Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of IndiaMART InterMESH Limited, I welcome you all to the company's Q3 FY 2024 earnings webinar. 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. Joining us today from the management side, we have Mr. Dinesh Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Brijesh Agrawal, Whole-time Director, and Mr. Prateek Chandra, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin,
I would like to remind you that some of the statements made in today's conference call may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. Kindly refer to slide number 3 of the earnings presentation for the detailed disclaimer. Now, I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Dinesh Agarwal for his opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good evening, everybody, and welcome to IndiaMART's quarter three FY 2024 earnings webinar. First of all, a very, very happy New Year to all of you. As we have declared our results just a couple of hours ago, but we have circulated our earnings presentation, which is available on our website as well as on the stock exchange website. I'm sure you would have gone through the presentation, and I would be happy to take any questions afterwards. We are pleased to report that IndiaMART consolidated collection from customers has grown by 17% to INR 332 crore in this quarter, as compared to INR 283 crore last year, and deferred revenue has grown by 25% to INR 1,270 crore on consolidated basis.
Consolidated revenue from operations has grown by 21% to INR 305 crore. Our total traffic has grown to 272 million for the quarter. Unique Business Enquiry grew to 23 million, representing a year-on-year growth of 9% and 4% respectively. Total paying subscription suppliers have grown to 212,000. As communicated in the previous quarter, we continue to see more than anticipated churn on the increased customer base in the Silver Monthly and Silver Annual bucket, leading to a net addition of close to only 2,000 paying subscription in this quarter again. Once the improvement in the churn happens, we will come back with the guidance of the net customer addition going forward.
We will continue to make investment in strengthening our organization and undertake the measures to enhance customer experience, reduce churn, as well as drive deeper penetration by paying customers in focus cities. Now I will hand over the call to Brijesh, to update you about Busy Infotech. Thank you, and over to you, Brijesh.
Thank you. Hi, good evening, everyone. BUSY has done a net billing of INR 14.4 crore in Q3, which represents a YoY growth of 21%. The revenue from operations has grown by 26%, to INR 12.6 crore, and the deferred revenues have grown by 47% to about INR 39.9 crore. The EBITDA for this quarter is at INR 1.1 crore, that's a margin of about 9%, whereas the net profit for the quarter stands at INR 2.3 crore. We, BUSY has generated positive cash flows from operations of INR 4.3 crore during this quarter. We've sold about 6,000 new licenses, which make the closing count of licenses sold at 354,000 at the end of December 2023.
The overall performance is pretty much in line with our expectations, and we are focused on increasing the growth rate in this year also. So with this, I will hand over the call to Prateek, who will talk about the financial performance.
Thank you, Brijesh. Good evening, everyone. I will take you through the financial performance for the quarter ending December 2023. Consolidated collection from customers and revenue from operations grew by 17% and 21%, respectively, to INR 332 crore and INR 305 crore. Deferred revenue for the quarter stood at INR 1,270 crore, an increase of 25% year-on-year basis. IndiaMART standalone collection from customers for the quarter were at INR 316 crore, and revenue from operations stood at INR 291 crore, registering year-on-year growth of 16% and 21% respectively. Our growth in revenue was primarily driven by a 9% increase in the paying subscription suppliers and approximately 11% improvement in ARPU due to higher monetization.
Deferred revenue was at INR 1,229 crore, representing a year-on-year growth of 24%. EBITDA of IndiaMART standalone business stood at INR 87 crore, representing a margin of 30%. Consolidated EBITDA was at INR 86 crore, representing margin of 28%. Consolidated net profit for the quarter was at INR 82 crore. Consolidated cash generated from operations was INR 106 crore. Consolidated cash and treasury balance stood at INR 2,039 crore at the end of this quarter. Thank you very much. We are now ready to take any questions.
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First question is from the line of Anmol from DAM Capital. Hi, Anmol, please go ahead with your question.
Anmol, you are on mute.
Oh, yeah. Hi, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So, just had a couple of questions. Firstly, just want to understand the gross paid supplier additions for this quarter. So has it come to FY 2023 quarterly levels, or is there a pain there as well? And, if not, then when do you think that it can come back to the previous levels?
FY 2023 levels, quarter three levels. Anmol, I think we are, on the gross side, I think we are about 1,000 odd customers away from the last year, same quarter. So I think, because this, this, this particular year, there was a Dussehra and Ashtami and Navami on a different month, and, Diwali was on a different month, more on working days. So that's about it. So I think, we are just about 1,000 short of the gross addition in the last year, same quarter.
Sure. Thanks. And, also, just, on the total, paid supplier additions, so has there been any change in the strategy, for the additions that is happening through channel partners? Are we focusing more towards our own, sales people, for, paid supplier additions, given that, we have seen a very strong increase in the sales employees in the last, few quarters? Just wanted to understand that strategy.
