Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to eMudhra Limited Q4 FY23 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 then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Venkatraman Srinivasan, Executive Chairman of eMudhra Limited. Thank you. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good evening to all of you, and welcome all of you to this earnings presentation for Q4 and FY 2023. Little bit I will trace the origin and where we are today and then go to the financials. Later on, Mr. Saji, our CFO, will go through the cash flow statement, profit and loss, and balance sheet, and then about the technology and various aspect and future strategy Kaushik will present. Come to where we are today. We have become a one-stop shop solution provider in the securing enterprise transition to Zero Trust. In this, what is Zero Trust? Zero Trust is emerging as a major thing around the world.
Zero Trust has become necessity, a necessity because of the interconnected global world, where not only people, the devices, the internet and so many things are interlinked. When so many things are interlinked around the world, the cybersecurity is very important. Again, for efficiency and cost reduction and all those purposes, digital transformation is very important. We are in the digital transformation and cybersecurity solution provider. With that, we also combine the trust service provider so that we are a one-stop shop. That is our theme in which we operate and we'll continue to operate. The important things are, one, we have marquee customers, 19 out of top 20 ET 500 customers and several large banks, large e-commerce, pharma companies and automotive companies are our customers. Mature technology solutions and intellectual property.
All our solutions are used by very big banks, big government agencies, and then they are all mature over last several years. We are very focused on innovation, so we have more than 250 people on the R&D itself and continuously do R&D on the digital transformation and cybersecurity. Global IT research like Gartner, IDC, then Frost & Sullivan, all of these have recognized that. In several of their reports we have been featured. Thought leadership, quality and security. We are a board member of the Cloud Signature Consortium. I am the Chairman of Asia PKI Forum. We have several quality accreditation and certifications, especially EAL4+, which is a very important certification for the cybersecurity. Also we are in CMMI Level 5 certification. We continue to be the largest certifying authority in India.
Coming to the Zero Trust. the Zero Trust is the new security paradigm. Never trust anything but always verify. Never trust and always verify. That is the paradigm. That is where the world is evolving now. The digital trust and traceability is becoming a critical factor in electronic document exchange. Only technology that can replace wet signature provide legal non-repudiation, identity traceability and non-tamperability is digital signature and based on the PKI infrastructure. The cyber threats are forcing enterprises to secure their network. Sensitive use cases are rapidly adopting digital certificate-based authentication to secure their infrastructure. Again, another important thing is the data privacy. All around the world it has become very important. It is forcing enterprises to leverage cryptographic key to encrypt sensitive data. Both data at rest and data at motion, everything to be encrypted. That is also very important.
In this, where does eMudhra fit in? eMudhra has solutions for most of these components. Now if you see, we have authentication solution, which can authenticate users and application. We have encryption solutions for website, servers, everything. We have signing solutions, which is the emSigner solution. We issue digital signatures, and those digital signatures are issued based on the cryptographic key. That way we have comprehensive solution towards the Zero Trust, emSigner solution, emAS solution. Again, emDiscovery is our recent solution, where the certificate lifecycle management, including discovery, we provide a solution. CA solution we always have for the last four, five years. From this presentation, you can click on the link so that you can more understand about the cryptographic keys and the digital signatures. We have global recognition. We have strong partnership.
We have driving thought leadership. Global accreditation, IDC has accredited us as first in the identity and digital trust category. Gartner again recognized in Gartner eSignature Guide as a Global Full Service Enterprise Solution Provider. DSC Technology have again InsurTech and People Choice Award has been given to us. In CEO 20 Most Promising Tech Solution Provider we are featured in. We have lot of technology partnership, SAP, Sage, then Infosys, then TCS BaNCS, then DSC Technology, then Thales, Utimaco. With all of them we have technology partnerships. Similarly, we have reseller partnership with several large companies like TCS, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, LTI and several others. Global membership, we are a member of Cloud Signature Consortium, member of Asia PKI Consortium, member of FIDO Alliance, member of CA/Browser Forum.
We have AATL accreditation and WebTrust accreditation and SAFE accreditation. Quality security certification, again, we have several ISO certification, we have HIPAA certification, CMMI Level 5 certification, and many other certification which are necessary for this industry. Coming to the financial performance, our growth has been very good in the last year. Last year we achieved 38.3% year-on-year growth and we touched INR 254.1 crore of total income. The EBITDA, again, we got an EBITDA of INR 92.6 crore, which achieved a 36% year-on-year growth, and the EBITDA margin also continued to be good, 36.5% margin. Coming to EBIT, we achieved INR 76.8 crore, which is a 13.5% growth year-on-year, and EBIT margin was 30.2%.
The net profit, we achieved a good net profit of INR 61.2 crore, and which is again 48.8% year-on-year growth and margin at 24.1% margin. Adjusted net profit, because in this net profit, some amount of ESOP provisions are made. If ESOP provisions are adjusted, as we had explained earlier, entire shares have been transferred to the trust and there is no dilution at all. Still based on some 2013 method of accounting, they are putting ESOP expenditure in the profit and loss account. It is debited to profit and loss account and credited to reserve, and there is no outflow or anything like that. That's why number of companies are adjusting this adjusted net profit.
On adjusted net profit basis, the net profit became INR 64.4 crore, which is a 54.5% year-over-year growth and 23.3% margin. The cash from operation became INR 486 million, which is INR 48.6 crore, which is 66.3% of the PBT, and we paid a dividend of INR 1.25 per share, which is in line with the last year. Strong revenue growth, strong EBITDA growth, and strong profitability, and also a strong cash flow generation. Q4 alone, if you take, again the total income was INR 79 crore. Again, 73.9% year-over-year growth. EBITDA, INR 25.9 crore, which is 40.6% year-over-year growth with a 32.8% EBITDA margin. EBIT, INR 22 crore with 41.9% year-over-year and 27.8% EBIT margin.
Net profit INR 15.8 million, which is a 46.3% year-on-year and 20% net profit margin. Adjusted net profit INR 18.4 crore, which is 61.3% year-on-year growth and 23.3% on margin. That way even the Q4 was a very good quarter and a good improvement in performance was achieved. What is our track record over the last four years? The last four years, the revenue from operation grew from almost INR 116 crore to INR 248.8 crore, which is 28.8% CAGR, and this growth is driven by enterprise solution and international markets also. The EBITDA growth was 42.1% CAGR over the last four years. The EBITDA was 36.5%.
Similarly, the PAT growth also had a CAGR growth of 14.3% over the last four years. Coming to the other key business indicators, the revenue has been shifting more towards enterprise solutions because as I had explained in the last calls, Trust Services the pricing little bit came down but that got more than compensated by a further growth in the enterprise solution. Enterprise solution and overseas markets really contributed very well. Again, the revenue, recurring revenue also was 65% in the last year. The revenue mix if you see, enterprise solution became almost INR 163.7 Trust Services inr 85 crore in the last year. While the trust service was almost flat in the last year, you can see the enterprise solution revenue grew from INR 98 crore to INR 163 crore.
