct me if I'm wrong there, but what is our plan going forward in terms of development and production, participating in production programs for the naval side, given that we have a substantial market, a lot of CapEx happening on the platforms in Navy?
We hope to work with DRDO on the naval platforms, on developing some of those. For example, we are actually doing parts of the system. It doesn't directly go to Navy from us. We work with DRDO for their sonar subsystems, the VHF communication links to sonobuoys. All this has been done, and that has been procured as part of the electronics others. We are also building some of the products on the MR systems for the naval applications. That's what we're doing. We also got a couple of first orders from DRDO for the platform radar for the naval applications. Two radars for naval applications, and also going to some multiple as you go along. Similarly, our radars, which has been hardware has been designed and software done by DRDO. Requirements of 30 odd systems for both sides. We hope that we can win that contract.
On sensors like this, we are doing it. Now we are also trying to do an outreach to do that on electronic intelligence. We'll do directly with the Navy. We are going to start dialogue with them and fit an aircraft, fit the systems, naval platform. We're going ahead what we can do. We're also talking to Navy in terms of their MiG-29 other aircrafts, where the jammers and things like that they require. We're trying to offer to upgrade the existing jammers. We're doing the applications. That is in advanced stage of accepting. We'll probably be in flight trials very soon. Once it is done, some contracts will happen with them, as well as the Air Force, because similar requirements are there also. We're doing a whole lot of stuff on sensors like this, and we are going to see whether more opportunities can be created.
We have a naval officer in Delhi working with us, his task is to find out in our areas of expertise, can we look at some opportunities. We have identified a few, and we need to pursue on them.
Right, sir. Lastly, on the order inflow prospects of INR 20 billion that you mentioned for the current year. Sir, what is the risk of those orders getting delayed? Because those orders would be linked to some of the large projects that we are expecting, part of the subsystems that we intend to provide. What are the risks that you see that those INR 20 billion worth of orders within them, that they could get delayed to FY 2028 or beyond? Given that we already have some kind of delay in the negotiated orders.
Tenders are already on. We've already addressed the tenders and given the tenders. That is why I've given myself nine months to see when contracts can happen. We believe much before this contract should happen. What we've not projected to you in the pipeline is the tenders which have not happened. We expect a substantial, much larger business. Tenders have not happened based on already delivered products. Tenders have not happened. That is why we've not projected it. Pipeline, we're looking at addressable market. That's why I say more than INR 40 billion. Those are addressable market we're looking at, and where products equivalent address those markets. As and when things come nearer to tendering stage or clarity or order happens, we will announce to the market.
Thank you, sir. Thank you for answering my questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bhavya Gandhi from Bajaj Alternate Investment Management. Please proceed.
Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, just wanted to understand what will be market size or the addressable market for our key products? If you can just help me understand that. Second question was regarding the counter-drone business that we are looking at. What could be the total revenue or order wins over next couple of years? That's it from my end.
If you are investing in products with an addressable market value of about INR 30,000 crores, based on what we've already developed, repeat contracts, we're looking at another INR 10,000 crores-INR 12,000 crores. We need an addressable market of about INR 40,000 crores. We have an estimate as to when this will happen, it's a bit premature for me to talk about it now because it's not come to a stage where I can disclose these things. The idea is take UAP and start product development to see that we're scaling from a small company to a large company. We are actively doing this by getting a differentiated product, which will be world-class, developed in-house with our money, and take it to trials, convince customer that the products are working well, so that their immediate needs are addressed.
That is the idea with which we took money, we are spending money in this. We are also spending continuous money on our yearly earnings also. We spend a lot of money on driving, building products for immediate next year kind of customer requirements, so that we get a unique position in this with demonstrations and products, outbuilding specifications which the customer wants. We're continually doing that. The addressable market size is very large, also we're looking at seeing whether we can address new markets outside India, which can be even larger as we go along. Both the civil aviation as well as the defense markets, we want to look at. We're putting a team together to look at those markets with our competency in engineering, can we address them.
The idea is to build a substantial scale, substantial size as we go ahead from here. Grow the business very fast. That's what we're planning to do. It's taken us many years to come here. We expect that in the next one or two, three years, we should do multiple times what we've done last year. We are expecting it to happen with an order book size, much, much larger order book size. This is a comfort zone. We are investing ahead and going to other areas. We have very ambitious targets set for ourselves, and I think we are on the right track going there and meeting those targets.
With the AI coming in, we're also investing a lot in AI to see that product development and even the process within the organization is modernized and modified so that the technical skill sets are much higher. To see that we get products and programs as well as process to address the large markets and accelerated product development delivery. These are what we're trying to do. The size of the market is very large, and we are trying to build products for that. The second question you asked was on the drone. It's in the beginning stages. Drones are getting sold. We need to get number of players in the market. Some of them are talking to us. Let us build a few systems and deliver it and look at performance.
I'll be able to answer the question of size of drone business, where we are going. We're trying to, again, reuse building blocks, what we've done earlier. The cost of development is lot down. Also, with the size and numbers are going to be low, we need to have an infrastructure of production. We are also buttressing the production and calibration infrastructure to address the market as soon as the contract happens. We believe that contracts will happen several hundred INR crore. Contracts will happen in the course of this year, but that is not projected as revenue projections, not covered in the INR 20 billion. These are new things, inquiries have not come. We believe it will come, and we should take the business, what we think.
Anyway, this is the future, so we can't comment much on it on when exactly it'll happen. We're working towards the product development area and getting customer requirements in these areas.
Sir, on the INR 40,000 crore addressable market, that would be spread across how many years? That is the market addressable.
