The conference is being recorded. I'm Sunita, the moderator for this conference. Welcome to the Indus Towers Limited fourth quarter and year-ended March 31, 2024 earnings call. For the duration of the presentation, all participants will be in the listen-only mode. After the presentation, the question and answer session will be conducted for all the participants on this call. In case of a natural disaster, the conference call will be terminated post an announcement. Present with us on the call today is the senior leadership team of Indus Towers, Mr. Prachur Sah, MD and CEO; Mr. Tejinder Kalra, COO; Mr. Vinod Rao, Business Controller; and Mr. Dheeraj Agarwal, Head Investor Relations. Before I hand over the call, I must remind you that the overview and discussion today may include certain forward-looking statements that must be viewed in conjunction with the risks that we face.
I now hand over the call to our first speaker of the day, Mr. Prachur Sah. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Sah.
Thank you, Sunita, and a very warm welcome to all participants. Joining me today are my colleagues, Vikas Poddar, CFO, Tejinder Kalra, COO, and Dheeraj Agarwal, Head of Investor Relations, on the call. I'm pleased to present our business performance for the quarter and year ended on March 31, 2024. We are pleased to have delivered a stellar year, with our yearly tower additions being one of the highest, in fact, the highest ever in our history. This has also helped us surpass the milestone of 200,000 towers in our portfolio. The progress we made on each of the strategic priorities, which we had outlined at the start of the year, centered around market share, cost efficiency, network uptime, and sustainability, has been pivotal to this achievement. Keeping with the momentum observed during the year, tower additions in Q4 were our highest ever quarterly rollout.
The strong additions continued to be aided by the accelerated rollouts by one of our major customers, especially in rural areas, and significant increase in our share of customer rollout. With regards to collections from our major customer, we sustained a 100% collection against our billing during the year, and also made some collection against the past dues. We are pleased to see the recent positive developments at the customer's end around its fundraise, and we remain engaged with the customer for clearance of our past dues. Before we delve into the details of our core business areas, I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to our field forces for their commitment towards helping Indus bridge the digital divide.
In the quarter gone by, our field force exhibited exceptional courage and perseverance to install two towers in the mountainous regions of Nilgiris district, which is situated at the highest altitude above sea level in Tamil Nadu. Enabling connectivity in the remotest of areas and difficult terrains by installing a huge tower is truly remarkable and reflects on the commitment of our people on the ground. The year gone by saw several encouraging developments on the regulatory front and re-emphasizes the government's commitment towards facilitating the swift rollout of telecom infrastructure across the country, keeping sustainability in view. The landmark Telecommunications Act 2023, aimed at easing right-of-way challenges and ensuring network and infrastructure security, among other things, came into effect during the year and was notified in Q4.
The Green Open Access policy, aimed at incentivizing the use of cleaner sources of energy, has been notified by more than 12 states. Additionally, the composite billing scheme for multiple power connections, the option to apply for a power connection for telecom infrastructure through Gati Shakti central portal, and mapping of different ministries to the Gati Shakti portal to apply for right of way were other key highlights of the year. On the topic of 5G, rollouts by the top two customers, operators continued at an accelerated pace in Q4 as well, taking the total count of 5G-based transceiver stations, or BTS, deployed towards 435,000. The large rollout of 5G services by operators during the year have added to our loading revenues and helped us deliver the strong growth.
The wider adoption of 5G is expected to spur the demand for newer sites in order to facilitate network decongestion. We remain confident in our ability to make the most of the opportunity on offer, given our leadership in the passive infrastructure space. The accelerated pace of 5G infrastructure deployment is expected to be supported by swift adoption by users, and statistics mentioned in the Nokia MBIT Index Report 2024 give credence to the same. As per the report, the total 5G subscribers stood at 131 million in 2023 and are expected to grow to 575 million by 2026. The device ecosystem for 5G is also progressing well, with 17% of the active 4G devices now capable of offering 5G.
The contribution of 5G to total data traffic has increased from 1.7% in 2022 to 15% in 2023. The data consumption trend remains strong, underpinned by both the swift proliferation of 5G and the ongoing migration of users from 2G to 4G. For the top three operators, the average data consumed per user per month grew by 14% year-on-year to 24 GB in the December quarter, and the total data consumption grew by 24% year-on-year in the same period. The confluence of robust data usage and surging 5G adoption presents a compelling opportunity for the passive infrastructure industry, and given our pole position in the space, we believe we are well-positioned to cater to this demand. As touched upon earlier, we delivered our highest ever tower additions in Q4 as well, in line with the trends of the year.
