Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Q2 FY23 Earnings Conference all of Happiest Minds Technologies Limited, hosted by JM Financial. 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. Manik Taneja. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Ashwini. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today on the Q2 FY23 Earnings Call of Happiest Minds Technologies Limited. On behalf of JM Financial Institutional Securities, I would like to thank the members of Happiest Minds for giving us the opportunity to host this earnings call. Today we have with us Mr. Ashok Soota, Executive Chairman, Mr. Joseph Anantharaju, Executive Vice Chairman and CEO, Product Engineering Services, Mr. Venkatraman Narayanan, MD and CFO, Mr. Rajiv Shah, President and CEO, Digital Business Services, Mr. Ram Mohan, President and CEO, Infrastructure Management and Security Services, Mr. Aurobinda Nanda, President, Operations and Deputy CEO, Product Engineering Services, Mr. Sridhar Mantha, Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Sunil Gujjar, Head of Investor Relations, Mr. Praveen Dashankar, Company Secretary and Head of Legal.
I will hand over the call to Sunil for safe harbor statement and to take the proceedings forward. Thanks, and over to you, Sunil.
Thank you, Manik. A very good morning to all. Welcome to this conference call to discuss the financial results for the second quarter ended September 30th, 2022. We trust all of you are keeping well and staying safe. I'm Sunil, Head of Investor Relations. For your review, the financial statements, quarterly fact sheet, and press release are available on our website. The agenda for this call is as follows. Ashok will begin the call by sharing his perspective on the business environment and our results. Venkat and Joseph will then speak about our financial performance and operational highlights, after which we will have the floor open for Q&A. Before I hand over, let me begin with the safe harbor statement. During the call we could make forward-looking statements.
These statements consider the environment we see as of today and carry a risk in terms of uncertainty, because of which the actual results could be different. We do not undertake to update those statements periodically. Now let me pass it on to Ashok.
Thank you. Thank you, Manik and Sunil. Good morning to all of you, and excuse me for my voice at the moment. I am proud and happy to share that in all parameters of revenue growth, EBITDA and others, that Happiest Minds Technologies continues to be number one or number two amongst all listed companies who have so far declared results. Our EBITDA margin is behind only one company in the top 10 in our IT services companies. Moreover, for 10 quarters in a row, we have delivered more than 25% EBITDA, indicating the consistency of our earnings and the strength of our value proposition. During this quarter, we completed two years of being a listed company. I would like to express my gratitude to all the stakeholders for their continued trust and confidence placed in us.
We won the prestigious Golden Peacock Award for Excellence in Corporate Governance for the year 2022 within two years of our IPO. This is a validation from the Institute of Directors of our efforts over the years to build an institution for our stakeholders with a very strong foundation. To address the growing needs of our customers, and in line with our strategic expansion plans, we have increased our capacity across our delivery centers. This includes purchasing an additional facility in Bangalore, expanding our center at Noida, and our multinational center is expected to be operational by end of November. In the U.S., we have two new offices in New Jersey and Seattle. This unprecedented expansion of our delivery capacity is an indication of our confidence in sustaining future growth in line with our articulated vision statement.
The demand environment continues to be strong, and we will continue to focus on initiatives that further give impetus to our already strong organic muscles. I'd like to go ahead give all of you best wishes for Deepavali. I will now hand over to Venkat, who will give you all the numbers to support my above statements. Thank you.
Thanks, Ashok. Morning to you all on the call. Happy to be presenting a good set of numbers for our second quarter of FY 2023. It's been a good quarter and a good half year from all fronts. In dollar terms, our revenues were at about $44.3 million, showing a sequential growth of 5% and a year-over-year growth of 23.8%. Let's say 24%. Our growth in constant currency-
Sorry to interrupt. [Venkat], your volume is low.
On [Foreign Language]
Our growth in constant currency was 5.7% on a sequential basis and about 26.5% on a YOY terms. With this quarter, we've had nine successive quarters of 5%+ growth in dollar terms. Coming to rupees. In rupees, our total revenues for the quarter were about INR 359 crore, showing a sequential growth of 9.8% and a year-over-year growth of about 23.9% or 24%. Our EBITDA for the quarter was INR 94 crore, which is 26.3% of total revenues. As Ashok referred, we are in the top one of the top listed IT services company with respect to this number and the growth parameters that I talked about.