Geography-wise, if you see the revenue mix, the India geography grew from INR 147.7 crore to INR 159.6 crore. The international geographies grow from INR 34.9 crore to INR 89.1 crore, it is more than doubled. Revenue concentration from the top 5 customer was 27% and top 10 customer was 39%. Again the other details of operational performance. The revenue break-up by sector, the government sector constituted 30% and the private sector constituted 48% and BFSI constituted 21%. Similarly, partner sale versus direct sale. Partner sales constituted 25% and direct sales constituted 75%. The revenue break-up by product, cybersecurity products 62%. Within cybersecurity we have the MCA product as well as emDiscovery product and also the emAS product.
The paperless is only the emSigner product which constituted 38%. The existing customer revenue versus new customer revenue. Existing customer revenue constituted 72% and new customer 28%. The closing order book continuously increased almost from INR 76.9 crore it went up to INR 118 crore as of March 21, 2023. That much of increase happened in the closing order book. Coming Trust Services operational performance. Strong brand positioning has been created so people want the eMudhra digital certificate, so that's why though we are a little bit costly still we command the leadership position and number one position in the certifying authority. More and more retail customers are acquired.
Our partner network, instead of a top 40 or 50 partner we have broad-based the partner network we go to even the smallest of the partners. Another thing is last year the new areas such as eSign, SSL certificate, they have also improved considerably. If you see FY 2022 to FY 20 23. In FY 2022, 72% of the trust service revenue came through the channel partners and 28% came through the retail. In FY 2023, 35% came through retail and 48% only came through channel partners and 17% came through the new product like eSign and SSL. That way, the relevance of the channel is gradually declining, and our new model enables us to go direct to many new and smaller channel partners to improve our space.
Also, it gives us more flexibility to directly approach retail. That way, the new model is stabilizing over the last 3 months and it is giving good result. The number of users, if you see, the retail users increased from 191,000 to 249,000. There's a good jump there. Similarly, the number of DS issued increased from 2.43 million to 2.94 million. Coming to the return ratios, again, return on equity, because equity base, because you know that in June we made the IPO. The IPO increased the capital base considerably. Because of the increase in the capital base, the return on equity reduced to 22.4%. The equity is not fully deployed and has not come up to the optimal level.
Over the next two to three years, it will come back to the original position and may further grow also. Return on capital employed also because of the high equity injection in the current year, which is not fully utilized. That's why it has a little bit come down, so it will go up. Coming to the trade receivable, the collection days increased from 80 to 95. Again, this is one, due to the growth, second, due to the larger and larger projects which we are doing in the government and the public sector are taking, where the collection time takes more time. In spite of it, the growth is only from 80 to 95 days, which is recoverable. Out of this, 95 days recoverable, almost more than 50% is within 30 days itself.
That way, the recoverability is quite good. Coming to the consolidated profit and loss account, Saji will explain about the consolidated profit and loss account and balance sheet and cash flow.
Yeah. Thank you, sir. The revenue from operation for this current financial year, which is grew by year-on-year basis by 36.2% to INR 2,488 million. With a CAGR of 28.8%. The total income, again, 38.3% year-on-year growth, with a CAGR of 29.6%. The other expenses, total operating expense stood at INR 1,614 million as against INR 1,156 million in the previous year, which is aggregated across operating purchases, inventory and employee benefit expenses and other expenses. The EBITDA grew from INR 681 million to INR 926 million, which is about 36% of year-on-year growth and with a CAGR of 42.1%. Margin level is 36.5% for the year ended March 2023.
The EBIT level has grew from INR 550 million to INR 768 million, with a year-on-year growth of 39.5% with a CAGR of 48%. The margin level of EBIT is about 30.2% for the year ended March. Profit after tax is grew from INR 411 million to INR 612 million, which is about 48.8% on year-on-year basis, and CAGR of about 49.2% with a margin of 24.1%. The EPS of the company stood at INR 8.35 with a growth of 42.5% as compared to the previous year and with a CAGR of 52.2%. This one is a consolidated balance sheet of the company.
The total size of the balance, total assets of the company grew from INR 2,591 million to INR 4,599 million, which is mostly segregated into tangible as well as intangible assets. Major portion is sitting in these two assets. INR 915 million is sitting in tangible assets, whereas INR 582 million sitting in our intangible assets. We have some small portion of right to use of asset of about INR 85 million. Assets under development is having about INR 472 million. These are the major thing. After that, we have INR 672 million of trade receivables, we have a liquid investment of about INR 209 million, which is actually an overnight investment.
We have a cash and cash equivalent of INR 984 million. Other assets all totaling to INR 4,599 million. In the liability side, the major liabilities are borrowings, these are internal borrowings, not outside borrowings, INR 157 million. We have a lease liability of INR 97 million, then trade payables of about INR 182 million. Other current as well as non-current liabilities put together about INR 240 million. The total liabilities are INR 675 million as against INR 1,050 million in the previous year. The net assets stood at INR 3,924 million, which is again represented by the equity share capital of INR 375 million and other equity of INR 3,541 million.
We have a small portion of non-controlling interest, which is about INR 8 million totaling to INR 3,924 as against INR 1,541 in the previous year. Coming to the consolidated statement of cash flow. starts from the profit before tax INR 734 as against INR 505 the previous year. The net cash flow from operating activities after income tax, it comes to INR 336 million as against INR 216 million the previous year. During the year, the investing activities was about, we spent about INR 1,067 million as against INR 377 million in the previous year. Net cash used in the financing activities is INR 1,275 million and INR 1,160 million in the previous year.
We have INR 44 million of foreign exchange adjustments on because of the consolidation. That net increase comes to about INR 587 million as against INR 5 million in the previous year. The opening cash and cash equivalents stood at INR 83 million. Totaling total cash and cash equivalents for the year ended March 2023 comes to about INR 670 million. If you add back the fixed deposit, which is having maturity period of over 12 months, which is about INR 314 million. We have overnight deposit of mutual funds, which is about INR 209 million. Total cash and cash equivalents stood at INR 1,193 million as against INR 133 million in the previous year. This I'll hand over to Kaushik.
Yeah. Thank you, Saji. If you look at some of the key achievements in the last year, we've implemented several major projects. This includes implementation of emAS for identity access management for the defense forces. A lot of the emCA and PKI deployments across multiple countries in defense and government. Especially we've also achieved deep penetration in banking, where the emSigner product is used for enterprise-wide banking paperless transformation across several large banks, and domestically also for solving use cases with lending, including e-signatures and e-stamping. Also we helped many countries put in place their first certifying authorities in the Gulf region and Latin American region. This is also giving a huge impetus in those markets to sort of further enhance our penetration. Interestingly, several new use cases in the ecosystem we were able to drive.
One around IoT for a large global car manufacturer and part of several energy grids. ePassport implementation for a country in the Middle East. Rollout of the card security. This is primarily for debit cards and credit cards for interbank payments for a central bank. The first of its kind, mobile PKI for digital identity and secure authentication in Indonesia for a state-owned entity. Essentially a number of projects, a number of use cases across all our products and for several large marquee customers we were able to roll out in the last financial year. This was aided significantly by strong engagement with global IT research firms who have also consistently recognized our positioning in the market.