Our macro tower and colocation additions for Q4 more than doubled compared to the same period last year, and our full year additions were more than 3.5x compared to the previous year. In Q4, we added 7,961 macro towers and 7,909 corresponding collocations, supported by a combination of strong customer demand and our ability to increase our share in the business of the customer. Total macro towers and collocations in Q4 increased by 13.9% and 7.5% each on a year-on-year basis, to 219,736 and 368,588, respectively. On a full year basis, tower and colocation additions were at 26,862 and 25,757, respectively.
Our industry-leading tenancy ratio stands at 1.68. In terms of linear towers, colocation additions were at 692 in Q4, resulting in the overall base increasing to 10,686. Including linear towers, our net colocation additions were at 8,601 in Q4, compared to 8,568 in Q3. Moving on to a progress update on our four key strategic priorities, namely market share, cost efficiency, network uptime, and sustainability. Firstly, on market share, as I alluded to earlier, our quarterly macro tower and colocation additions more than doubled over the same period last year. This was underpinned by a substantial improvement in our share in the business of our major customers, whose aggressive rollouts continued in this quarter as well.
At the beginning of the year, we focused on improving time to market of our products further in order to increase our competitiveness. To this end, we formed a dedicated team to expedite the deployment process through continuous monitoring and proactive logistics management. Supplementing this have been our efforts towards centering our partner ecosystem, systematic resource planning, streamlining of product offering, and the digital interventions we have been taking across our value chain. We expect the rural rollouts or rollouts of our major customer to continue in the near term, at least, providing us with significant headroom for growth. Secondly, regarding cost efficiency, we remain focused on optimizing both operating and capital expenses. One of the major contributors to our operating costs is diesel, and we have taken various initiatives to reduce consumption.
These measures include augmentation of our energy storage solutions, increasing the use of renewable energy solutions, and conversion of sites from indoor to outdoor, which helped us reduce our diesel consumption by 6% in Q4 on a year-on-year basis. With a sharp focus on expanding our renewable energy portfolio, we more than doubled our quarterly run rate and added more than 8,000 solar sites in Q4. In terms of CapEx, we have been focusing on various aspects, such as product standardization, resource planning to optimize spend per site, and repurposing existing infrastructure for efficient upgrades. Supplementing this was the technological intervention, including the automation of processes and use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance the life cycle of equipment. Thirdly, moving to network uptime, a metric which is critical to customer satisfaction.
In Q4 of this year, we managed to further improve our industry high uptime to 99.97%. We were able to achieve these numbers despite the heavy rains seen in areas of Uttar Pradesh and northeastern states, as well as the power outages caused by severe heat in the areas of Punjab and Haryana, which underscores the perseverance and determination of our field force. Coming to ESG, a strategic priority for the organization. We want to create an agile and future-ready business model that will preserve the environment, promote inclusive culture, strengthen communities, and create resilient value chains. To this end, in the year, we launched a zero goal here or zero is a target campaign with the aim of achieving zero emissions, zero harm, zero waste, zero bias, and zero tolerance to non-compliance.
On the environment front, we are driving multiple interventions to reduce our GHG emissions by increasing the share of renewable sources of energy in our overall energy portfolio and reducing our diesel consumption. During the year, our solar portfolio increased more than tenfold to 14,731 sites. We reduced our diesel consumption by about 7% during the year, despite increasing overall energy consumption. We also participated in the CDP, that is Carbon Disclosure Project Survey, which is a snapshot of company's performance on environmental action. We are pleased to have scored B minus, which underscores that we are addressing the environmental impacts of our business and ensuring good environmental management. We are pleased to see our gender diversity almost double from 6% at the beginning of the year, to close to 12% at the end of the year.
We have always been dedicated towards creating a workforce with women on-site, through our focused hiring programs, inclusive policies, and supportive work environment. We will continue to work in this space, along with our entire partner ecosystem, to continue driving this program. Our CSR initiatives have helped us positively impact more than 40 million lives across India through our flagship program, Saksham and Pragati, which focus on girl child education, digital literacy, and livelihood promotion, among others. To create a safer work environment, we launched electrical and road safety campaigns for our workforce, and EHS training for entire workforce, including partners. During the quarter, we also launched a sustainable procurement policy, which reiterates our belief that the sustainability practices of our business partners will play a major role in the long-term success of our business.
We believe these programs will promote safe practices and a deeper appreciation of environment, social, and governance issues. Our efforts towards ESG are being recognized, as we were judged Best Emerging Company of the Year at the prestigious Transformance Forums. We are also pleased to have won the Gallup Excellent Workplace Award for the eleventh consecutive year. I will now request Vikas to take you through our financial performance for the quarter, and year-end remarks that he wants to read with you, and I look forward to your questions. Over to you, Vikas. Thank you.