Volume growth, operating leverage in terms of better utilization, rate increase in other income and a favorable exchange rate helped us set off a large part of the pay increase that came in this quarter while helping maintaining our profitability levels and deliver the above margins. With this quarter, we've had 10 successive quarters of EBITDA, which is 25%+ . That's an interesting metric that we'll be putting forward. Coming to PBT and tax, we ended the quarter with profit before tax of about INR 81 crore, which is about 22.5% of revenues, compared to INR 76 crore and 22.9% of revenues in the previous quarter. Profit after tax was 16.8% and about INR 61 crore, compared to the 17.1% and INR 56 crore in the previous quarter.
EPS was at INR 4.17, showing a sequential growth of 7.5% and a YOY growth of 36.3%. Our effective tax rate has remained almost at a steady 25.5% over the quarters. A few highlights of our performance for the first half of the year are dollar revenues stand at about $86.5 million, showing a growth of 25.5% on a year-over-year basis. Our total income in rupees was about INR 684 crore versus INR 509 crore for the previous half year, showing a growth of 34.4%. EBITDA was INR 182 crore versus INR 116 crore, showing a growth of 33.5%. You can see good growth in revenues, total income and consequently EBITDA.
Our performance in the first half of FY23 has shown significant growth in revenues and profits and is in line with the annual guidance of 25%+ that we had stated earlier. Some of the operational highlights on our performance for the quarter are, while supply-side constraints remain, our attrition numbers have started slowly trending down and on an LTM basis it stands at about 23.5% compared to the 24.4% in the previous quarter. Our attempt to keep these numbers in check and trending downward is what we will be focusing on, continuously focused on as we move forward. Utilization levels continue to be high and was at 80.6% compared to 79.1% in the prior quarter.
Like we had mentioned earlier, we would like to ideally keep this in the range of 78%+. However, as you know, supply and demand situation has warranted us to have this utilization run at a high range of 80%+. We've added 393 Happiest Minds during the quarter on a net basis. This number had a decent number of campus hires which is about 240 who joined us this year, this quarter. Our diversity metric was at 27.6% of women Happiest Minds compared to the 26% in the previous quarter. As you know, this is a number that we focus on and it finds its way in our vision statement as well. Revenue share of verticals has shown increase in almost all the verticals except for a slight drop in retail and industrial.
The primary reason for this has been completion of projects with a couple of large customers that we have been dealing with. Repeat business continues to be 91% of our revenues and this stands testimony for the land and expand strategy that we have been following with our customers. We ended the quarter with about $40 million customers and count amongst them about $54 billion corporations who had revenues of more than $1 billion. That means we've got $40 million customers and a total of 220+ customers. Out of which about 54 corporations have revenues of more than $1 billion and potentially large corporations. We continue to generate healthy cash flows and for the quarter free cash flow was about INR 86 crore, which is about 90% of our reported EBITDA.
As mentioned in the call last quarter, we have deployed about INR 188 crore in the purchase of office space in Bangalore, funded primarily through long-term fixed rate debt of INR 180 crore. Looking at the interest rates today, the fixed rate of 4.2% on the loan makes the deal very sweet. We have significant other operating leverages coming out of the transaction, and I had covered this in little bit of detail in the last call. It also lends itself as a natural hedge to us. The impact of this loan on this purchase is positive from a P&L standpoint and a cash flow impact standpoint versus a rental or lease arrangement that we would have ideally had for this building.
Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter stood at INR 677 crore, and our capital return ratio continues to be very healthy. Return on capital employed in the half year stands at 35.4%, and return on equity stands at about 31.6%-32%. I'm pleased to state that keeping in line with our progressive dividend policy and capital allocation discussions, the board of directors of the company have declared an interim dividend of INR 2 per equity share with a record date of November 3, 2022. Cash outflow on this count will be about INR 29 crore.
Finally, as you may have read in the press, the board of directors of the company at its meeting held on October 6, 2022, has approved an enabling resolution to raise capital of amounts not exceeding INR 1,400 crore. We have now reached out to our shareholders for their consent, and the postal ballot process is in progress. Post shareholders' approval, the board and the designated committee of the board will decide the next course. The main use of funds will be to fund our inorganic growth aspirations of the company. Ashok did briefly touch upon the Golden Peacock Award that we were awarded this quarter. Extremely proud to say that we have been able to win this at such a young stage of growth, of our company. With this, I conclude my commentary.
Wishing all of the participants in the call a very happy Diwali and Dhanteras. I'll now turn it over to Joseph for his comments.