In Gartner, several reports now sort of mention eMudhra, and significant ones include the Market Guide for Electronic Signature, where Gartner recognizes us as a global full-service enterprise workflow vendor. Their Gartner Peer Insights platform rate us 4.4. This is as a result of several customers sort of voicing their opinion, and we are rated as a strong performer in the electronic signature report. Newer set of tools around DevSecOps, which is another emerging area where security is embedded as a design principle in software development. Gartner also has mentioned us there in the PKI and certificate management category. As mentioned, IDC ranks us number one in the identity and digital trust category in India in the last year.
We were also Great Place to Work certified. Essentially a testament to the culture that we've been trying to build in the organization. To quickly give a glimpse of what our business is and what are the products and how they are sort of different in the market. A little of a trace back to the company. We started primarily as a certifying authority in 2008, issuing digital signature certificates. Over time, put a serious focus on innovation and intellectual property development around the digital trust space. We launched emAS, which was the authentication platform that was required to validate the digital signatures, which over time has been enhanced. As part of the whole rollout of Aadhaar and eSign on top of that, we also launched the emSigner product for workflow automation with e-signatures.
We launched emCA, which was necessitated to replace our existing vendor for identity management and issuance of certificate itself. During that year, we also launched our global CA operations, essentially helping us go to many countries and put in place similar backbone and also issue these SSL/TLS certificates for website authentication. We went a little deeper. We also enhanced the emAS capability for identity and access management. emSigner again was verticalized for the banking industry. Finally we launched the emSign Hub, which is our reseller portal for reselling SSL/TLS certificates. If you see, the idea really has been to focus deeply as an IP-based company in this space, which is an intersection of cybersecurity and digital transformation.
Our new R&D efforts are also primarily focused on this area around IoT certificate management, remote signing, and how would we position this one-stop shop positioning in the context of this new wave of Zero Trust, which is never trust, always verify, and therefore identity traceability becomes a very critical component in that whole ecosystem. Business is categorized into two lines. One is the enterprise solutions, where we've got three sets of solutions, Paperless Authentication Solutions, Public Key Infrastructure, and then Trust Services, where we issue these different types of certificates. The overall combination is of a cybersecurity and paperless transformation solution provider, but built on this foundation of digital trust, which we are trying to now scale up globally.
From an R&D team, today, almost 250+ people are there who are all developers who are continuously developing and delivering IP. The total employee strength is around 780 people. We've developed very specialized skills in cybersecurity, cryptography, cloud technology, and this whole new DevSecOps. All of the key members of the product team have been very stable with the company and have spent a fairly long period, almost eight-plus years. Then the subordinates are also have spent considerable amount of time in the company developing significant competency that we are able to take to the market. This is representing a slightly more granular view of the products. Of course, in the PKI, which is emCA, we've got various flavors of the product for root, enterprise, managed PKI, and the ability to issue various types of certificates.
In emAS, again, we've got different types of authentication, single sign-on, and access management. In new and emerging areas where we are able to issue digital signature certificates even directly to the mobile phones, because some of them are fairly secure, and focus on IoT and data encryption, which is emerging as a big area. The new product that we've launched, which is a certificate lifecycle management called emDiscovery, which does essentially automated discovery of certificates, ability to scan, manage the whole lifecycle of the certificates, and ability to provision back to the certificates, even though if it's individual device, and various other types of certificates.
Also, again, cater to the area of DevSecOps, where things like Docker, Kubernetes are the new technologies that are used to sort of rapidly deploy code and software, but need to be protected and therefore require the usage of cryptographic certificates. The first two, three products, that is one, two, three, the buyer is basically the chief information security officer organization or the IT teams that sort of decide depending on the organization structure. Where coming to four, which is emSigner, which is the enterprise paperless transformation product. There, the buyer is a business user. There the thesis is pretty simple. Wherever paper-based signatures are used, which is of course extensive in many industries, how do you replace that with digital signature workflows so as to enable seamless completion? Here, the factors are largely aided by cost reduction, significant improvement in customer experience, and also efficiency.
If one, two, three is more a cybersecurity-driven need, which is again becoming critical as a result of so many data breaches that are happening globally, essentially therefore driving the need to protect your enterprise infrastructure. An interesting thing is this public key infrastructure is also emerging as a very important foundation in cybersecurity for data privacy. New areas such as post-quantum cryptography, Web 3.0, all rely on this technology as a backbone to drive security in the future as well. Coming to enterprise solutions, we've done a fairly detailed view of the products, the use cases, what are the differentiators. I'll of course not go through line by line, but to give you a broad glimpse, emSigner largely used across any sector. It is sector agnostic because the idea is to replace paper-based signatures with digital signatures.
Every industry has its own set of nuances, and the product is getting sort of better and better. At, for instance, we verticalize a product for banking, insurance, pharma, and as we understand more use cases, we are again building deeper capabilities in those verticals. It has got significant differentiators, the key ones being the ability to leverage identity-backed digital signatures. In India, essentially, we ride on Aadhaar as a digital identity. Several countries essentially are building similar programs. It's verticalized for specific industries, as I said. Again, we do private cloud and on-prem deployments because many of the regulated industries want data protection and data control, and therefore, we cater to that. We essentially have dealt with several large customers in the banking, in e-commerce, in IT outsourcing. Both TCS and Infosys happen to be customers.
Essentially the competition here includes DocuSign and Adobe Sign when we talk about the global markets. Coming to emCA, it is basically a software that allows you to issue the certificates but has a lot of critical security guideline compliances and global standards that it needs to adhere to, therefore it meets those demands. From a use case perspective, a lot of use cases both for government CA as well as private CA setups in many countries, ePassport implementations, new emerging areas of IoT-related device certificates. What is really driving the growth for this product is many enterprises want to use certificates for securing their infrastructure and authentication. Every large enterprise over time, they are looking at leveraging cryptographic identities and cryptographic certificates to authenticate.
They will also put in place this software so that they can control and own that whole sort of solution to issue certificates. From a differentiation standpoint, it is EAL4+ certified by the Cybersecurity Agency of Singapore. This is the highest product security certification, a product can get in this space. We also support multiple types of PKI deployment models, and we have a strong support and in-house implementation team. Again, from a customer perspective, several large customers, across sectors, but primarily in government, banking, and IoT. Competition here largely includes companies such as Entrust, Nexus, and PrimeKey. Entrust is from America. Nexus and PrimeKey are from Europe. On emAS is a multi-factor authentication identity access management single sign-on solution. Essentially, by putting this in any enterprise, it allows them to secure their authentication.
Today, many enterprises are still reliant on password-based authentication, and different systems force you to log in multiple times, and there is no centralized access control. emAS essentially solves that. It allows you to move away from passwords to far more secure forms of authentication and centralize the whole sign-in and login process across different applications. It's implemented at scale. In India, critically, government platforms rely on emAS for digital signature authentication. We also have completed large-scale implementations in defense, banking, and smart cities for the identity access management platform as well. Here again, the competition largely is basically Entrust and this other company called Micro Focus. To summarize, the products have really matured over the last several years, and have marquee reference customers and also present significant cross-sell and upsell opportunities.