Thank you, Prachur, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to share with you the financial results for the quarter and year-ended 31st March 2024. Before presenting the financial performance, I would like to reiterate our exceptional operational performance during the year, with a large number of tower additions recorded each quarter. Coming to the financial performance for quarter four, our reported gross revenues were at INR 71.9 billion, growing by 6.5% year-on-year. The core revenues from rental grew by 7.7% year-on-year to INR 45.8 billion, aided by strong tower additions and 5G loading. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, our reported gross revenues were almost flat, while core revenues from rental were up by 2.2%.
Moving to profitability, the reported EBITDA for the quarter four grew by 19% year-on-year and 13.3% quarter-on-quarter to INR 41 billion. EBITDA margin was up 6 percentage points year-on-year and 6.7 percentage points quarter-on-quarter to 57.0%. Similar to the previous quarter, we recognized collection of more than 100% of average monthly billing against the past overdues from a major customer, resulting in write back of provisions for doubtful debt. Adjusted for these factors, EBITDA increased by 8.5% year-on-year and 3.3% quarter-on-quarter. Energy margins improved sequentially from -2.7% to -2.1% in quarter four, driven by seasonality and also initiatives we have taken to reduce our diesel consumption and other energy expenses.
Our reported profit after tax stood at INR 18.5 billion, growing 32.5% on year-on-year basis and 20.3% on quarter-on-quarter basis. Please note that Q3, FY 2024 PAT, profit after tax, was impacted by matters pertaining to NTPC tax, resulting in an increase in depreciation and interest cost. Normalized for this and other aforementioned factors, the profit after tax increased by 5.2% year-on-year and 4.3% quarter-on-quarter. I will now move to the full year performance for fiscal 2024. Please note that FY 2024 included the one-offs I mentioned before. As a reminder, FY 2023 included one-time revenue recognition of about INR 11 billion from settlement of old dues, and its profitability figures were marked by the provision for doubtful debt of about INR 53 billion.
An impairment of revenue equalization reserve of INR 4.9 billion. On a full year basis, our reported gross revenues grew 0.8% year-on-year to INR 286 billion, and core revenues were up 1.7% year-on-year to INR 177.3 billion. Adjusted for one-offs, gross revenues and core revenues were up by 4.7% each year, on year-on-year basis. On a reported basis, EBITDA increased by 50.4% to INR 146.9 billion, and profit after tax grew to almost 3x to INR 60.4 billion. Again, adjusted for one-offs and provisions, EBITDA was up by 4% and profit after tax was down by 1.2% year-on-year.
The reported pre-tax return on capital employed and post-tax return on equity for the rolling twelve months were at 19.4% and 25.1% respectively. We generated free cash flow of INR 3.3 billion in quarter four, and our total free cash flow stood at INR 1.8 billion for the year. On account of accelerated rollouts by our major customer, our CapEx remained elevated in Q4 as well. We believe that the investments we have made to capture this growth opportunity will stand us, stand us in good stead for the future, given the long-term nature of our business, and will help create value for our shareholders. Our trade receivables increased by INR 4.3 billion, mainly due to the timing difference, as the provision write-back occurred in quarter four, while the collections against the past dues were made in April.
With regard to the outstanding overdues from a major customer, we are pleased to see progress in its fundraising. We expect that these developments will help the customer clear our past dues and also provide us with a growth opportunity, given the customer is planning to make investment in its network expansion. To conclude, we are excited to have delivered a solid operational and financial performance during the year, with the latter being also aided by steady collections and part clearance of the past dues from a major customer. We expect the rural expansion of a major customer and 5G rollouts to continue to act as significant levers of near-term growth. The positive development around the financial situation of one of our major customers is another pleasing aspect that we expect to benefit from.
With this, I would now request the moderator to open the floor for question and answers, please. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question- and- answer interactive session for all the participants who are connected to audio conference service from Airtel. Due to time constraints, I would request if you could limit the number of questions to two, to enable more participation. Hence, management will take only two questions per participant to ensure maximum participation. Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star one on their touch-tone enabled telephone keypad. On pressing star one, participants will get a chance to present their questions on first in line basis. To ask a question, participants may please press star one now. The first question comes from Mr. Sachin Salgaonkar from BofA Mumbai. Mr. Salgaonkar, you may ask your question now.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity, and congrats for a great set of numbers. I have two questions. First question, I just wanted to understand, and you guys mentioned about one of your customers, you know, raising funds. So from that aspect, any changes in outlook, of any color you could give in terms of how tenancies and rentals for you guys could improve? And as far as the pending dues are concerned, should we expect some kind of an amount to come every quarter with an interest agreement, or is it that, you know, you might get one-off amounts on a regular basis? And second question is, would love to know your thoughts on outlook for CapEx as well as dividends.