Thank you, Venkat, a very good morning to all. We continue our march with a strong set of numbers which reflect our ability to grow profitably and at scale. Growth cuts across business units, centers of excellence, geos, and verticals, reflecting the relevance of our services to our customers. We are executing bold programs for our customers in their journey to drive growth, cost optimization, or both, and to build a resilient enterprise. Our proven land and expand strategy is helping us make deep inroads into our customers' digital journey by increasing the wallet share, which is validated by our average journey per customer consistently trending up. In the reported quarter, it is at $812 thousand compared to $783 thousand a year ago.
Our three business units, Product Engineering Services, Digital Business Services, and Infrastructure Management and Security Services between them served 226 customers, out of which 55 are billion-dollar enterprises, with 40 customers contributing more than $1 million in revenue. Through an efficient sales organization and sound account management practices, we're able to seamlessly take our offerings across these three business units, resulting in 42% of revenue being cross BU. Enterprises are running complex transformational initiatives leveraging the power of digital. For a U.S.-based food retailer, we have been chosen as a strategic partner in their journey to drive e-commerce initiatives. Our customers are deploying outstanding customer experiences across various touchpoints to increase customer confidence, happiness, brand loyalty, and advocacy. For example, a Europe-based mature startup in the real estate tech has chosen us to enhance their digital platform to map the entire customer journey from sales to aftermarket.
Cyber security continues to be more important than ever. Through our integrated security capabilities, from identity to threat intelligence to managed security services, we're helping our customers intelligently assess, manage, detect, and respond to cyber risks. For example, a leading fashion clothing and accessories brand in the APAC region chose us to assess their cyber security risks, identify threats and gaps, and implement remedial measures. Our breadth and depth of capabilities help us to drive value across customers' business lines. For example, using intuitive automation and superior data visualization techniques, we're able to help a U.S.-based global energy company drive efficiency and take timely decisions across their strategic lines of business. Digital, more often than not, is a force multiplier for enterprises. An impactful proof of concept engagement done for a business unit can soon open doors for much larger engagement within the customer's ecosystem.
For example, this FMCG major chose us to implement Microsoft Power Automate platform in a Southeast Asian territory to automate their order entry and purchase requisition processes based on our success in other regions with the same customer. Our compelling people engagement programs and the vibrant career path that we provide offer a value proposition that has. During the quarter, we welcomed 393 new Happiest Minds, which includes 247 campus graduates. Great Place to Work Institute has yet again recognized us in the top 50 best workplaces for women, and we are ranked 68 among best workplaces in Asia. We have grown to 4,500+ smart and innovative Happiest Minds who are adding tremendous value to our clients for their strategic initiatives.
We're also continuously evaluating acquisition opportunity to fill gaps in our offering, strengthen our focus in the markets we operate, and position us on the leading edge of technology. Coming to the macro, technology permeates every part of our customers' business. They're accelerating growth and transformation agendas while continuing to build a strong digital core to drive agility, efficiency and resilience. In spite of a longer than usual inflationary period and extended geopolitical conflicts causing a little bit of anxiety, demand remains strong and as of today has not resulted in any major curtailment of spend nor any postponement of projects.
Our strategy will be to keep a close watch on the market to anticipate our customers' needs in advance, enhance any needed technical and domain capabilities, and be our customers' partner from strategy to execution to solve their business problems and seize market opportunities while remaining laser-focused on quality delivery. With this, I conclude my commentary. Best wishes to all for a happy Deepavali. Operator, we can now open the floor for Q&A.
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. We have our first question from the line of Karan Danthi from Jetha Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Could you explain what proportion of projects are related to cost takeout or optimization? Because that seems to be, you know, where those incremental projects are coming from based on the peers you're seeing. Just wanna understand what that, you know, what that proportion is. I guess the second question would be, if you think about your customer base and the exposures you have and how you're growing, certainly there's some customers, you know, startups which are going to be competitive, some enterprises in Europe as well, maybe. There are other customers where, you know, digital spend is the last thing they cut.
If you could just frame a little bit of the, you know, I guess the puts and takes across your customer base, that would be helpful.
We've not been tracking our revenues across cost takeout and growth and other areas you know because for several of our customers, some of these initiatives are actually contribute, especially if you look at the midsize customers. We've not been you know differentiating or tracking this. In terms of startups and European enterprise, our exposure to startups is on the lower side and probably would be in the single digit as a percentage, so the impact has not been much. In the enterprise space most of the customers that we work with are either midsize product and platform companies or some of...