Once we sell one product, typically we are able to sell the other products because all are on this similar theme of digital trust and essentially moving to this paradigm of Zero Trust. What's the market opportunity? These are numbers that are there and prepared by Frost & Sullivan as part of the prospectus document. Quickly to recap, emSigner has an $8.2 billion market opportunity in the next five years with a 29% CAGR. Our focus is to continue and deepen our penetration in the Indian market, expand in the other markets that we're already present. Then specifically in North America, how do we go after select segments such as tier two banks to basically penetrate. From a roadmap perspective also, we have visibility over the next 12 to 18 months.
The idea is to really develop verticalization and also expand on platform partnerships with leading ERP, CRM and HRMS systems. Also list on cloud marketplaces such as AWS, which allows various companies to easily sort of deploy and start accessing the platform in a much, much more rapid manner. Coming to emCA, it's a $3.8 billion market opportunity in the next five years with a 15% CAGR. Here, really, there are tons of opportunities that are emerging both in the private sector, government sector, and in enterprise PKI space, where enterprise are looking at leveraging digital signature certificates for securing the infrastructure. From a roadmap perspective, we are focused on how do we enhance the capability from an IoT certificate management standpoint. Newer sets of cryptographic algorithms also emerging in the context of this quantum computing.
There are a few post-quantum crypto algorithms, so we will embed them in the software to essentially make the software even quantum ready. Also enhance the ePassport feature set, which is emerging as a big theme globally, where immigration is trying to be streamlined through these ePassport mechanisms. Last, emAS, it's a $11.2 billion market opportunity in the next five years with a 14% CAGR. Our focus is to, one, while we are already strong in India, how do we take this product to other emerging markets where there's a need for PKI-based digital signature authentication, access management, and single sign-on. From a roadmap perspective, we plan to enhance capabilities around identity governance, also embed AI, so that various risk anomalies can automatically be identified in the context of authentication and essentially secure the infrastructure.
Talking more specifically about emDiscovery, this is becoming a need of the hour. We launched this last year. The broader theme is any enterprise environment is becoming very complex. Most of them are open, connected, multi-environment, and pretty much always on across different locations. Today, these certificates are only used to protect external facing websites, servers, VPN access, et cetera. Over time, many enterprises are dealing with thousands of certificates, so how do you really manage their lifecycle? This is what the product really solves. It provides a centralized dashboard where all of these certificates are listed, and you can pretty much identify when each certificate is going to expire and then automatically sort of renew it and provision back to the server.
As enterprises look at adopting more secure forms of authentication such as digital signature certificate, this software will emerge as a critical sort of need from a cybersecurity perspective. Again, this is more a visual representation. From any large organization, if you take a look at, they would have already provisioned thousands of certificates which could reside on servers, either on-prem or on cloud load balancers, other network devices such as firewalls, and also on hardware security modules or residing with various individuals in the form of individual certificates or email certificates.
This software allows you to scan all of them in a completely automated manner, request all of these certificates, and this request can again flow into either our public trust, which is emSign, which is all browser-recognized certificates, or hosted kind of digital signature certificate model, where we host it on the company's behalf or completely do it on-prem through emCA as a solution. Once you get the certificate, it can go through a set of workflows where the certificates are validated for certain risk compliance and various other processes. Then any type of certificate can be issued, be it SSL, TLS for websites, individual certificates which most of us use, S/MIME certificates, and also custom certificate profiles for IoT devices and supports pretty much any protocol.
These certificates again, we provision back in a completely automated manner in various types of servers or web environments or through manual or API-based deployments. Essentially the combination of emDiscovery, our emSign, and emCA offer a very powerful and comprehensive certificate lifecycle management, which we feel will emerge as a significant platform as enterprises try and move to this new paradigm of Zero Trust, where hopefully everything will depend on usage of cryptographic identities to secure the enterprise IT Trust Services, as again, as outlined by our chairman, the positioning has really been that of a branded player. We've been trying to significantly shift our focus to the online retail, where we are seeing continuous growth. Then we've also moved away from the earlier model of selling to master partners to a larger subset of subpartners.
What is aiding our growth also is significant differentiation. We are the only CA to have strong in-house technology for partner management and retail. We have a fairly quick and easy onboarding and fulfillment process. We've got 24/7 direct support. Our D2C pricing, which is our retail pricing, is almost 6x-- 7x of the channel pricing. Here, two important things are driving the growth. Unlike other distribution, we have full visibility of the end customer because we do the KYC for them. Also we enjoy a significant Google organic ranking. We almost have 3x- 4x the next competitor in terms of Google search trends. This is also helping us acquire customers at a much more relatively lower customer acquisition cost. Apart from the digital signature, we also do eSign.
eSign is another type of signature where anyone can use Aadhaar or PAN or GST to authenticate and then dynamically sign documents without the need for crypto tokens. This is largely a B2B sale to BFSI, to capital markets, to private sector and government. This is a new segment. Again, as outlined, this is also considerably growing. Last year was really the first year where it started picking up, but will continue to grow as more and more private sector and BFSI use cases start leveraging the signatures for complete paperless transformation. Here also, we have significant differentiators. We are the only eSign vendor to offer all types of eSign. The other competitors are only on the Aadhaar eKYC-based eSign, whereas we offer PAN, organization eSign, bank KYC, and foreign individuals.
Many a times the mobile number is not linked to Aadhaar, and therefore people are not able to use the Aadhaar eKYC. That is where the other types of eSign also aid in quicker customer acquisition. From a global CA perspective, again, we are the only Indian company to be able to issue these SSL/TLS certificates. This journey is a significant one. It has a significant barrier to entry because almost it takes 4-5 years, where it requires some demonstration of strong competence and operational expertise to operate the CA. Once you get it, then you are able to issue these website certificates as well as, you know, other types of certificates for securing the enterprise network. From a differentiator perspective, again, we have full in-house technology for partner management and fulfillment, fairly quick verification.
In the context of India, this huge push towards Make in India and data localization is helping us. We've also tried to maintain attractive price points because the entire verification cost is actually from India. Just a snapshot. The senior management's all stable. The technology and corporate functions has, you know, fairly strong leaders who've got significant experience with prior companies, includes myself, Vijay, Saji, Venu, Kiran, and Jana, all of whom have worked for a fairly long period in the company with significant prior experience as well. From a business development standpoint, this is where we've been putting a lot of effort in terms of hiring, you know, seasoned leadership-level folks. Arvind is based for basically primarily responsible for the international business development. We've got Biju, who looks at the Indian market from a business development.