I'll take the first question, then ask Vikas to take the second question on dividends. So on the customers, question on dues and tenancies, to be honest, at this point of time, I think we are currently working with the customers to define, how this is going to work, but we expect our dues to be cleared, right? I think in terms of where and how we are in touch with our customer to do that. And of course, you know, as we, as the dues are getting cleared and the network expansion activities will happen, we expect the tenancies to grow positively. At this time, it's too early to commit on the numbers as we are in discussion with the customer. Vikas, if you want to-
Yeah, sure. So on the CapEx outlook, I think the...
We have seen sort of, almost 3-4 quarters of very strong, tower rollouts. I think the momentum has, not slowed down, so we do expect the momentum to continue for a few more months and quarters. So, from that perspective, I think, there will be, sort of, a high CapEx phase for some more time. On the dividend outlook, I think, as you can see from the results, our, the free cash flow performance for, the FY 2024 has been low, and that is largely because of the elevated CapEx, which in a way is a good thing because CapEx is really for the long-term, growth of the business. It's an annuity business, as you know, so whatever we invest today will certainly give us the cash flow for the next 10 years.
Because it's a long-term contract, I mean, it's always good to capture the business upfront. So, I think this year has been a year of low cash flow. But you know, as Prachur said, I think we are engaging with the customer, and especially after their you know, good development on the fundraise and so on. There is a possibility that our cash flow situation might improve in FY 25, in which case, certainly, dividend will be an important consideration, and our board will take the call at the right time when the time comes, Sachin.
Thank you. Just a follow-up out there. You know, by what time could we get more clarity in terms of, the incremental business you guys are getting or, you know, when the pending dues will, you know, be cleared? Is it a few months or, you know, there could be a risk that this might move on to, maybe a few quarters?
And I think it's again we are working with the customer, so I can't commit a time. But from our point of view, now that the fundraise has occurred, we expect the discussions to happen sooner than later. So I think we are already in touch with them, so we'll keep you posted as it comes. I can't give you a timeframe right now, but it should be quick.
Thank you. All right. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Salgaonkar. The next question comes from Mr. Manish Adukia from Goldman Sachs, Mumbai. Mr. Adukia, you may ask your question now.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you so much for taking my questions. My first question is on your comment around market share, where you mentioned that you've had an increase in market share. Just wanted to understand, this is pertaining to one large customer of yours, or is it at an industry-wide level? What I'm trying to understand is, are you also seeing share across the number one customer also in the industry, is it just safe to, let's say, Bharti Airtel from a market share standpoint? That's one. And the second question on new rollouts from Vodafone Idea post their fundraise, is it safe to assume that most of these new rollouts will be in the form of incremental tenancies, and you are unlikely to need to set up new towers for Vodafone Idea? Just your thoughts on that. Thank you.
So Manish, on the first question, I think the market share comment stands for the entire market. I think, to be honest, all the new tower growth is primarily being driven by the one major customer, right? I think so I would say the market share comment is holistic, so I think whatever new builds have been built in the market, we have taken a larger portion of the share because it's been driven by that one major customer. From a second point of view, I think as I told earlier to Sachin as well, that I think, it's too early to say whether the near rollouts will be new towers or new tenancies and when the view will get clear.
So I think, let us, let us understand what the customer strategy is, and then we'll be able to give you a better position in terms of whether it's going to be new towers or tenancies. So, I think we'll... Once we have that clarity, we'll, we'll come back to you.
Sure. Thank you for the clarity. So just, clarification on the first response of yours. So, from our understanding, last 10 months have also been a period of incremental rollout of 5G for Reliance Jio as well. So, so based on your comments, like, I'm trying to understand, because Jio also would have rolled out a number of towers in last 12 months, and your rollouts are pertaining to only one customer. So how would that translate to industry-wide market share? Just trying to reconcile that.
So I think, Manish, I think there are two separate aspects. One is the new build rollout, which is not driven or which is not that driven by the 5G rollout. There are two aspects of the rollout: One is the 5G rollout, which typically happens on the towers that are already on the ground, so which is comes in form of loading. That happens on the existing towers, so, whether, whichever customer be on our towers, we have rolled out 5G for both the customers wherever we have tenancies. When I'm discussing market share, I'm talking about the new build rollout, which is not directly correlated to a 5G, but a regular rollout which serves the 4G and 2G customers. So I think that's the market share I'm talking about, is the new build towers.
Understood. Thank you so much for clarifying. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Adukia. The next question comes from Mr. Arun Prasath from Avendus Spark, Chennai. Mr. Prasath, you may ask your question now.
Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, my first question is on the, you mentioned that there is a receivables increase, mainly because the collection happened in April. So can you just clarify, isn't this, isn't this the case in the last quarter also? You will do the billing by quarter end, and the collection will happen in the next. So is it a recurring phenomenon or is there anything one-time which has led to the receivable increase?
Yeah. So, Arun, I think, just to sort of, refresh, the memory, last quarter, there were sort of two, two things that happened. We collected, some part of the overdues or the, the backlog, and at the same time, there was an interest adjustment. And as a result, there was, basically an increase in receivables on account of that interest adjustment as well. So, this time, in this quarter, there is basically, there is not much of that interest adjustment. It's more about the collection, which has happened in April. But the implication of that on our provision has been recognized in, quarter four itself. So that is why you see, you know, some amount of, receivables increasing.
But that's only timing, because we have already collected the amount in the month of April.
Okay. Just to get better clarity, suppose your billing is for INR 100, and if the customer is paying, say, INR 105, INR 100 you will collect it, you will count it towards the current invoice and 5 you will reverse the previous provision. Is the direction, is the right way to think?
Sorry, could you just repeat that again, Arun?
So the billing is happening for INR 100, say INR 100, and the collection is happening for INR 105. The INR 5 will be the reversal in the provision. Is the right way to think directionally?
Yes. So anything, which is more than 100%, is basically applied towards the old receivables, for which we are carrying provisions, so that leads to write back of provisions.
Your 100% calculation is on the amount due or the amount invoiced?
Yeah. Arun, I think, basically, this 100% is based on the average billing. So, there are certain nuances in this. I suggest, maybe we can take you through the reconciliation offline.
Sure.
All I want to mention is, in this quarter, we have collected more than 100%, and that has resulted in some provision write back, as you can see in our P&L.
Right. And cumulatively, so far in the last since this receivable issue started, we had provisions cumulatively around INR 5,500 crore. Of that, we have collected around INR 370 crore in this quarter. That is the bottom line, right? And we, we'll expect to collect more out of this INR 5,500 crore in the coming quarters. Is it-
Yeah, so I think broadly, and directionally, you're right. But like I said, I mean, if you want very specific recon of the numbers, we can take it offline. But yes, directionally, you're right, there is a reduction in our provisions. The original number was INR 57 billion. It is now down to INR 54 billion.
Understood. Now, secondly, if you look at the, you are one of the large customer, if you look at the RHP document, which is talking about the, utilization of the funds, it doesn't talk about the, repaying operational vendors like us. It is talking about future CapEx. So where is this, this confidence that we will be able to collect? Is it because it doesn't look like it will be paid through the fundraised? So it has to come from the natural operational cash flows for the customer, or do we have some other, say, way of collecting this?
So Arun, to be honest, I think I would not guess on behalf of the customer in terms of how the overdue will be cleared. I think, we are working with them on how the overdues will be cleared, but where the cash come from, I, I don't think we will be able to comment on that one. So, our confidence comes from the fact that we are engaged with them to see how the overdues can be cleared, and we'll keep you posted.
Okay. Okay, okay. And lastly, on the growth that we are anticipating, because the customer will do more CapEx and expansion. From our side, are all our towers which we have done in the past, does it require some additional CapEx to support the more loading in anticipation of this customer expanding, or that part of the CapEx is done, and we just, our CapEx is more towards the new sites?
No, Arun, I think even if loading based on a site configuration, there may be some CapEx required. So I think there is not a general statement that I can give. It is based on a site-by-site configuration on what is required on the site to provide the additional loading. So I think in some sites may be lower, but some sites may be higher as well. So I think it's a mix.
Yeah, Arun, just to add on to what Kalra said, obviously, every tower has a certain loading capacity, and, you know, with various tenants on the tower, different loading capacities are utilized. So depending upon what new requirement comes from this customer, you know, either we strengthen or a little bit of incremental CapEx or no CapEx could be a situation, but depends upon tower to tower.
Understood. Understood. So all this means that we are kind of nearing peak CapEx and possibility of say the dividend will also be there, given that the uncertainty is more or less now reduced. That's my assumption.
Well, I think for the dividend, Vikas already answered the question. I think, as we said, I think our elevated CapEx remains, and I think we have a visibility for the next few quarters as well, where the rollout momentum will continue. Depending how the overdue clearance or when the overdue clearance happens, I think that will be a discussion that will happen at the board in terms of how we can review the dividend. Thanks.
Okay. All right. Fair, fair. Thank you very much, and thanks for the clarification on this.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Prasath. The next question comes from Mr. Kunal Vora from BNP Paribas, Mumbai. Mr. Vora, you may ask your question now. Mr. Vora, you may ask your question now.