So, there has been one change that we are now doing. We had all our sales supervision and servicing employees on our own rolls, while we had two kinds of outsourced sales. One is the channel partner outsourced sales, the other is the direct DST-managed outsourced sale. DST-managed outsourced sale, where we have our own area manager, our own branch manager. However, the people were on a different rollls. So if you see the, and then we have been guiding, all of that cost was going into the outsourced sales cost.
What we have seen, that in general, the attrition and the joining levels and the retention in our own employees versus the people who work out of our own branches, but just work on a different, third-party payroll, is very, very significantly different, and we are not gaining any, advantage out of that. So we have decided, we have taken a decision that we would want, all of them to be now coming on to IndiaMART rolls. That, means, and that we took the decision sometime, around November, post Deepavali, and since then, all the new joinings have been done in the, on the IndiaMART payroll.
We are also in the process of moving all the existing 1,000-odd employees, which are there on the third-party payroll, also to IndiaMART payroll in the next two quarters or so. You will see a significant jump happening on that side. A little bit of a ramp-up might be happening, but not that we are going away from any channel partners or that. Channel partners continue to be a very important and a significant contributor to our new customer acquisition strategy. As I said last time, in order to control the churn, we will go and do slicing and dicing based upon the tier-wise customer acquisition, based upon the monthly versus annual customer acquisition, based upon the turnover-wise customer acquisition, based upon the industry-wise customer acquisition.
We have gone ahead and done few of those implementations, where we have decided that, you know, for a Tier 3 and Tier 4, I think, from a proprietorship-based businesses, there's no point acquiring customers in the monthly mode, so we have stopped doing that. So that little bit tweaking that we are doing, but I don't think any big change has happened on that side.
So, thanks, thanks for the detailed answer. Just last thing, when do we think that we can get back to 6,000-7,000 sort of paid supplier additions on a net basis? Do you think that maybe one or two quarters down the line we can achieve this number?
I'm sure, you know, but I'm afraid to commit any number as of now, until unless I achieve that consistently for two quarters, I will not be able to actually say. So, generally, quarter four is always bullish in India for everybody, and for us also, you see, it has always been bullish. So, we might see some improvement, but then quarter one is very bearish. So I think, anything on a consistent basis, let's wait for Q2 of next year or Q3 of next year.
Sure. Sure, sir. Thanks. That's it from my end.
Thanks, Anmol. Next question is from the line of Nikhil Choudhary from Nuvama. Hi, Nikhil, please go ahead with your question.
Hello. Hey, hi, thanks for the opportunity. My first question is regarding the collection growth, which is, like, 60%-70% this quarter for consolidated and standalone business. This is lower than what we have seen in last four, five quarters, and generally, the trend has been more than 25%+. So anything to read here, is it just one quarter downturn, and we expect it to be back to 25%+ trajectory from quarter four?
Yeah, Nikhil, as you can see, the customer growth is slowing down, and it's been three quarters and consistent. In our last two quarters, we have added only 2,000 customers. Even the previous quarter, we added only 5,000 customers in quarter one. So I think that would have some effect, but should it have gone down below 20% or gone to 16%-17% is really surprising. And we are working on that to find out the exact scenario, why it has gone down to 16%-17%. Is that one of the holiday or one of the one of certain divisions or something?
But I think, yeah, from 25%, you are definitely going to see us coming more like 20% collection growth going forward, as until unless we improve on the customer growth. So as we can get back to our 6,000 customer growth or 5,000 customer growth per quarter, I think you will see more like 20% collection growth rather than 25% collection growth. Because 25% collection growth has been coming on the top of 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 customer growth. So I mean, obviously, with 2,000 customer growth, that's not possible.
Mm-hmm. Understood, sir. Sir, second question is regarding the buyer registered buyer growth or Unique Business Enquiry, which is clearly growing at a much slower pace, single digit on YoY basis, right? Couple of quarters back, you mentioned that if the registered buyer do not increase materially by end of FY 2024, then you will be concerned, right? So in terms of business inquiry, we haven't seen much material jump. Where I'm coming from, sir, is that if you see the metrics in terms Unique Business Enquiry per supplier, that metrics is going down and back to pre-COVID. So just want to understand what's happening there. Any action you have taken to increase the number of inquiry growth, per se?
Yeah. So, the traffic has grown by about 9% year-on-year, and the Unique Business Enquiry have also grown by about 5-odd %. In terms of increasing the Unique Business Enquiry, I think we have found a few experiments that have worked in the past couple of weeks. That should be visible in times to come. We are experimenting with another call to action, like WhatsApp, kind of a call to action in some on some pages on the mobile website, and that seems to be working. So, I don't think anything much to read here from 2023.