We also hired Pankaj, who is based out of North America and heads the region. Scott joins us recently as the SVP and Global Strategic Advisor. He has a PhD in information security and PKI and was with DigiCert, IdenTrust, and Digital Trust, so has a strong understanding of the PKI landscape in the developed markets. Geeta is responsible for the Indonesian market. Geeta and Mike work there to penetrate, and we are also putting a significant focus there because Indonesia as a market, again, is trying to emulate what India has tried to do over the last several years in terms of the digital infrastructure. Prasanna is based out of the Middle East, who's looking after the Middle East and Africa market and has extensive prior experience in the Middle East and Africa market in sort of selling enterprise IT solutions.
All in all, a fairly strong leadership team that we've tried to put in place, and we've been investing into hiring people for our global growth ambition. The board, I will not go through this because it's the same set, but they have been continuously able to add value to, you know, our growth and our global strategy, again, led by our chairman, Mr. V. Srinivasan. In terms of strategies for future growth, we are at an inflection point. This whole theme of Zero Trust is playing out pretty well. In that context also, paperless transformation and identity-backed e-signature workflows are playing out pretty well. There are multiple impetus that is driving our global growth. One is, of course, a push for strong cybersecurity as a result of data going digital and this fear of data breaches.
Two, climate change and essentially ESG, environmental, social, governance, again, providing various opportunity for our solutions. We've been able to position as this one-stop shop with the strong platform capabilities, recognized by Gartner, an extensive range of products with reach and marquee reference customers and verticalization. From a legality, quality, and security perspective, we've again got all of the quality and security accreditations, a focus on thought leadership and strong channel partner network. In terms of the four strategies, one area, of course, would be to continue to focus on IP development and services to cater to Zero Trust. Invest into geographic expansion to tap market opportunity, go after, you know, meaningful markets which are trying to significantly focus on digitalization as a theme. Focus on platform partnerships like the ones with ERP, CRM, and various other systems.
From a trust service perspective, how do we focus on new markets and how do we focus on this branded retail push? Of course, how do we penetrate the SSL/TLS certificates directly and through the certificate lifecycle management platform that we have. Also what we've tried to do is, we've put product videos as part of the deck, so anyone can click on these product links and get a glimpse of what the product is all about. Of course, we are available anytime to answer any further clarifications you may have on the product. With this, I think we complete the presentation, so I'm gonna hand it back to t he IR firm, Churchgate Partners, and maybe open it out for questions and answers.
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 touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets for asking a question. Participants connected on the webcast may click on the audio question button below the media player to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Prashant from Whitestone Financial. Please go ahead.
Hello?
Yes.
Yeah.
We can hear you, sir.
Hello.
Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is, can you explain which product category is sold under enterprise solution and trust solution? Also throw some color on typical client that you cater in each of these vertical, plus ticket size for this?
In the enterprise solution, as Kaushik explained, we have three product. One is the emSigner product, then the emCA product and the emAS product, and the new product, emDiscovery. All these are sold under em enterprise solutions category. The trust service category is typically the issuance of digital signatures for the people, then the SSL/ TLS certificates, and then S/MIME certificates. Those kind of certificates for the people that will come Trust Services. this is the difference between the trust service and the enterprise solution. Typical customer for our enterprise solution will be predominantly you take most of the banks. Most of the banks in India use our emAS solution. Some of the banks have also used the emSigner solution. Almost all the big government department use the emAS solution, like the GST department, income tax department and all that.
Some of the bank, which is a subsidiary of the RBI and then the defense establishment, they use the emCA solution. Similarly, even if you take Middle East, several bank use the emSigner solution, and some of the Middle East defense forces also use the emCA solution. That way it is all sold to big banks, government department, public sector. Also the large private sector enterprise also, including maybe Infosys, TCS. If you see TCS itself, it is using emSigner solution as well as emCA solution. Infosys is using emSigner solution like that.
Okay. What will be the average ticket size for this?
Average ticket size, very difficult to say what is the average ticket size because it can range from, if you take MCA solution. MCA solution can typically grow from, go from a minimum of INR 2 crore to INR 5 crore-INR 6 crore also. If you take it to emSigner solution, it can go maybe from INR 40 lakhs-INR 45 lakhs to sometime INR 2 crore-INR 3 crore. Solution wise it is there. emAS may be around INR 40 lakhs to sometime up to INR 1 crore. Digital trust service, it is based on certificates. Each certificate may be in retail it is INR 1,500. In channel it is INR 150. Each solution has different average prices. Typically only one average price is not possible to give.
Understood, sir. My second question is, could you provide some insights into the asset under development that you recorded under company's balance sheet, and what will be the execution pillar for this?
For development, three product we undertook under the our IPO. One is the this emDiscovery product. emDiscovery product almost we have implemented, and we got the first large bank as a customer also. Now it is undergoing some refinement so that product, if only first customer itself may recover the cost of developing the product. There may be lot of other customers in the pipeline. The second product is the remote signing product. The remote signing product also the beta version is implemented and then almost 20- 30 customer we have already got. Further refinements are going on and mostly within two to three months it will be completed. The third is the IoT certificate management product and how to put the certificate into the IoT devices. That product we have started now, maybe within another six months that should also be completed. All this will be completed before September.
Okay. My last question is, if I purchase a DSC from you, after expiry, do I need to renew it from you only or I can renew it from other CA? What will be the realization for renewal of the DSC?
Renewal, original issuance and renewal is same as far as the process is concerned, because this is controlled by the Controller of Certifying Authorities. There is no compulsion it should be renewed from us. It can be renewed from the other CA also. Similarly, the other CA issued certificate can be renewed from us also. We make all efforts to see how the person whose certificate is expiring renews with us, because we will continuously contact them one month before, 20 days before, 15 days before, like this, to make them to convert into a new customer.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to our participants, please press star and one to ask a question. Also, participants connected on the webcast, you may click on the audio question button below the media player to ask a question. Thank you. We take the next question that is from the line of Vivek Setia from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Congratulations on good set of numbers. My question was pertaining Trust Services segment. the first question is, like, what is the revenue from channel partners in the fourth quarter? And if you could give the channel partner count as well, like how many channel partners were there as of Q4.
Y ou see, little bit I will explain the model. Earlier, what was happening, we had almost 1 lakh channel partner, but out of that, 40, 50 partners are large and others are small. Almost 70%-80% of the business was done by this large partner, who in turn was selling to small partner and then they were selling to the retail. We were also directly selling to the retail. The large partners is what was commanding lot of thing on us and then say, "You should not approach to the second level. You should not approach to the retail," and all that. That's why in January we changed the model. With the change in model, what we have done is we are directly, we are not selling to the large partner. We are directly selling to the small partner.
At least that 20%- 30% price preference we get. The other thing is, because of this, small partner cannot command us, we are also aggressively going into the retail. Earlier, any customer who have come through this partner network, we won't directly go, but we are now directly going there. Because of that, this improvement is there. Otherwise, the total number of partner-wise, it is almost the same or slightly it is increasing, maybe every month new partner we added from the small partners.
The business side, if you see the last quarter again, it has considerably almost that, even whenever we were selling through the large partner, whatever was there, almost 6 lakh certificate, 7 lakh certificate per month, that level of certificate we are now also able to sell directly through the small partner and also through the retail. That way, it has not come down. Exact number of what is the amount in the last quarter alone, I am not able to recollect. Later on, I will answer you.