Most of them are larger product companies, which has been a strategic choice that we've made because you know the spend with these customers is much larger. We do have a few startups that we work with, and the impact out there has been minimal. In terms of Europe, we get around 10%, which this quarter was 9.5% or so of the revenues from Europe. We've seen a little bit of lengthened sales cycle out there. But given that our exposure to Europe is in the single digits, again, we've not really had much of an impact. Rajiv, do you wanna add anything, Rajiv?
Yes. A couple of things. Karan, if you look at what we sell our customers is guiding digital transformation in their entire ecosystem, which include product build to integrate to run digital-ready applications. Really thinking about utilization of new technologies, adoption of new technologies, disruptive technologies who are really helping drive the change in their business model as well as their approach to the customer, okay? That I think addresses part of the question. When you look at some of the newer investments we have made in the areas of low-code environment, which looks at how do we help you reduce your not only get your platforms out in the market faster, but in the long run, reduce your support and maintenance costs as well.
It's not really a cost takeout, but it's a cost optimization activities that we get involved in by implementing new sets of technologies and new sets of disruptive, digital-ready platforms in their environment. Specific to Europe, I think that our large accounts continue to grow, and we continue to see the momentum. At the same time, the sales cycle are a little bit longer, and continues to be a cautiously optimistic market for the entire IT services industry.
Mr. Karan?
That's very helpful. Maybe just a quick sub follow-up on the low code/no code. Are you building proprietary platform? Are you simply sort of implementing it on others?
For other companies to buy low-code methods.
We have set up a center of expertise for the low-code environment as part of our digital process automation initiative. Within that, we tend to use set of technologies, whether it's Microsoft platforms, OutSystems, et cetera. The approach we have taken is how can we look at the current environment that we have or current initiatives that we have, relook at, in helping them build, get those platforms out in the market earlier than what they had planned for, help them reduce their support and maintenance costs. Yes, we do have set of technologies that we work with. At the same time, it is a change management and consultative engagement that we go through to re-identify the opportunities, because some of the applications may not be ready for low-code kind of an environment yet.
Does that answer your question, sir?
Yeah. Yeah. I can go back to the queue and ask the follow-up.
Thank you. Reminder to participants to press star and one to ask a question. We have our next question from the line of Manik Taneja from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Just wanted to pick up Ashok's thoughts on the fact that right now everybody is worried about the macro volatility. Given the experience of what we've seen in 2008, 2009, do you think a company of our size and the fact that we have spread ourselves across multiple verticals as well as multiple segments, so players like us will actually be at a disadvantage if customers look at doing the consolidation exercise? The second question was with regards to our longer-term aspiration of reaching to a $1 billion in revenues. How much of that is actually built in the organic company? Given the recent development around raising outside capital. Thank you.
I'll take the first part and ask Venkat to chime in on the second part of your question, Manik. You know, the fact that we are operating in multiple verticals in a way acts as a risk mitigation and diversification. Again, if you notice, you know, we've not got into every vertical. We prioritize some verticals within the ones that we are currently focusing on and reporting, where we built much deeper capability and expertise. Now, going to the risk from consolidation with most, if not all, of our customers, we are an integral part of their digital transformation journey.
With many of them, we start off working on in a very early phase of their digital journey, helping them with some of their proof of concepts, validation, figuring out the right kind of technology stack. Therefore we are an integral part, understand what they're trying to achieve. Therefore the risk from the consolidation exercise risk carried out is much lower given that we are critical to their journey. Venkat, do you wanna take the second part of the question?
Sure, Manik, if you recollect, we had talked about a 20% organic growth for the medium term, and then maybe 15% after that in the previous quarters. The last quarter, we decided to merge both organic, inorganic and said that we want to grow 25% for the next X number of years so that we can touch that $1 billion number. The difference between the 20%, 15% organic growth and the 25% consolidated growth over the next X number of years by 2031 to reach the $1 billion number has to come in through acquisitions.
If my numbers are right, if we had done about 20% followed by 15% for the next three or four years, we would have touched a number of something like $760-$780 million by 2031. Effectively, as part of our, if we had to make that aspirational number of $1 billion, we would have had to add about $250 million in the last year of the ten-year horizon or the ten-year period that we are talking about through inorganic means. Which means, we have to acquire one or two companies or maybe even more, or it could be both, which will add to that number over this period from today to 2031. Does that answer your question, Manik?
Can I just add a little bit also, Venkat? Since you're giving quite a lot of information. I think, Manik, as you know, an acquisition is a lumpy process in the sense it'll add a solid amount of revenue. It may happen in one year, it may not happen in the next. Though we've increased our guidance to 25%. Fa ct is that all of the current year's growth is really organic. I don't think that we can make that artificial distinction. There will be a fair share of acquisition and there will be continued strong organic muscle growth. Basically, that's the way we are working. In that way we will certainly keep in mind our vision, which we expect to achieve.