I don't want to say this. I have no control over that market, when it'll happen. We'll not talk about it at the present. It's sufficient to say that we are gearing ourselves up. Products are getting ready. The products are already some are ready, already delivered, some are getting ready. To get a substantive scale, we need addressable markets. It's very easy to say so much of billions of INR is being spent by India on defense. That means it's not that I can do INR 2 lakh crore with them. It's not going to be possible. We need to have addressable products where with our technology products, it meets the requirements. It gives you a competitive edge, you can convert it. I'm looking at how do we carve out these addressable markets? What products are necessary?
We started a bit back. Not that today I'm starting this. We started a bit back with the new technologies and applications coming in. We're trying to adapt the competency and knowledge base to address new markets, which we didn't think was possible two years back. A lot of things are opening up today. We're very excited today, like a startup, to see that we can develop these products for these markets. This time with a conscious mind that it's a business, and we need to end, not just make the products and satisfy, but also make a bottom-line business out of it. The earlier days of my life, it's only doing the product was more important than the business. Today, I can't. We are a listed company. We have a board which is more responsible to do that. We are mindful of all that.
We're making very clear plans and decisions. We have to address market and scale this into a much, much, much larger revenue and bottom line.
Got it.
I can't promise this. The direction is clear. Direction is clear, commitment is clear. Work diligently and honestly. I don't see why we can't get that contract which you want.
Right, sir. Got it. Thank you so much and all the best, sir. That's it from my end. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks all of you for joining us in this Q1 conference call, investor call. I'm very happy to answer any of your questions within the restrictions of what I can say. But I've been more than open with most of my interviews with all of you. The questions I can answer in much more in depth is what I think. The only thing I want to leave an impression is that, one, we have done substantively different kind of technologies, multidisciplinary technologies the last two to three years' time. That we have developed, delivered air defense radars, involved enormous mechanical capability design, 100% designed by us. More than 100 engineers and mechanical designers in the company. We call ourselves electronic engineering company. We designed very accurate people positioning, very large platforms, payloads of 140 tons, movement mechanisms for all of them.
It's all designed by the cooling systems. Many things we have done, which to make the system engineering capability, instead of outsourcing everything, we've done ourselves here. Building a competency model, not just in electronics, but electromechanical systems and applications, and creating infrastructure in terms of people capability, as well as production and test infrastructure to see that we address future markets as we go along. All these products we have done has got substantive requirements for inside the next two to three years' time. I believe our customers will see us favorably based on the executions we've done and the quality and the reliability of the products delivered. I believe that they will come back to us for more such requirements, which is what we're hoping for. Also, we're building an infrastructure to address That's the rationale it happens through that. This is one portion.
Second is, we've taken up a full investment in radars, electronic warfare, and communication systems, which are all maturing, and especially EW is maturing to a very large stage. We go through qualification and flight tests. We expect large business to happen after that. As long as they meet customer expectations, we will make our best attempt to see that we need to excel in customer expectations. World-class. These things are also required for other programs outside India. We will also address those markets as we go along, probably another six months to one year from now. Once the product becomes more visible, we should be able to address the markets. This is another area where we bring substantial growth.
Third area now with AI coming in, we're trying to build a whole lot of products and capabilities and fine-tune our products technology, increase the product capabilities in all these areas, and come out with a whole lot of exciting products in the next one year to one and a half years or so to address new markets, which can be also several thousand INR crore. India is changing. The markets are changing worldwide. India is also catching up and changing. Indian entrepreneurs are also ready to get stand up and get counted. The Skyroot is one such organization. We did our own launch, it is outstanding. We have a lot of companies, we've been trying to work with the OEMs, platform suppliers to see whether the sensors we can do together. That's another exciting thing which we're trying to do.
We're not waiting for a contract. We're developing products, taking it to trial, go through flight trials, get it ready, so that by the time some contracts happen, they are there. These are required in numbers as you go along, because much lower cost of fighter aircrafts, and this is much lower cost. Redundancies are things that we made available here. Market, the applications are changing, so we want to adapt also to application with a common scientific basis on what we've done, because all the component availability and new technology coming in, with AI coming in, we want to be abreast of all of them. See that we give world-class products very fast. The third area we will be focusing on is exports. See that we get new opportunities, which we never looked at very seriously.
Now we're seriously looking at it because people who have come here from both U.S. and Europe and the U.K. have all found our capabilities good. They found our process very good. They are inclined to engage us in specific programs. I expect that this will start in the next few months, and it'll expand. With one success, we should be able to see internal success way ahead. We also put a team to look at markets to see how we can contribute to faster delivery, faster turnaround, world-class subsystems and so on. Do that. As and when our products become ready, we can also sell it to the Western or non-earth or the other world to see that we are competitive, reliable, and those products can be done. Idea is to build the full systems and take it global as and when possible.
Look at the Indian market, which is very large. Address the market, test it here, take it global, see scale can happen. We are very conscious of what we're doing, very determined to do what we're doing, and very happy with our shareholders supporting us through all. With this kind of a shareholder support, investor support, we believe the sky's the limit. We can do a whole lot of stuff. There's nothing we could do this much with so much of money and so much of capability and infrastructure and development capability and process, which we've imbibed, making mistakes over so many years. If we can trust on them, build further with the youngsters, with a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of passion, we should be able to build larger scale, larger products, and take it global.
This is our dream, and we are living our dream right now. We will grow the business very fast is what we believe. Thank you very much for listening to me, listening to us. If you have any further questions, you can write to Go India, and we'll be very pleased to answer all your questions. Thank you once again.
Thank you. On behalf of Go India Advisors, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line. Thank you