I mean, if you, if you really see, we were pre-COVID, we were, from pre-COVID, we are still much better, and, we are fine here. I think, we should be able to reach to 25 million in times to come.
Sure, sir. Very helpful. Good luck for coming period. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Nikhil. Next question is from the line of Abhishek Bhandari from Nomura. Hi, Abhishek, please go ahead with your question.
Abhishek, please unmute yourself.
Can you hear me now?
Yeah.
Sorry, sorry for that. So I was saying in the last quarter, you had said you had affected the price increase on 10% of your Silver Monthly user base. What is that new percentage now, at the end of third quarter?
Prateek, would you like to answer how much is the Silver Monthly? I think almost, by now, almost 33% of our Silver Monthly customers are on newer, newer price. And as I said, 50% of the customer base is Platinum and Gold, and rest is divided 50/50 between the Silver Monthly and Silver Annual. So, out of the 25% total customer base, about 50,000 total customer base, I think about 20,000 is already on a newer, newer, newer price model.
Got it. Thank you, sir. The second question is, you mentioned you are trying to, you know, get some of these third-party outsourced people to your own payrolls for better efficiency purpose. Does it also have any cost advantage to you from a medium-term perspective?
Not really. I think we have negotiated that outsourcing model at a couple of hundred rupees per person per month. I think we'll actually pass it on to the employee themselves.
From a cost standpoint, it will be pretty much neutral. I mean, we have currently that cost as a part of an outsourced sales. And I think once all these approximately 1,000 people moves to our payroll, it would shift by approximately INR 10 crore every quarter.
Mm.
From outsourced sales to our manpower cost.
Got it. Got it. Thank you, sir. And my last question is, you know, on your fourth quarter, you know, margin outlook, should we expect a similar seasonality in margins as we expect every year, in the sense that you give on salary increments to your employees?
Yes. So salary increment have already happened. The letters are on their way out. You know, they happen generally with effect from January. This time we have done it with effect from first December. Also, the March quarter in general, the collections come upfront heavily, so that's why there is upfront cost, which results into the lower margins based upon the recognized revenue. So you can expect the similar seasonality coming in the March quarter.
Thank you, sir. Sir, my last question, if I can squeeze one more. Sir, you know, your experiment of raising price increases, you know, on the lower end pack, you know, has led to some increased churn. You know, India being India, where there's so much of sensitivity to prices, do you think longer term in your business model, you should be working more towards higher ARPU increase and worry less about, you know, subscriber addition? Or you think, you know, at some point we'll, I mean, what the maths you're comfortable with, let's say, you know, you're targeting 20% growth long term. If you could break down what comfort you have on ARPU growth, what comfort you have on, you know, subscriber addition growth, more from a medium term perspective, not merely next one or two quarters.
Yeah, on a medium term, I think I've already said, you know, the best would be in excess of 10%-10% growth in both. Ideally speaking, you know, if you want to get to 25%, if you see in the past, whenever we got to 25%, it has been more, 15% on the customer growth, 15%-18% on the customer growth, and, 6% to 8% on the, ARPU growth. I think, given that, the size has increased by now, but still, at 200,000 customer, we are, just 2% of, you know, overall, businesses in India, which are GST registered and, properly filing.
Given that in certain cities where we have good penetration, our penetration level are as high as 4%-5% already. So why should be the customer growth be constrained at this point of time? I'm sure we have done—we would have done, because as we have grown from a pre-COVID base of INR 700-odd crore collections to now INR 1,400-odd crore collection run rate, I think that's. And we have decentralized a lot of operations and everything. I'm sure we will find more opportunities to fix, you know, slackness in the system and at this scale of network effect, even find more opportunities in the product to make it work better.
So, I don't think I need, on the neither side, we should be looking at anything lower than either side. So I think our math, long-term math, long term means medium-term math, should still be, you know, 15%-18% customer growth and 7%-10% ARPU growth. So I think we will, we will continue to strive for that. I don't see any reason not to not to happen.
Got it. Thank you, sir, and all the best.
Thanks, Abhisek. Next question is from the line of Abhisek Banerjee from ICICI Securities. Hi, Abhishek, please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Am I audible now?
Yeah.
Yeah. Sir, just first question on the productivity bit, right? What is your outlook on that? And, recently, one of your competitors actually spoke about using AI tools to do processes which were being done manually till now. So is there any room for you to do something similar?
Multiple. I think there's always room to do more optimization, more automation. And if you go to a margin lever slide, you will see how margins have expanded over a period of time. And, you know, gross margin have come back to better than pre-COVID time. You know, in pre-COVID, for the full year of FY 2020, we got 70% gross margin. We are already at 71%-72% gross margin. And I think there is always a possibility wherever there are large-scale people operation to do automation. And this is an ongoing process. This is not something that we need to announce. So I think we'll continue to have that improvement done.