Sure. Thank you for that. If I can draw you a little bit on that acquisition , [Rajiv] if you could help us understand what are the kind of targets that you're looking at? What are the typical revenue or margin trajectory for the targets that you're looking at? Then subsequently, I have a couple of follow-up questions related to the operating performance of the quarter.
Well, Venkat, I guess on this question, we really can't make any forward-looking statements. But you address it, please.
The first one.
Yeah.
The first question, we are looking at pure digital assets, which will be in areas of. Just to identify a few areas like an S&OP, Salesforce, areas of security. Certain key verticals into which we would like to grow further. Maybe there are horizontal technologies which would serve to certain key verticals, like when Aureus was for us, when we did that acquisition a couple of years back. That's the area that we're looking at, and it'll be pure play, digital capability, digital assets. We don't want to dilute our positioning, which is about 97%-98% digital business that we're doing today. That's on the identification of targets. As far as there is one more angle to it, geography. We are looking at companies, U.S., Europe, India.
India, there is capabilities on the delivery front. US companies with India or let's say offshore delivery capabilities. It could be in India, it could be in Philippines or it could be in another area from the offshore delivery capabilities. Typically the same thing goes for U.K. We are not looking at pure play 100% onsite company. That is not it. I think that's something like Ashok mentioned. As we progress, we could look at it of course. That's on the landscape of targets that we are looking at. We are working very closely with sell-side bankers, buy-side bankers on this internally, and we have also appointed bankers for that purpose. That's something on the acquisition front. With regard to the profitability, we have been delivering 26% profits EBITDA numbers.
When we look at acquisition, we'll be mindful of the fact that we do not want to dilute that too much. Obviously, you know, there are puts and takes on that. If it adds capabilities, we are willing to. There is a huge growth possibility, we have to factor that in. It's not that we are stuck to the 26% number, but we do not want to also take a loss-making company or something where we need to turn around the operations and the like from there. We're looking for capabilities of strategic imperatives when we do the acquisition, and that's what will drive us forward when we look at companies.
Thanks a lot, sir. This call's concluded.
Reminder to participants to press star and one to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen. Can I request the management team to mute their lines if they're not speaking? Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star and one on your phones now. We have a question from Mr. Karan Danthi from Jetha Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah. I'd love to understand why you win business. You know, it would be really helpful to understand what is the reason you win digital business vis-a-vis your peers. Is it specific competencies which are hard to recreate elsewhere? You know, I would just love to understand what are the dynamics that justify why you size it in a sense as a pure play versus being as part of a larger organization.
You know, Karan, in different scenarios, there are different reasons. Some of the reasons why we win business from our customers, one of the strategies that has really worked well for us is the land and expand strategy. As I mentioned, as I alluded in my previous response, with many of our customers, we get involved in the early stages of their digital journey. It's here that some of our strengths really play out well. The focus that we have on the digital space and the depth that we have in digital technologies allows us to help our customers, you know, to bridge the gap between their business objectives and the technology landscape.
Being a relatively smaller company and being a born digital, born agile company, we're able to be very nimble in how we work with them and adapt to their compulsion. Once we've established ourselves as a partner of choice and they take these initiatives into implementation phase, we become, you know, the partners that they go along with. Depth in digital technologies, the agility, the quality of our people, both in terms of the technical capabilities and their attitude, as borne out by our, you know, happiest people, happiest customers, mission.
Of late, the domain capabilities that we've been building up and the consulting approach that we take to our customers is what has allowed us to compete in the marketplace and win business.
Yeah. Adding to that, Joseph, just I want to give a couple of other points.
Sure.
Our focus in terms of, you know, agile infrastructure or in terms of multi-cloud adaptations or multi-cloud management and migrations and full circle security, right? These are some of the areas which we specialize in, apart from, you know, analytics or Digital Process Automation. Those also puts us a little bit even with a specialized service provider capability.
Just to add a couple of things as well. This is Rajiv . I think that one area that makes us unique is our ability to invest ahead of the forecast. As all of us appreciate the technology disruptions are taking place at a much faster pace. Ahead of forecast that we are continuing to invest to really help some of customers take advantage.