Yeah, hi. Sorry, I was on mute. So my first question is on the average rental per tenant for FY 25. How should we look at that number trending? Directionally, will it be stable or increase or decrease? If you can just tell us, based on, like, whatever renewals are coming up and your expectation on average rental.
So I think ARPT, Kunal, has been fairly stable. I think, except for one factor, which is within our macro also, you know, we have different designs of towers, and as a result, there is a mix impact that we see. And obviously, the new rollout is leaning more towards designs that are more agile and nimble, and as a result, carry a lower rental. So to that extent, there are some minor movements in the ARPT, but otherwise, ARPT, other than the mix, is fairly stable. So no major movement anticipated there.
For the old macro towers, are you, like, seeing some rental escalation every year? I understand the mixed part, that new towers are coming with, like, slightly lower rentals. But for the older towers?
The older towers are basically following the MSA construct, and we have the normal contractual escalations built in. So they go through the normal MSA process.
Which is, what? Around 2.5% annual escalation?
That's right.
Understood. Okay. And on CapEx, I understand you already discussed, but, like, just if you can provide, like, what kind of visibility do you have at any point in time? Is it for three months, six months, one year? So, like, we will get, at the beginning of FY 25, we'll get, like, the orders for 15, 20,000 towers put together, which, like, the key tenant might be willing to add over the next one year. So if you can provide, what kind of visibility do you have for FY 25 compared to FY 24? And also, if the tower addition gets back to the run rate which you had earlier? Which is what you had in FY 21, 22, and 23.
Would the CapEx also come down sharply by like 50%, maybe in second half of FY 25 or FY 26? What kind of decrease we can see as and when the tower addition is moderate?
No, I can tell you that, you know, normally as any company, we, we work with our customers to get a forecast for the year. So I think, what as Vikas mentioned in the commentary, I think the order book looks very strong for the remaining part of the year. So I think the CapEx will remain elevated, for the next few quarters, and by the time the year ends, we'll give you- we'll get more understanding on the customer plans for the subsequent years. So I think FY 25 still remains a high rollout year for us in terms of towers.
Understood. Understood. As strong as FY 2024, or, even stronger, or like if you can provide some color on this?
I think, Kunal, we hope to be stronger, but I think, I think it's, it remains quite...
Understood. Understood. Okay, I won't probe further on that. Last question on, if you can talk about, like, the MOU which you signed with NTPC on renewable energy-based power projects. How does it align with, like, what you are doing and what would be the return expectation?
Yeah. So I think, Kunal, the MOU that we have signed, actually, as I mentioned, one of the key enablers, both in terms of energy, cost efficiency, and our ESG commitments, our plan is to increase the renewable portfolio. And as you know, the Green Open Access policy has been rolled out, and 12 states have adopted it. So directionally, with this MOU, what we are looking at, but not just with NTPC, with other players as well, on how we can, you know, get into an agreement with them on the Green Open Access based on the capacity they have, and how we can get both the arbitrage and improve our carbon footprint. So I think, you know, it's an initial MOU.
We'll see how we can deploy at scale and increase our renewable portfolio, across the board.
Can you help me understand the financial implications? What kind of capital deployment might happen? Whether there'll be any revenue implications, or is it like, not really material from modeling perspective?
No, I think it will impact the cost efficiency. Exact numbers of CapEx and how much will be the cost is probably the next stage of the MOU, right? Depending on which state we deploy, because every state has a different tariff structure, and also the agreement of the PPA price with the players. So I think I can't comment on exactly what the benefit would be, but as we move forward on the next stage from the MOU, we'll be able to go state by state and codify what benefit we'll get from both cost efficiency perspective and the government.
Yeah. So just to add, I think, you know, these are a bit early stage as far as our initiatives on Green Open Access or renewable energy is concerned. So I think the commercials on both sides, you know, on the renewable company side as well as on our customer side, they need to be sort of firmed up, and that's going to take some time. So that's work in progress. So I think in terms of the financial impact and so on, it's, it'll be too early to really call out anything, but as and when we sort of make progress on this, we'll update you.
Understood. Understood. So just like a follow-up on that, like, you had an older initiative you, you were working on Smart City. Like where is that now? I mean, like, over, like, it's been many years now, and we haven't really heard much about it. Is it having any impact at all, or it's not something which is a priority now?
Well, I think, to be honest, Smart City and Green Open Access are not related. But just to give you an update on Smart City, Smart City as a project from the—even from the GOI, Government of India, side as well, has taken a little bit of a backseat. So whatever our commitments were made on the Smart City, we have executed. And whatever revenue, but it's not material enough to catch PI. But I think the Smart City initiative was very much dependent on what the government of India was planning to do. I think that has scaled down a bit. So I think whatever limited we have in terms of our scope, we are executing.