But at the same time, as the scale increases, you invest in people at a decentralized management level and other level. So I think those become typically neutral at 72% gross margin or 75% gross margin.
Okay. So, does that mean that, going ahead next year, at least, we should see the employee benefits as a proportion of revenues, you know, start coming off?
Possibly, yes. Will that happen at the top of the pyramid? Possibly, no.
Mm.
Because as we will decentralize further, we would want more state heads to manage their own P&L. So probably we are going to save at the bottom of the pyramid some by way by doing automation. But at the same time, we are going to invest in making the company more resilient, so that as we have grown in the last five-seven years from INR 200-300 crore to INR 1,000 crore plus, how do we grow from here INR 1,000 crore plus to INR 3,000 crore plus? And for that, what kind of management and what kind of systems and processes are needed? So we will reinvest that because I don't think we will be chasing EBITDA margin by saving that 1%-2%.
Understood. So if I look at the employee expenses this quarter, right, I see that the jump implies a very high employee per, as in, employee expense per person. Is that because of the hikes that was taken from first of December? As in, if I take the increment-
You are, you are right. So if you see year-on-year, the employee expenses would have gone up by roughly around 28%.
Yeah.
One of the reason is that we have, you know, taken the hike in December that what we used to do in January, so it is not there in the corresponding base of December last year.
So that for only one month. Yeah.
Got it. But that would also mean that the sequential decline that is characteristic of your Q4 numbers, that will be less sharp this year around, right?
I'm sorry, sequential decline in employee expenses, you're saying, Abhisek?
So overall, there is a sequential decline in EBITDA margin in Q4 over Q3, right? That is a trend. Now, given you have moved one month earlier, your hike cycle, that would mean that the sequential decline in EBITDA margin-
Yeah, you are right.
Yeah?
Yes. Yes, you are right.
Understood. Understood. So that decline will be lesser. Fair enough. And so what was the strategy behind, you know, moving forward, the increments? Are you trying to do a change in your, you know, reporting year? Sorry, I mean, I mean, employee expenses, is that—is it going to move forward further going ahead, or you're going to stay here?
No, this year, I think, we generally, first January used to become very difficult. We were planning, we used to make annual operating plan, we used to prepare for a bumper quarter four, and also doing 4,000, 5,000, and reviews used to become difficult, so we preponed it by one month because the amount of work used to be too much. I don't think it is going to be a regular affair or change. Let's see how it goes.
Understood. Now, if I talk about the gross additions number, right, that I'm guessing would be, similar to what, I mean, at least broadly similar to what it used to be. Right? Now, where are we seeing this gross addition coming from?
Hmm? Sorry.
As in. So, see, you had spoken about how in Tier 2, Tier 3 cities, you had seen a sharper churn, right? So I'm guessing you would have kind of slowed your gross additions from Tier 2, Tier 3 also, or at least from those areas. So I'm just trying to understand, w hat is compensating for that gross additions?
Yes, so we have not, I mean, as I said, last we met was end of October, and I said I will go back to the drawing board. We have just implemented that Tier 4, Tier 3 and Tier 4, we will, you know, steadily go, one by one, one center by one center. So it has not yet affected, you know, came into effect fully.
Mm-hmm.
Sometime in by the middle of the quarter it will come. It is not just, you know, from tomorrow on, nothing on that side. So by and large, things are smoother rather than one fine day, you're cutting the entire Tier 4 or entire Tier 3. That's not how we do it. So I think currently all, you know, as always, the most of the customer acquisition has always been 60% of the customer acquisition has always been in the top tier cities, and another 25% coming from the Tier 2 and Tier 3, and rest of India has always been 10%. So we have not yet stopped completely.
Understood. Now, just one thing here. In Tier 3, Tier 4, from the experience of some of your competitors, generally the churn is high, but it is not like people churn out for lifetime. It is often that they come back after, you know, one, maybe six months' time. So are you seeing something like that also happening in Tier 3, Tier 4? Or you have not seen anything like that?
I mean, the numbers are so small that getting into those is so small, and that is the exact reason. We are not saying that we are not going to acquire if somebody is coming. We are simply saying that we are not going to acquire it on a monthly basis, where our cost of customer acquisition upfront is higher than the money that we realize. Okay? So that is why we are saying that we will move to a more annual subscription for a proprietorship firm in the Tier 3 and Tier 4.
Got it. So the outsourced sales partners will continue to exist for Tier 3, Tier 4. However, they will not be giving you monthly sales customers where the cost is not making sense as per you, as of now.
First of all, let me clarify.
Yeah.
All the outsourced sales partner are in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe a couple of them are in Tier 3. Whatever we are talking is of Tier 3 and Tier 4.
Yeah.