Like blockchain or drones or even a low-code environment, et cetera, we continue to invest quite aggressively before the real need is identified. That's one. The second one, we continue to carry a high Net Promoter Score customer satisfaction. A lot of our business comes from a repeat set of customers. 90%, more than 90% of our business is repeat customers. The third aspect is customer referenceability. We continue to get good references from our existing customers or customers that move to a new location or new company. They continue to attract us as well. Continue to deliver good stuff, continue to look at the investments ahead of the forecast and maintain the set of customer relationships which helps us win.
This is.
Got it.
Thank you.
Got it. Thank you.
Reminder to participants to press star and one to ask a question. We have our next question from the line of Nilesh Jethani from BOI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, sir, and thanks for the opportunity. My first question was just trying to understand on the acquisition piece. I do not need any specific numbers, but typically when we're looking out for acquisition, what is the size in a broad range, can you explain? On similar lines, margins, I believe we are at a high number today, so target would be at lower numbers. What we would do after acquisition in a year or two to scale up the margins. Wh
at's the thought process on this? Because acquisition of, I would believe it to be of a decent size itself, considering the number of INR 1,100-1,200 crore you are planning to raise.
Yeah. Nilesh, on acquisition itself, we have been looking at the landscape available with the qualification criteria that I just talked about a couple of questions back. The company sizes range from anywhere between $10 million-$50 million or even $80 million. That's the range at which we get targets nowadays. Digital assets typically tend to be slightly more expensive than your typical older technologies or, you know, traditional technologies. Both of them go hand in hand when you talk about the amount of money that needs to be deployed. One is it's a digital asset and the size of the acquisition.
Most of the companies that we are looking at, given that we have set the criteria, are in the range of 20% plus in terms of profitability. You know, 20, 21% profitability either on a standalone or an adjusted basis. To answer your question, we're not getting any of those loss-making companies or the ones which require us to do a lot of turnaround and all of that. That's the landscape. The size is anywhere between $10-$15 million. If you look at it, a $15 million company would require a little bit of outlays. The money that we are seeking to raise is just not, maybe not for one acquisition. It would be kept aside, and we will do, let's say, one or two for the matchup.
Idea is to make sure that we raise capital ahead of time, be ready. It shows, you know, one, seriousness in the process. It also sends a signal out into the market. Second is also the need to ensure that we deploy the capital raised quickly enough to make sure that we don't have a return on capital employed or equity and all of that. At the same time also add to the business muscle that's required. While doing all of this, nobody is taking their eye off the organic growth. Like I've said in the past as well, that muscle is simply stronger than most companies that are around when we are looking at acquisitions or when we look at other companies around us.
Got it. On the target, broadly wanted to understand today our offshore onsite mix is skewed towards 95 and 5 broad range. The target if it's more of a company into a foreign location, would we look to convert more offshore and stuff like that, or we would make it run into a onsite location only going ahead also? If you, for say, acquire a company in a foreign location.
That would be a strategy that will be laid out along with the acquired company, the target company. What I have been saying in the past is with 95-5 has happened because we are working on digital capabilities in an agile manner which lends itself for lots of offshoring. That's not something of a number that we are married to. Tomorrow if we get a great asset which happens to be, let's say 50-50, or 75-25, it's not that because it's not 95-5 or heavily leveraged offshore we will not say that's not something that we will look at that guy. What I'm trying to say is the number of 95-5 is there.
It does not hold me back from looking at the target, which is doing good business, profitable business, has certain growth, has growth capabilities and, along with us will grow to become a larger enterprise. These are the things that we look at rather than say, you know what, we have to look at a company which is at 20% and that is the metric that cannot be distorted. This is very similar to, you know, average. We were very proud of the fact that our average revenue per customer has been propping up. We are at about $812,000 today. When you acquire a company with capabilities and with a set of customers, there is a possibility that number can go down.
That is not going to be the determinant of me to say, you know what, I can't acquire that. I don't think I should acquire. Metrics are what we are putting out to show you or to display the capabilities, the land and expand that we're doing rather than that becoming a bottleneck for me to do an acquisition. A long answer, but I hope I've answered it.
Yeah, that was really helpful. Second piece was on the high tech segment. Post two quarters of some degrowth we have seen upside on that. Wanted to understand, a lot of IT companies are talking about some slowdown in this segment after a huge or very strong base of last year. From Happiest Minds perspective, where are we? How do we see this segment going forward? Is it one-off reversal or you believe the strong base will keep impacting the growth rates? Any thought process on that?