Second question would be, if you could help me with the breakup of eSign and SSL revenues within Trust Services.
Yeah, eSign and SSL. Yeah, you have the.
eSign was about, INR 5 crores and all.
Yeah.
And then—
Almost 16% of this INR 85 crore has come from the eSign and SSL. 16% of INR 85 crore means almost INR 12 crore-INR 13 crore. On that, INR 5 crore may be SSL, eSign, and the balance is SSL.
Okay. Going forward, how do you expect this share to, you know, change between channel partners retail and these, between DSC and new products?
Retail will considerably increase because if you see this year itself, from 72% channel partner, it has come to 48% channel partner. Next year, what will happen is this channel partner may remain at the same level, because I don't think the prices may increase in the next year because still lot of competing people are there. The increase of, if from Trust Services we clock the INR 85 crore revenue, if we assume a 15%-20% growth, the growth has to happen predominantly in the retail, SSL and the eSign. The channel partner revenue in absolute term may remain the same as like the current year.
Okay. If you could give, like how many eSigns and SSLs were sold, in FY 2023?
eSign, that way it won't make any-- In eSign there is a version 2 eSign and Version 3 eSign. In the Version 2 eSign, it's an Aadhaar based eSign, where there are two model. One is the people taking yearly subscription of INR 500-INR 1,000, then making unlimited signatures. The second model is per signature coming through organization and signing per signature INR 5 also. Both models are there. Similarly, in the other V3 model, again, some of the government department are taking per user model and per sign model. Wherever they have per user model, how many time they signed that way, we do not have the count of that and calculate in that way. That's why both the models are there. It is not like a conventional [corsstalk].
What would be the value?
Eh? What is that?
Sorry, please continue.
Yeah. That's why this, like conventional signature, we cannot make that this is the only model where we sell 23 lakh into INR 225 will be like that. This way calculating is a little difficult in the eSign, because both the models are there.
Okay. In both cases, like, is the validity of eSign the same or it differs?
No. If they take a one year sub... Validity of eSign is same. The subscription plan is a one-year subscription plan, then infinite number of signature they can sign. If they are opting for a one-time signature for INR 5, that INR 5 is valid for one signature. Next time they sign again, they have to pay the INR 5 again.
Okay. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from Saurav Farani from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on a good set of numbers, particularly on the enterprise side. My first question is on the enterprise solutions. Could you give us an idea in terms of the proportion of the order book split by either products as well as geographies, particularly towards the newer geographies like Europe and U.S.?
No, that way we don't track. From the total order book to revenue, what conversion happened, that's what we track. If you see conventionally last three years compared to the opening order book, we have achieved two or little more than two times revenue on the open opening order book. That's why this year if we have given a slide, on slide number 12, if you see the total opening order book of, on March 31, that is the closing order book of March 31, which is the opening for April 1, has increased from INR 76.9 crore to INR 118 crore. Based on the past year thumb rule, this enables us to almost achieve a 2x revenue on this. This is only on the enterprise Trust Services segment. if you see internationally, the growth has also been very good.
If you see the global growth, last year we achieved almost 140% growth in the international revenue, enterprise services growth, and in the Indian enterprise growth almost 26%. Similarly, the order book is also coming both from international market and domestic market, but we do not maintain a split on this.
Got that. My second question is on the cost side. This quarter, operating expenses seems to have gone up, impacting our margins. Could you just tell us the nature of these expenses and what is the outlook for the same going forward?
In the quarter alone, there are two things. One is the year as a whole and the quarter. If you see this quarter alone, only the gross margin has come down by 2% because a little more of the hardware in the overall composition of the revenue. When you go to many larger enterprise in like public sector, bank, government and all that, sometimes for a one-time, one point, single point responsibility purpose, they want us to supply the HSM and supply the specific hardware relating to cryptography so that we take a single point responsibility. If that component little bit becomes more, gross margin little bit comes down because on the hardware reselling we may have only 15%, 20% margin unlike the software. That's how in the last quarter 2% the gross margin has come down.
Coming to the PAT itself, if you see in the last quarter, the stock option expenses also. If you see realistically, we have completely transferred the employee stock option shares to the Trust. There is no further issue, nothing is there. Based on some accounting methodology, even though entire share is transferred to the Trust, there is no dilution at all. They are accounting some stock option expenses which is given in the current year. We gave in the third quarter, so that is accounted in the fourth quarter, around INR 2 crore or INR 2.5 crore impact is coming on the fourth quarter alone. That kind of impact will not repeat in each quarter because of that is debited to the profit and loss account and directly credited to the reserve. There is actually no outflow.
That's why we have put the adjusted PAT also. Due to this, the PAT margin in the last quarter also has come down. That is not the regular feature. Regular feature wise, we think we may be able to maintain the PAT margin around 23%-25%.
Got it. Got it. That's it from my end. Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. Reminder to our participants, please enter star and one to ask a question. Also, participants connected on the webcast may click on the audio question button below the media player to ask a question. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Swechha Jain from ANS Wealth. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for giving this opportunity. Sir, am I audible?
Yes.
Yes.
Sir, I wanted to understand first, what % of our revenue is, you know, repeat business, in each of the verticals?
If you see the trust service business, it is almost repeat business because the same customer every two years they will buy the digital signature certificate. Similarly, the eSign and SSL also repeat business. In the enterprise business, there are two models. One is the SaaS model and the other is the on-premise model. The on-premise model, again, while the full license may not repeat, but the other services associated with that will repeat, and the AMC of 20% will repeat. With all these things, we have calculated what can be the repeat business and what can be the one-time business. Almost it comes to 65% of the overall business becomes a repeat business and 35% becomes a non-repeat business, as of now, which over time can further increase.
Okay. Okay. Sir, what is our current order book and what will be the execution period? If you could give me a split of this order book between, you know, government, BFSI and private players, and also how much of it's on the enterprise side and how much of it is on the trust service side.
Trust Service there is no order book because whenever needed they buy the digital signature certificate. There is no order book on the trust service. Entire order book is only on the enterprise side. We had a total book, order book of like I explained earlier, INR 118 crore. Generally our implementation cycle is three to six months maximum. Generally the revenue of every year is almost little over 2x the opening order book position. That's how we have fared in the last three years. That's why if INR 118 crore is there, fairly we could estimate the revenue could be from the enterprise segment alone around INR 238 crore or INR 236 crore like that, which will be based on the past three years' performance.
The Trust Service revenue will be over and above that.
Understood. From this, could you give a split between government and private players and the FSL?
In the order book, I don't readily have it. Maybe later on we can send it to you.
Okay. No problem, sir. Sir, I wanted to understand, in the trust service we do, eSign and we do SSL certificate, right? eSign means what? We issue that DSC that, you know, we have it or it is directly Aadhaar based. We also issue DSCs, right?