So Tier 1 and Tier 2, all the partners, everything remains as it is. No change, as of now, has been implemented or we are planning to. So we will go very, very slow there, if at all, we have to make any change. We are very sensitive to any partner, you know, coming in or going out, like that. On the Tier 4, most of the acquisition happened either inbound or telesales. It was not,
Okay.
Telesales at all. We hardly, you know, I don't know, maybe there is a city on the borderline of Tier 2 and Tier 3, falling in Tier 3, so it is called Tier 3. But otherwise, by design, we do not have any presence in the Tier 3 city, physical presence in the Tier 3 city.
Got it. In terms of these, you know, Tier 3, Tier 4 cities, y ou have obviously spoken about some cities or towns which were, you know, which were a surprise on the negative side, but were some cities or towns which were a surprise on the positive side as well? If you could talk a little bit on that.
No, I don't have much data to talk on, on that. Thank you.
Fair enough. And just one last question from Brijesh, sir. If you have, could you please explain how things are progressing with Busy, and if you are making any additions to your team there?
No, I, as I mentioned, in terms of our, growth rates, of billing customers, I think we are doing fairly fine there. We've also hired, senior folks, to look at sales, service and marketing. So, the team also has been strengthened, with some senior level hires in those key areas.
Understood. Understood. That's very helpful, sir. Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Thanks, Abhisek. Next question is from the line of Vivekanand from Ambit Capital. Hi, Vivekanand. Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. So, my first question is on the elevated churn at Silver Monthly levels. Dinesh, what exactly is the problem here? Is it, is it because of the acquisition, aggression that you did in smaller towns? Are there any specific geography issues, or, or... Or is there any servicing issue of the Silver Monthly users? Could you elaborate on that? Because I couldn't quite understand what the problem is, because you last time we met in October, you said that you are going back to the drawing board, and I'm sure by now you would have picked up some cues that would help you answer this question better.
Yeah, Vivekanand, I think all of this, you know, so I think if it was one single piece that something has gone wrong, it was much easier to identify. I think what we did in the last, you know, post July 2021, when we saw two COVID waves and everything happened and all that, then we, you know, expanded quickly over the next 18 months or so. And that whole expansion led to almost double the employee count from 3,000 to 6,000, going higher, you know, double the channel sales partner also. Also the servicing staff also is a lot of new, newer staff. Many of the customers and the brand has run quite ahead.
Everybody thought that, you know, online is the way to do business, so everybody wanted to try online after the COVID. So I think a couple of many things and then, and each one of them, you know, in our case, a 30%+ churn is bad, and a 20% is the very, very good, I think. So I think the margin of error is, only ± 5%, where you become great company or, or, or bad company. And I think it's just 1% or 2% each, and that's what we are trying to correct. And I'm pretty sure, because, if there was any problem in product and technology, if there was any product in demand, we would have seen, you know, issues at the, Gold and Platinum.
You know, all the KPIs of the Gold and Platinum, all the KPI of the supplier engagement, continue to remain very, very strong. So as I said, last time also, close to 50% of our customer base, around 48%, 49%, and close to 75% of the revenue, which is 72%, 73%, exactly I checked yesterday, is coming from Gold and Platinum. And their ARPU is also increasing quarter-on-quarter. And their churn is also, you know, almost running near the best ever, ever since, even, even from pre-COVID level. So effectively, the top 10% customer, while the overall ARPU has grown 11%, top 10% customer ARPU has grown by almost 13%. So, so I don't think there is a one small, one big problem.
I think it is the small, small, things: training the people, getting the processes right, getting the size right. And as I said, it will take two, three quarters, and we'll be, we'll be back at a higher growth trajectory soon.
Fair, fair. I think those observations are very pertinent. Thank you for elaborating. From a servicing standpoint, since you had previously also mentioned that your aspiration was to have that number, the number of paying suppliers to the servicing employees, come down so that you could provide better service. But we are not yet seeing, or rather, your company isn't yet seeing the benefits of this investment made in sales, supervising and supervision and servicing employees. By when do you think that these employees that you've added for servicing, they start contributing meaningfully, either in terms of getting more upgrades, which will reflect in your collections growth, or reduced churn, which will obviously reflect in the net adds?
Yeah. So, Vivekanand, it's not that it has not resulted into a better across all the segments. So if you really see our key customers in the Gold and Platinum segment, if we didn't hire the employees to this level, we would have left certain revenue on the table. And the entire ARPU growth that you've seen in the Gold and Platinum segment is definitely the investment that we made on the people side, which we had not made during the COVID time. Yes, the major headcount investment has happened on the Silver Monthly and Silver Annual, and that is where we are since the there is very little to show you in terms of either ARPU or in terms of churn, churn.
But I am sure that will be visible, and that will be visible soon. But whatever investment that we have done on the Gold and Platinum side, that has definitely gives us a comfort, because without that, we would not have been able to drive even the ARPUs like this.