If you see the high-tech vertical actually exhibited strong growth in Q2 and we expect that this trend will continue. I know we just see Microsoft making an announcement and there is some caution in this space, but we've not seen any pullback so far except for, you know, when some initiatives or programs get over and they reach a logical conclusion. Then, you know, the team size obviously gets reduced once the initiative is implemented. So far we've not seen any signs of pullback in this segment because the end customers are still making investments and digitizing and, you know, moving their applications to cloud. They're leveraging SaaS applications more than ever.
They need to use analytics tools and move to adopt various, you know, big data platforms. All of those are playing out. You need to automate using some of the tools and frameworks available. All of these things are playing out. Security is a huge area, as I've mentioned earlier, of risk and an opportunity for the high tech space. You know, in the last one and a half years, we've signed up three or four customers, pretty large customers in the security space. There are various parts of high tech where there's enough demand and there continues to be spent.
Got it. One last question from my side. Across segment B from high tech to manufacturing, industrial, and the work we do, I believe digital is largely now core to most of the clients. If I want to just bifurcate at a discretionary and non-discretionary, the question I'm asking because there's a thought process of impending recession outlook going forward. Can you just bifurcate or help me understand what percentage of overall revenues you can bucket into a discretionary and non-discretionary on a very broad scale?
See, the very definition of discretionary and non-discretionary is a conversation we have internally and sometimes with customers. That itself is, I think, has undergone a change. For most customers, their digital application and infrastructure has become core now. In fact, what we are seeing is that customers are trying to pull money out of their BAU or business as usual technology and infrastructure landscape. In some cases to fund their digitization journey. Therefore, you know, the previous way of looking at discretionary, non-discretionary, I believe has undergone a change here, you know.
Let me ask this question in a different way. Have over the last six months we have seen any delays in conversation with clients or approvals for a particular project because 80%-85% is repeat business to us. Any discernible what we have observed?
Nothing that is out of the usual, right? Even in the last two years, at times we would have seen that based on the company and the business unit that we are working with, their performance. There would be some times when a project or initiative could get delayed by a few months or some. Very often if it's stated to start, let's say November or so or December, it could get pushed out into January. Those are the kind of things that we're seeing. We've not. As we've mentioned in both Ashok's and my initial comments, we've not seen any major pullback or you know delay of programs or initiatives.
In Europe, we're seeing a slightly lengthier sales cycle, which is understandable given, you know, some of the churn that you're seeing out there in that geo. But again, as I, Rajiv and I mentioned earlier, it's a smaller part of our business.
Got it. It was really helpful. Thanks again for replying to each one of them, and all the best for the future quarters.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have a follow-up question from the line of Manik Taneja from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Just want to get your thoughts around the fresher addition that we saw this quarter. It appears that the fresher addition was much lesser than what you had initially envisaged. If you could help us understand what drove that, and also talk about the fresher hiring plan for second half of the year. The second question was related to that despite such an overall net addition, what drove the higher utilization? Yeah.
Sure. As we mentioned in our press release, we've had 393 net addition, of which 247 are campus graduates. You know, we would have liked this number to be a little higher, but we did have a few dropouts. Our fresher addition is broken up into two categories. One is the campus hires, the recruits, and we also go to finishing schools, especially on the IMSS, the infrastructure and security space, where the skill set required is a little different and specific. In this quarter itself, we've had around 40-50 such freshers who've come from training schools, inducted into the IMSS business unit.
In addition to augment this on a quarterly basis, depending on the kind of skills that we need, which are deficient, we go to finishing schools. We have a few of them that we work with, and we bring people on board, which is what we would be doing over the next six months as and when required. For the next three months, I would say, because the campus graduates that we brought on board are going through their induction and training program and would be available for absorption into projects by end of November. The focus would be on ensuring that we are able to get them into projects, get them ramped up and available. If there's any deficit, we would go to these finishing schools.
Does that answer your question?
Yes. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Chirag Kachhadiya from Ashika Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. I joined the call a bit late. Just again, if you can share, like, what macroeconomic conditions are impacting your discussions with clients and also the order intake process. Is there any delay or deferment you are facing at this moment?
Rajiv, you wanna take that, Rajiv?
Yes, good. Chirag, of course, we are closely watching the macroeconomic environment. But at the same time, I think if we continue to get involved with the customers with the discussions on the digital transformation journey, there are pockets that, like, Joseph highlighted in Europe, that there are some longer sales cycles compared to what it was earlier. Rightfully so with all the changes that are taking place which are happening on a real-time basis. But overall, we have not seen any significant change in the level of discussions that we are having with the customers or closing of the contracts or collecting money from the customers either. Nowhere in the contracts that we have been asked to even renegotiate the price.