No, no. DSC we are not classifying as eSign. DSC, what we are classifying is a digital signature certificate issued in a token. Predominantly for all the government use cases, if you see Company Law Board, Income Tax, GST, everywhere people buy a token and the digital signature is in the token and they repeatedly use that token to sign whatever needed. That is the DSC. eSign is without the token. On the fly whenever they need to sign, they can get a eSign. At the time there are two models in it. One is version 2. Every time you sign, at the time you validate your Aadhaar, we fetch your identity from the Aadhaar, and on that we issue the 2048 private key/public key pair. With that pair you sign a document, and with that signature is over.
That is one model. Another model is you permanently take a eSign account with us by through Aadhaar or through PAN or through any other means. You create the account. Once the account is created, every time you sign, at the time, every time we need not again connect to Aadhaar. We can directly use our own whatever identity we have verified. Based on that identity, we can also secure with the cryptography and issue the eSignature. This is what we call eSign and not the conventional e, digital signature which is issued on the token.
We don't issue the tokens at all, right? We are not into that.
eSign. No. In digital signature we issue token also, but it is not mandatory that every signature person should buy a token from us. He may have token from other source or he may have the old token into which he may download. All these are possible. In eSign, no token at all is needed. Directly eSigning on the document, that's all. No token is needed.
Okay. That digital signature is also a part of trust service or it's a part of enterprise?
No, no, no. Digital signature is part of trust service. eSign is also part of trust service. SSL is issued to secure websites. That's also part of trust service.
Yes. Understood. Sir, in the slide number 13 of the presentation, I think where you said you've changed the model, you know, from partners to retail, right? That is on the, that is the token business or that is the eSign?
No, no. Token, token model. Token-based digital signatures.
Okay. Okay. You also mentioned, sir, that, you know, that 5x or 6x is what we now give, we charge to the retail, right?
Yes. That is also token-based digital signature because still predominant government application accept only token-based digital signature, not the eSignatures.
Okay. What happened to those 40— Sorry. Just wanted to understand in this. Because we've moved now, we are not doing the large partners. Okay. We are going to small partners and then we are aggressively building up our retail side. Technically it means that we have lost 40,000-50,000 of large partners, right? Out of the 1 lakh partners that we have.
Not thousand. 40 people. 40- 50 people.
Okay.
They buy in bulk.
40- 50.
Signature.
Okay.
Signature license.
Okay. Sir, for the channel partner and the retail, can you give me the realization for the DSC, the token?
Token is separate. The realization in DSC, which was almost INR 225-INR 250 one and a half year back, came down to almost INR 140. Almost 30%-35% reduction in the last year because of four or five new competitor coming and all that. Whereas the same INR 140 in retail will realize almost upwards of INR 1,500.
Sorry, INR 140 will realize upwards of how much?
INR 1,500. INR 1,500. That's why it is almost more than 10x realization.
Right. Okay. Earlier we were charging INR 140 to the channel partner. Now when we are giving it to retail, we are charging INR 1,500.
Yeah . The whole thing is now gradually we have to shift our focus. Earlier, if you see last year, this DSC business was 50% and the enterprise business was 50%. This year already DSC business has come to 35%. Enterprise business has come to 65%. Within DSC business already this channel business has come to 15% out of total business. Next year the way it is going, the channel business may be hardly 10% of our total business. Even from an analyst or investor perspective, all of your focus should be more on the enterprise business and the retail business than on the channel business. Because it is reaching almost 0%.
Right. Right. Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. No, sorry these are just basic questions because I am attending the call for the first time.
No, no.
I'm just started tracking the company, so I'm talking about it.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, sir. That was all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Amit Chandra from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is on the enterprise solution. As you mentioned that, you know, based on the current order book, you know, the visibility of revenue is around 2x, which gives around 45% growth for the next year. Within enterprise solution, you know, the, you know, in terms of the portfolio, what we have, if you can explain which part of the on a public portfolio is contributing to this growth? In terms of evolution of the product, you know, where all these products are in terms of evolution, maybe from emSigner, emCA, and emAS, right? In terms of, you know, driving the growth, which of these products will drive growth for the future?
emSigner and emCA will drive the big growth. emAS may drive a smaller growth. Really, emSigner, lot more customers are coming. Even in U.S., we have got the customer. Several large customers are evaluating the emSigner. That way we have a very high degree of confidence on good growth of emSigner. Similarly, emCA, again, several establishments are coming, the private PK is becoming a very big thing. This Zero Trust game, everybody has to put this PK infrastructure and the CA infrastructure. There is a lot of that. These two products and also the emDiscovery. The emDiscovery, first we have sold to the very large bank in India.
Now RBI has also made a guideline that the large public sector bank and private sector banks would have such a product to identify and discover all this aggregate and renew it on times. More and more RFPs will be coming. That's also a good product. That is part of the. We, when we broadly classify, we classify that also under emCA. emSigner and emCA will have very good scope. emAS will have reasonable scope.
Okay. Sir, in terms of the contribution to revenues, like presently, what would be the contribution of emSigner? Because as per my understanding, emSigner would be the bulk of enterprise solutions.
Yeah, yeah. emSigner 33%-40% will be emSigner. Similarly, 30%-35% can be, or a little more, 35%-40% could be emCA also. 20%-25% can be emAS.
Okay. Also in this, and this enterprise solution, how important is the, you know, this reselling partnership? What we have, you know, shown in this slide is that we have very strong reselling partnership ecosystem. How important is this partnership and, you know, within these partners, with whom we are, you know, working the most?
The thing is the big partner taking our product always adds to the credibility. If Infosys is taking our products or TCS taking our product or in Middle East, Rukmini are taking our product, it immediately establishes credibility and enables us to penetrate new market. Otherwise, going on our own, once in an established market, our own brand will be big, so we'll be able to go. That's why the reseller partnerships are very important and they add to our credibility, enable us to quickly complete the sale process.
Okay. you know, what part of the order book, you know, would be through these reselling partnerships and, you know, and like, what part would be through our own sales channel?
Last year, 25% is through partner and 75% through retail. When we grow more and more, more and more should happen through partner. Only it'll be easier to grow more. That's why we are.
I'm talking about the enterprise.
[crosstalk] grow the partners and all that.
Okay. Also, obviously, you know, enterprise business is the focus area, and now we are seeing very strong growth there. Are we comfortable in terms of driving this, you know, high growth for the next, like, few years? Or we see increased competition because, you know, there are like weak players who are present and, I don't know, competing in emSigner. Can you please highlight in terms of competition, how you're seeing that?
Competition is there, but we have built lot of differentiators like Kaushik explained. Maybe later on, if you are able to go through the slide, you will understand all the differentiator. Against the big competition, we are able to win several customers due to this differentiator which we have built. Always we are analyzing the competitor. Even for example, our emCA product, emSigner product, we are continuously analyzing against DocuSign and Adobe and other platform, see how do we make it superior, how do we build extra features. Similarly, if we take a emDiscovery product or emCA product, we continuously analyze against DigiCert and other GlobalSign and those kind of product and see how do we improve our product. That way we are continuously doing. That's why we have confidence that the growth momentum can continue for at least a future few years.