Understood. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Vora. Participants who wish to ask question may please press star one. The next question comes from Mr. Vivekanand Subbaraman from Ambit Capital, Mumbai. Mr. Subbaraman, you may ask your question now.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for taking my question. So I was on... well, that the weak operator has now received. When they expand their network, do they have a choice of expanding their network in terms of population coverage expansion only through lean sites and not through macro towers? That's question number one. Secondly, as far as the overdue amounts are concerned, how should we think about that amount and the aging of that? I understand that there is some amount that is there in the trade receivables segment or reporting, and then there is a there is a balance sheet provision also that has been made. So there has been amounts that are written off. So in your discussions with this operator, how are the payment terms being worked upon, and is there any discussion on the accrued interest as well?
Thank you.
So, Vivekanand, I'll just take the first part. You know, when you say whether they have a choice to do the expansions only through lean towers and so on. See, typically, different types of tower structures have...
... coverage need or a capacity need or, you know, what kind of terrain is to be covered. And since the operator will plan their network depending upon where they want to strengthen their network, I don't think it's one type of structure that would suffice. They would need multiple solutions to bring in that capacity or coverage need, and therefore, to our understanding, different types of structures would be required. We have a full portfolio, so whatever the customer needs to you know expand their network and coverage and capacity, we have all the solutions available to support them and therefore, we are at least fully geared up to do that.
On the second question, Vivekanand, as I answered earlier, I think the terms of payment and the overdue clearance, I think, we are in discussion with the customer. I would, you know, I would share it as, as, as we know more firm answer and as we get the overdues cleared. So I think I can't comment much on the structure per se at this time of time from the winding point of view.
Okay, fair enough. Just, one follow-up on the macro towers versus lean towers point. So currently you have lean colocations of around 11,000, but when you look at the total towers that you have, they are around 2.2 lakhs.
From your vantage point, the lean tower as a percentage of the total portfolio that you have is not very significant, right? So it's maybe just 5% of the portfolio. But as a percentage of, let us say, an operator's network, is this much bigger in percentage terms? Is it like operators now have 10%-20% of their network on lean towers? I'm just trying to understand the other side, so that when we look at the rollout plans of, of let's say, the third operator, now that they have the funding, how to think about the incremental tenancies for you on your macro towers, where you're incurring large amount of CapEx and on the lean towers.
See, let's put it this way, Vivekanand. I mean, as I said, different towers have different capabilities. The macro tower gives a more, a larger height, it gives a larger throw, and therefore, depending upon what frequency they are radiating on, they will need a certain number of towers. They can do a wider coverage through a higher, you know, more height tower. Lean towers obviously have much lower height. They have a smaller configuration, smaller loading capacity, and so on. Therefore, you know, depending upon where they are going to expand, whether it is rural or semi-urban or whatever, typically macro sites are a better solution. If one is just trying to add capacity into a dense area and so on, lean towers is the solution.
As I said earlier, it will clearly depend upon where they want to focus, what pockets they want to densify and grow, and therefore, different solutions for those kind of needs.
Yeah, I think but the portfolio will remain balanced. I think they will need macro and-
That's true.
Lean both.
We've not seen across operators a big swing in terms of lean versus macro. It depends upon where they want to add capacity or coverage.
Fair enough. Just pressing a little bit on the provisions and the receivable from this operator, right? So the way to think about collections from them now is to look at your trade receivable, which is there on the balance sheet, and the amount that you provided for against bad debts, both, right? You are looking to recover. I’m just trying to understand that when you say that you’re confident of recovering this amount, I’m trying to understand whether this includes the amount that you have written off from the balance sheet and the balance sheet recorded trade receivable, or is it just the trade receivable on the balance sheet?
No, you're right, Vivekanand, I think, obviously the recovery will be the gross figure. By the way, I mean, technically, we have not written off any receivables. We have only provided to derisk our balance sheet. But we are very much pursuing the full amount, payment of full amount.
Right. Okay, that is very clear. I think there are some media reports that are perhaps carrying an erroneous number in terms of outstanding. I mean, if you, if you clarify on this, then, then it will certainly help in the general public understanding of how much you can potentially recover from the said customer. Thank you so much.
Yeah, sure. I mean, maybe offline, if you can let us know, Vikash, which media reports you're referring to, we can certainly see how we can correct it.
Sure. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Subbaraman. Participants who wish to ask questions may please press star one. The next question comes from Mr. Sanjesh from ICICI Securities, Mumbai. Mr. Sanjesh, you may ask your question now.