Okay, thank you for the elaborate discussion, and all the best.
Thanks, Vivekanand. Next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital. Hi, Rahul, please go ahead with your question.
Rahul, please unmute yourself.
Oh, sorry. I hope I'm audible now.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, just one bit on this subscriber addition side of the story. We like your confidence on what kind of growth this kind of a platform in this kind of a market can deliver. But if you see what has essentially some of the trend, underlying trend that should support this kind of thing are actually playing out in the market in terms of India as an end market, how it we are doing as a country, how we are getting more and more organized, and how more and more digitized we are going into into our system and behavior. But why, at least for now, we are not seeing those trends percolating into the kind of an outcome that we desire?
I think I already answered that, we have grown rapidly in the last two years, and we need to manage that growth efficiently.
Right. And just. Yeah. Yeah, just one more thing. Like, since we have a much lower penetration in terms of registered supplier to paid supplier ratio, and we may be following the activities of potential registered supplier who could turn into a paid supplier, given the activity increase that they are seeing at their end in terms of consuming lead and other things. Is it, is it that there are action which needs to be done on that part of leveraging that cohort and converting them into paid subs suppliers that parts needs to be improved to a much better outcome? Is that something that we can work on?
Yeah. So, I don't think our gross additions has been much of a challenge. You know, I think it is the churn, and it is the first six, nine months, first-year churn. The 12-month retention, and it is always true with every marketing platform that you see for SME business. So whether it is Google or whether it is Facebook or whether it is, you know, Amazon, the number of people that try on any marketing platform, and whether it is Alibaba, are in the first year, generally very, very high. And the retention rate at the end of the year is low.
While once they learn how to do, how to utilize the digital marketing platform for their business, for their segment, they end up becoming a ambassador for that segment and end up becoming the leader in the times to come. So similar thing is visible in our case also. The first year, you know, the churns actually come down by half every year. So if the first year churn is 50%, then that will come down to 20%, 25% next year and come down to, you know, 12.5% the third year.
So I think we need to constantly find the right kind of suppliers and find the right kind of tools to educate them properly. There is no question that the penetration levels will go to 10% in the next decade or so.
Right. Right. My small slight part of the question is not getting addressed here. What I was trying to also understand is that when we are going for the gross addition, there is a much larger universe that we are chasing. But there could be a subset of that universe, a cohort, which may be using our platform far more effectively in an unpaid scenario. And the probabilities of those people, you know, benefiting out of a paid subscription, would be relatively higher. So is that cohort something which is fructifying better?
I mean, that you are pointing it again and again, we'll go back and see. But I think our, all our, hot lead generation, all our prioritization, all our AI and ML, all our segmentation, does day in, day out, this only. Which are these, free sellers, which are getting more inquiries, which are the free sellers which are getting, better engaged with our platform, which are the, You know, and that is how we learn which cities are doing well, which, which, you know, industries are doing well, which kind of turnovers are doing well. So we have all kind of segmentation data, which we track, in detail.
But if you're saying that there could be still be some segments which are, which could be left out, we will definitely go back and take your suggestion and to see if there is something left out.
Great, sir. Thanks a lot, and thanks a lot, and congratulations on strong margin improvement. I hope this trend continue on an annualized basis.
Thanks, Rahul. Next question is from the line of Swapnil from JM Financial. Hi, Swapnil. Please go ahead with your question.
Hey, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So my first question is with respect to the categories, if you can call out where the churn is significantly high right now. And a follow-up to that is where do you think the churn customers are going right now? I mean, what are the other alternatives that these guys have apart from IndiaMART and or what else are they doing? That will be the first question. Thanks.
So on the industry side, you will see that service industry, we are still not very good. Certain, certain very consumerist industries like apparel, we are still not very good. Despite the fact that it is one of the very large industries, we are, we are still not very good. Agro food, vegetables, such a large category, we are still not very good. And the churn is always very, very high on, on these kind of segments, which, despite the fact being such a large, continue to remain, you know, at number 10 and number 15 in our category list. That doesn't change as much.
I won't say that the medical as a category has increased churn, because whatever was that to happen, that has already happened in the past three, four quarters, because whatever came during the COVID time, that is now nullified. Now, coming to the city side, certain city clusters, again, are, you know, more susceptible. Earlier we had seen Tirupur like that, now we are seeing Surat like that. So I think, you know, not fair to call out names here, but I think, we do take segment by segment, to check out which particular segment is causing higher churn and why. And we try to fix that, by doing category work so that, we can improve the matchmaking better.
We try and talk to 10 different suppliers, 10 different buyers, which particular, what can we do better, so that they can keep coming back to the platform. So we do all that. What was the second part of the question?
[inaudible]
A lot of these customers are the first time buyers. I think, a few of the customers, because at the end of the day, there are only four-five large platforms that I can think of, and I, I name them all the time between IndiaMART and Google and Amazon and Justdial. These are the four big ones.