Okay. One last question. Trust Services, since you are shifting from, you know, you know, you know, from a partnership model to a retail model kind of a thing. You know, is this shift, you know, going to impact margins? Because selling directly to retail requires in-house sales team and, you know, is it, you know, fair to assume that selling to retail will have a lower margin versus, you know, through reseller? This is for Trust Services.
Retail will have much higher margin because instead of selling at INR 140 , you are selling at INR 1,500 . We have been doing this for last four years. Almost in four years we were zero, and from zero we have come to almost INR 30 crore in retail business, and then it is continuously increasing. Whatever number of people you put, it may not cost so much in India. That way it will be definitely more profitable compared to the channel. It is not new to us also. We have continuously demonstrated the increase over time. That increase is continuing day by day and month by month, we are able to infer how we are able to increase the retail. That way it don't affect the margin. If at all, it will improve the margin, not decrease the margin.
Okay, sir. Thank you, and all the best for the future.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Krupa Desai from Elara Capital. Please go ahead. Krupa Desai, your line is unmuted. You may please go ahead with your question.
Hello.
Yes, we can hear you. Yes, ma'am.
Okay. firstly, congratulations first for the good set of results. My question was, I see that TCS and Infosys also provides IAM solution, that is identity and access management solution. Are they your competitors in this vertical or do they resell this product? Like, do they outsource this product to you? Are they reseller partners in this thing? That is my question.
No. If you take IAM, identity and access management solution, there are various varieties. One can be a single only password, one can be some other factor of authentication. We have created a comprehensive product with almost 15 factors of authentication, including digital signature, e-signature-based authentication. Some of the product, they don't have this capability. That's where if you see most of the large government application, MCA, then the income tax, GST everywhere, and also large banks, they use our emAS product so that they can also cover the digital signature-based app. How many factors you provide and how flexible your product, accordingly, depending on the need, people will take it. They only need authentication or simple user ID password, they may not need our product. If they need several factor simultaneously, two-factor, three-factor, then they may use our product.
Okay. Okay. Understood, sir.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Swechha Jain. As a follow-up question from ANS Wealth. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Sir. I just have to follow up. Sir, on the enterprise side, I wanted to understand that, you know, we sell through channel partners right there also, right? We have partner model and retail model there.
No. That partnership is different from the digital signature c hannel partner.
Yes. That's what I wanted to understand.
Digital signature channel partner, they buy and resell. They just buy and resell. These partners are two types of partner. One is the product partnership and the reselling partnership. In reselling partnership, again, two system integration partnership and other simple reselling partnership, two types are there. System integration partnership, for example, people like Infosys or TCS, they take a large project. In that large project, this authentication, identity management and cryptography is a part of that large project. This portion alone, they will outsource to us. This is one kind of partnership. Second kind of partnership is, for example, you take people like Raqmiyat in the Middle East. Any bank wants a cryptographic-related, some project implementation or paperless transformation-related project implementation.
That itself is a project, not it is a part of the project. This reselling partner will source that project to us. We will interact with the end customer. We will pay the commission to the reselling partner, and then we will implement. This is another thing. Third is the product partnership, like SAP Salesforce like that. In the product itself, our solution is embedded. Directly through the product it can also be used and some revenue will flow. These are the various kind of partnerships. In that, now we have become strong system integration partner and reseller partner. The product partnerships need to be strengthened a lot in the coming years.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Direct sales also we do, right? How do we do our direct sales?
Direct.
Business enterprise model?
Yes, yes. 75% of sale is direct sales. No. We have large number of people.
Okay.
For example, if you take India itself, w e have 35 feet on street sale and almost another 60 inside sales people. Similarly, i f you take Middle East, we have almost 10 sales people. Indonesia, four or five sales people. In America, we have four or five sales people. Everywhere we have sales people backed by the inside sales people.
Sir, margin could be higher in direct sales as compared to partner models?
The partner commission will be lower. Sometimes the partner model also may give higher because if the, like a system integration partner, as part of a large project he builds and then one portion is outsourced to us, that portion may not be very significant to influence him on the large part, large what to build. There the margin for us higher also. It's all case to case.
Sir, this last question. What type of new products, you know, that we are looking to launch in next couple of years, if you could throw some light on it?
No, all around cryptography and digital transformation only. Earlier we said three product. One is the emDiscovery and then the remote signing product and IoT product. These are still emDiscovery is launched, remote signing is B class, and IoT will be launched in another six months. After that, anything we take up it will be around this theme only.
Understood.
Around the Zero Trust theme only in unrelated areas.
Understood. Understood. Okay, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Faisal Hawa from H.G Hawa & Co. Please go ahead.
Hello? Hello.
Faisal, please go ahead. We can hear you.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you. Please go ahead.
Yeah. On the cash flow page, in our presentation, there is an investment in intangibles and also an investment in tangibles. Can you just explain where we have made these investments? That is one. Second question is what is our, you know, R&D spend that we are targeting for the coming financial year? Would it be a fair assumption to make that, you know, we will be growing this business like at a CAGR of 18%-20% for the next four to five years with respect to the revenues?
Yeah. One by one, I will go into the question. For example, if you see the gross addition this year, net addition is INR 48 crores. Because you should, you have to consider the actual amount and the work in progress also. The gross addition is INR 62 crores. In the INR 62 crores, predominantly the data center itself was INR 34 crores. Data center, inside the data center, the computing infrastructure, which was also put in the our IPO prospectus as almost INR 31 crores, so no major overrun in that. The product development, we had initially said INR 15 crore in the IPO. On that, we have already spent INR 10.5 crores. These two itself has gone to almost to INR 45-46 crores.
After that, because we have added number of people, we had to expand one more floor in our building, the entire interior, everything had to be done. That was another INR 5 crores, additional floor in the building. The data center, other than the computing infrastructure, building and the electrical was around INR 5 crores. The other product development, generally what we spent on intangibles around INR 5 crores per year on the general product development, on that we spent INR 6 crores. Most of the product development and CapEx this year has gone towards our projects initiated in the IPO. This is where it is. What was your second question?
Second question was what is the R&D spend that we generally make in the previous years, and what is the R&D spend that we target for year 2024, 2023, 2024?
R&D spend other than the specific project.
You can give it as a percentage of revenues.
Other than the specific project, we were spending almost INR 5 crores per year in the earlier years. Now this year we spent INR 6 crores other than the specific project. Over time, what will be the R&D? Roughly our depreciation is INR 13 crores-INR 14 crores. Almost every year, INR 10 crores-INR 11 crores we may have to spend on the R&D spend.
Faisal, just to summarize your question.
Are there any more question?
Ladies and gentlemen, that would be our last question for today.
Yeah.
I would like to hand the conference over to Mr. Venkataraman Srinivasan for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you all for joining this Q4 and FY 2023 earnings presentation. We hope we have answered all your questions well. If you have any other doubt, you can get in touch with me or with our CFO, and then we'll be glad to answer your further questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of eMudhra Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.