Yeah, thank you. Good afternoon, all. I got a couple of them. First on the ARPT, I know you touched upon it, but a little bit more clarification. This quarter, it was flattish quarter-on-quarter, despite a single tenancy tower going up and we have a strong 5G loading which is adding to the revenue and not to the tenancy. That means effectively, it should reflect in ARPT. But despite both the things, we have a flattish ARPT. I understand that you said there's a change in the mix... But again, is the change so drastic that it is actually driving the rentals are lower than macro towers to an extent that it is pulling even the loading revenue effectively down in the ARPT conversion?
So if I take that, Sanjesh, I think we had sort of tried to explain this event some time back. So basically, in ARPT, there are again a lot of moving parts. So of course, there is a 5G uplift that we see in the ARPT. But at the same time, there is a sort of downward pressure coming from the mix, as I was explaining, because most of the new rollouts that we are doing are low rental rollouts. There is also the element of every month, every quarter, some new tenancies coming up for renewal, and we are sort of following the same framework we had signed with our customers back in FY 2022, whereby we had given them some renewal discounts and so on.
So there is, basically, there are some of these main factors which are creating downward pressure, and of course, the loading is helping us. So the net result is broadly we are seeing a very stable ARPT scenario.
Fair enough. Fair enough. Just one, one more on that. What is the renewal tenancy expected to come up in FY 25?
Well, we have roughly 8%-10% of our portfolio getting renewed almost every year, Sanjesh. So we had a bulk renewal in FY 2022, and thereafter till about next 2-3 years, we have pretty much 8%-10% or 12% coming up for renewal every year.
Okay, so that phenomenon will stay for, say, next another two, three years at least, if not more.
It's an ongoing phenomenon, I would say, because, you know, I mean, typically our contracts are 10 years, and the company has been in existence for longer than that, and every year we have been building towers, so there will be some renewal or the other every year. So it's an ongoing phenomenon.
Got it, got it. And, and this is getting renewed again for the 10 years, right?
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's our-
So the cycle remains very smooth and stable.
Yeah, that's right.
Got it. Got it. Second, on the lean towers, so we have been seeing smaller companies being quite more aggressive on the small cell side, and we have seen numbers being quite strong for some of them. Where are we in this cycle? We earlier alluded that we were focused on rolling out macro sites, so the small cells have for a while taken a back seat, and we were still evaluating the business which you want to establish in the small cell. Now that you expect macro rollout to be stronger even for next two, three years, is it fair to believe that small cell rollouts will remain in the same range as what we are doing today?
Sanjesh, I think, first of all, I think the rollouts for macro will continue, as I said earlier. Now, from a lean tower perspective and small cell, they are two separate things. I think on the lean towers, I think while you mentioned that the smaller companies were waiting, but I think we are, we've done quite a bit rollout on the lean towers this year as well, with close to 4,500, if I'm not wrong, close to 4,500, lean towers in place. So I would, I would expect that we bounce back very strong as far as lean tower is concerned, and we expect to do even better in the coming years in terms of percentage of share manner.
Now, if you talk about small cells or indoor solutions as well, I think we, we were a little bit slow earlier, but I think our plan remains that we be remaining aggressive, while we do macro as well. So it's not macro or, lean towers, it's macro and lean towers, so we remain hungry for the market share for the entire portfolio.
Got it. Got it. Just one last question from my side. Any plans for the new business introduction? We have spoken this earlier. I think you were also intending to do some strategic meet to highlight the path for the industry. Now that we will be generating good amount of cash flow, do we have any more plans to build around any business across the tower?
Sanjesh, as we mentioned earlier, we continue to look at all those opportunities as we come. There are a couple of them that have been currently discussed with the board as well. However, given the fact that the current growth on the towers remains very strong, I think from an execution point of view, the focus remains to grab the market share and to grow the business, and we don't want to divert the focus. From a new business point of view, the time will come when we will need to look at more, and we are currently discussing, and we will bring to you in case we do something substantial on that front.
Fair enough. Fair enough. Thanks. Thanks for taking my questions, and appreciate all the answers. Best of luck for the coming quarters.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Sanjesh. At this moment, I would like to hand over the call to CEO, to Mr. Prachur Sah , for the final remarks.
Thank you, Sunita. To sum up, the year 2023-2024 was exceptional, with record tower additions driven by major customers' network expansion strategies and Indus' role as a trusted partner. Looking ahead, we anticipate to continue the expansion in the near term, further bolstered by the ongoing 5G rollouts. We also look forward to the recent positive developments at one of our major customers there. All in all, we have multiple growth levers in terms of new tower and co-location additions and increasing loading revenues, along with improving collections against the power fees. We are confident in our ability to capitalize on these opportunities in a sustainable manner, given our strong foundation. Again, thank you all for joining the call. Have a good day.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for connecting to audio conference service from Airtel, and have a pleasant evening.
You have been dropped from the conference by the chairperson. Bye!