Instead we have been able to go and get the higher rates for some of the specialized set of activities as well. Overall, we continue to be cautious, at the same time haven't seen a real impact on drivers for our growth, which gets reflected in the numbers that we just presented.
Will it make any impact in the near-term target of the turnover which we took to, like, as a part of our strategy?
You know, we will continue to hold on to whatever guidance that we have provided earlier.
Okay. Thank you so much, and all the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Karan Danthi from Jetha Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah. I just very kind of curious. There is this kind of top-down view, if one thinks about it that, you know, software is a deflationary force. You know, if we're gonna get out of this inflation spiral, we sort of need software investment in order to get there. I mean, I'm just curious sort of, yes, we're seeing some deal delays, but the composition of the deals, as you mentioned, you know, you have low-code, no-code should support sustained levels of activity in certain areas. I'm curious, where are you seeing acceleration of interest and investment? You know, and let's assume this environment does not change for the next year and a half. I hope it does, but let's assume it does not.
Which pockets of software you think will attract investment and which pockets of software do you think will detract investment?
If I may just say how.
Please.
You need more than an economist to respond. No, no, I'm just saying you need more than an economist to respond to your question. It is very broad. Firstly, I must tell you I don't agree with you that it is an inflationary force. That is a starting point. Having said that, okay, let's go straightaway to your second part of your question, which says, what are the segments which will grow faster or which are the ones which are going to continue to attract more attention? In a growing economy, frankly, everybody needs IT. It is indispensable. It is wrong to think it's inflationary. It is bringing down costs all the time. Look at the gains that you get out of it versus the investment that you make. Productivity improvement is far higher than any inflationary thing that you require.
I'm not sure how you got that. I do disagree with you on your observation. My short answer would be that every segment will continue to grow, and it's fairly evident. What are the high-growth segments? Joseph may want to add a little bit more, and maybe even Rajiv.
Sure, sure. Again, you know, if you look at, I think there'll be two broad areas which will benefit, you know, IT-first company, especially a focused company like Happiest Minds. One is there's still companies feel a paucity of talent, in most technical talent in most of the markets. That will continue to drive demand for services from companies like Happiest Minds.
The second is if, you know, this inflationary trend continues and customers have to optimize their costs, they will look at offshoring as a way of still getting work done without while managing their costs. Both, I think, are pro offshoring and in favor of a company like Happiest Minds. Again, within each industry, we will see specific areas that will draw attention. For instance, in the industrial space, most customers are looking at adding connectivity and looking at how to pull data out, how to have cloud platforms into which they can get this data. Then post that, analytics becomes a huge piece. Some of them are a little more advanced in their journey, others are beginning their journey.
At the same time, you know, they're looking at how do they make their devices also more intelligent. The two broad trends are if you get into manufacturing, they're looking at how to digitize their plant, how to adopt some of the newer technologies, how to adopt things like e-commerce too, and then remote monitoring, just given the challenge they had in COVID. I can get into other verticals as well. I'll take couple of examples because each vertical has something specific that has been impacted by the digitization trend which affords opportunities and that need to be done by customers. Rajiv, do you wanna add anything, Rajiv?
Yes, just couple of things that I think customers will continue to evolve the new business models, and our responsibility is to continue to help them find new ways of doing things, right? While the technology landscape will continue to change, and I think just picking up Joseph's example on manufacturing, ERP was a standard tech barrier for lot of organizations when they were establishing. Now we look at manufacturing or industrial or retail CPG world, connected devices, how to utilize data, et cetera. From that perspective, technology landscape or utilization of technology will continue to evolve. Within that, maybe certain set of technologies might become redundant and come into play.
Our ability to continue to look at new ways of doing things and take advantage of the newer technologies is going to be continuously challenged. It's important to differentiate that, yeah, the technology does have its own shelf life, but continue to innovate and finding ways for them to become more efficient and effective is not gonna change.
Mr. Danthi?
Thank you. Yes.
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Manik Taneja for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. On behalf of the entire team at JM Financial Institutional Securities, we would like to thank the management of Happiest Minds Technologies for giving us the opportunity to hold this call. I'm going to pass over to Sunil for any closing comments. Over to you, Sunil.
Thanks, Manik. Thank you all for joining us today. We thank JM Financial Institutional Securities for hosting this call on our behalf. We look forward to interacting with you. You may want to reach out to me at ir@happiestminds.com. Best wishes to all for Deepavali. Good day.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of JM Financial, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.