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Uh, hmm?
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Yeah, and, and, and Facebook, and WhatsApp and, Instagram. So between these five people, by and large, they move. There could be certain very specific verticals here and there where those people might be trying, but, but I haven't seen any vertical gaining significant momentum so far.
Got it, sir. And the second question, related to the churn again, is like: do you think the limited real estate that we have on the platform could be one of the reasons for this churn? Because, you know, typically only a limited number of suppliers can come on the first page of any search page, and especially for Silver category customers, the leads with visibility will always be low. You know, and therefore, the ROIs for them may not be meaningful. And that may be one of the reasons that you know, the churn rate for them is quite high. And if that is the case,
Yeah, I understood-
Is it... Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I understood your question. So if we were a one-way matchmaking platform, if we didn't have an RFQ system, then you are right. Whether it is Google or whether it is Amazon, only top 10 people end up getting the 90% of the business and everything. But since we introduced the RFQ model back in 2012, I think the entire situation changed dramatically, where every buyer is up for grab by all kind of sellers, whether he's a Silver or whether he's a Gold or whether he's Platinum. The only limitation is the number of buyers that you can grab onto. So, It is not purely buyer-led. So one side of the matchmaking, you are right.
People pay us money in the Platinum and Gold to come up is because more buyers can see them. That's like a traditional advertising model. But with the RFQ system, we ensure that each and every seller, if he's active on the platform, if he's vigilant, there is no preference given to the Platinum supplier or to the against the Silver supplier that he cannot consume a Buy Lead or an RFQ. And that is when our model start to scale. And so if we have been able to scale to this level, it is because of that. Otherwise, you are right. If you have 100,000 categories, you have only limited real estate of top three, five, 10 people to be monetized.
Just a follow-up question to that. I mean, and then this is based on limited research of mine. The interaction that I have had with the different category of customers suggests that your Platinum and Gold category customers' ROI is significantly better, and they're quite happy. But Silver category customers typically tend to be, you know, they do get certain leads, but obviously the conversion rates and the ROIs for them are significantly poor. And that's a broad feedback that, I mean-
It is the other way around. Those who are engaged better with the platform, they find the ROI so good that they become Gold and Platinum. The ones who are not engaged better with the platform, they don't find enough value, and they don't become the Gold and Platinum.
Okay, got it. Got it, sir. Thanks for that opportunity.
Because if you just become a Gold Platinum subscriber at IndiaMART and not do the follow-up, lead follow-up, and not consume the RFQs, you are more likely to get worse ROI than a engaged Silver customer.
If I were just to, you know, ask that point again, what happens, given that the current year churn is very high? The number of people on the Silver category obviously are not those who can move to the higher categories immediately. Like we said in the past, that it takes a year or a year and a half for these guys to move to the higher category. So, should that all reflect on your premiumization for next one or two years, the impact of the current year's inability to grow the Silver customers?
Not really. In fact, if the gross addition was the reason for not adding the base, not growing the base, then you are right. But if the churn is the reason for not growing the base, then this is not. This doesn't hold true. Because, you know, by the time somebody, you know, six-nine months, either the customer will churn or will stay on, and if he'll stay, he will upgrade better. So I think, our opportunity to upgrade typically has a top quartile customers, while the churn comes from the bottom quartile customers. And then there are in the middle fence sitters who neither upgrade nor churn, but continue to remain in the same category.
So, I don't think the upgrade potential is very much directly linked with the churn-led growth. Yes, if it was the gross addition-led growth, you are right.
Got it, sir. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. Yes, all the best.
Thanks, Swapnil. Next question is from the line of Anirudh Shetty from Solidarity Investment Managers. Hi, Anirudh. Please go ahead with your question.
Anirudh, please unmute yourself.
Yeah. Hi, am I audible?
Yeah.
Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity. I have two questions. So my first question was essentially on just, you know, buyer behavior, you know, given that fundamentally drives traction on the platform. You know, given that we have a fairly sizable number of registered buyers already, you know, around 16-17 crore buyers, and, you know, the number of active buyers has kind of remained flat. So what is your broad sense around the, you know, usage of IndiaMART by, you know, the buyer potential buyers in India? Would you say that we are at a fairly mature stage or there's room to go even further? And what is the strategy, essentially? Is it to get more buyers on the platform, you know, get them to be more active, get more inquiries for buyers?
Could you just share more granularity around that, given that it's very important to our business?
Both, I think, one is to attract newer buyer on the platform. So if you, if you see, when we, the total registered buyers, every, every quarter, they grow by, 5 million-6 million, you know, 5 million-6 million every quarter. So that is the, new, new registered buyers that came in. So 5 million, 6 million, the new. And then how much they can come repeatedly. Currently, we say 90-day repeat ratio is 53%, which is, maybe just once a in 90 day, one or more time. But if I see how many two or more time, or how many three or more time, that number is very little. We have to work on that, for, people who have used IndiaMART for three or couple.
Three or more times, they become the perfect audience of IndiaMART. Every time they need something, B2B, they don't forget to check out IndiaMART. But for most buyers to have a first experience as very good experience, and then becoming a top-of-the-mind recall, that journey is still, you know, under progress, work in progress. Over the next many years or so, I think, the number of new buyers which we can attract will probably become slower and slower. And the repeat, while the 12-month active base may not increase dramatically from 40 million to maybe 80 million, but the number of times they're coming in.
So the most important number is Unique Business Enquiry, because how many people came and inquired in a unique day? Because these Unique Business Enquiries is, if I come out of these 90 days, three different days, these are the three different Unique Business Enquiries. So, so how many days do I come to IndiaMART and send an inquiry for a different product? That's the number to be final number to be looked at. And that number, if you see, has been growing at 20-odd %, but, can this grow at much, much faster rate in the CAGR level? You know, why we are not able to do that in across so many categories and across so many cities is what we work day in, day out.
From the customer's viewpoint, is the, the buyer, looking for products that are very bespoke, very discreet, such that, you know, their consumption for such products will be actually very infrequent? Or are they actually more like the repeat type of buyers who kind of need it, you know, more frequently? Just to understand the inquiry, whether that will go up.
On IndiaMART, most of the time, you know, the first time the buyer lands, it's probably because he's looking for something which he could not find typically in his neighborhood, or he's looking for a price, or he's looking for a, you know, customization. So these are the three things for which the customer comes for the first time. But then he realizes that all the three things are very good here at IndiaMART. If he realizes that, and if he realizes that three times in a row, then he becomes our regular buyer. But making him realize for the first time that, because first time, for many of these buyers, it could be very overwhelming.
You know, suddenly there are so many suppliers, so many products, whom to talk to. You know, price are 30%, 40%, 50% cheaper than a retail platform. How to get it done is a challenging and overwhelming opportunity for a buyer and seller both. So getting the first experience right in varied categories as apparel versus machinery versus nut bolts versus vegetables versus pharmaceutical is a challenge for a horizontal marketplace. But at the same time, the horizontal marketplace gives you the strength that tomorrow. Today he might have come for a nut bolt, tomorrow he might come for the entire machine.
Day after tomorrow, he might be able to come for a furniture or and next time maybe for apparel. So I think, there is an advantage and a disadvantage both of being a horizontal and being a vertical. We have been both. At Tolexo we have been a vertical with full transaction platform, and at IndiaMART, we have been a horizontal. It takes a really, really long time for a horizontal to become become feel like a successful repeat platform. It takes very quickly for a vertical to do that, but at the same time, you know, the number of total buyers that you can attract, the number of total sellers that you can attract is very, very limited, so the revenue opportunity is lower.
I mean, that is what we keep learning and trying to do every day.
Absolutely. And, just one final question. You know, we are exploring Tier 3, 4 cities, towns, and you know, you had mentioned it's a long process. But wanted to understand that you know, finally for the suppliers there, do you, do we think that the value proposition for an IndiaMART is strong? You know, that their ability to kind of, you know, cater to buyers' requirements exists, you know, or are there constraints around just the infra being underdeveloped or, you know, them being so deep in the hinterlands that the logistic cost, you know, doesn't make sense? Or what are other challenges that you think you could face in these markets that weren't there in the metro Tier 1, 2?
So, one, if I heard you right, you're saying that we are... Are we going for Tier 3, Tier 4 supplier? We are actually retreating from Tier 3 , Tier 4 supplier. We are actually focusing more on Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers. On the buyer side, you are right, because a lot of value because of the large availability, the prices on IndiaMART attract a lot of Tier 3, Tier 4 buyers. And you know, the logistics as well as the payments, as well as the trust, all three are the challenges. And you know, we try and build trust, we try and build discovery. But I think large payment is straightforward today, if you want to pay in advance or if you pay later.
But how do you pay escrow and how do you do that? That remains a challenge. So I think currently a lot of Tier 4 buyers use us as a price discovery platform and maybe try to still buy it from their local vendor or somebody. But there are all kind of mixed possibilities here.
Got it. Thank you for answering my question.
Thanks, Anirudh. Thank you very much, everyone. It has been a very engaging session. I would now like Dinesh sir to give his concluding remarks.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for asking very deep questions this time. This has been truly enjoyable today. We have tried to address your queries in the time available, but if you still have any questions, please feel free to contact our investor relationship team on our website. And have a great new year and ahead. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Thank you, everyone. On behalf of IndiaMART, we now conclude this webinar. Thank you.