Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Nirav, the moderator for this conference. Welcome to Indus Towers Limited first quarter ended June 30th, 2026 earnings call. For the duration of the presentation, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. After the presentation, the question and answer session will be conducted for all participants on this call. In case of a natural disaster, the conference call will be terminated post an announcement. Present with us on this call today is the senior leadership team of Indus Towers. Before I hand over the call, I must remind you that the overview and discussions today may include certain forward-looking statements that must be viewed in conjunction with the risk 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, sir.
Thank you, Nirav, and a very warm welcome to all participants. Joining me today are my colleagues, Mr. Vikas Poddar, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Dheeraj Agrawal, head investor relations on the call. Today, I will present our business performance for the quarter ended on June 30th, 2026. Rollout momentum remained healthy during the quarter, supported by continued network expansion by our major customers and movement of their expired tenancy portfolios to Indus. We continue to maintain leading share in our customer deployments, resulting in significantly larger tenancy growth than our peers, driven by strong execution, service reliability, and technology-led operations. Before I delve into our performance, I would like to recognize the dedication and commitment of our field teams. Despite operating in some of the country's most challenging conditions, they delivered exceptional resilience, enabling timely connectivity along the Amarnath Yatra route.
They also maintained network continuity adversely in flood-affected Arunachal Pradesh through swift restoration efforts, proactive planning, and strong local coordination. On the regulatory front, as I had mentioned earlier, the ROW Rules 2024 have now been implemented across India, which will continue to benefit in seamless deployment of telecom infrastructure. Regulatory developments in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Delhi further strengthen the green energy open access framework, expanding renewable energy adoption opportunities for telecom infrastructure. I would like to call out the unparalleled support from the government and regulatory authorities for ensuring fuel availability for the industry, despite restrictions imposed on account of West Asia conflict. This helped us maintain uninterrupted operations. Moving to 5G networks. As per the latest report from TRAI, 5G subscription base in the country grew by 36 million in Q4 fiscal year 2026, totaling to over 427 million.
The rising adoption of 5G is driving the demand for creating infrastructure to support the user experience. This is resulting in consistent 5G deployments by operators taking the installed base of 5G BTS to 563,000, up by 32,000 in Q1 fiscal year 2027. Operators continue to focus on network densification and capacity augmentation to support rising data consumption and evolving use cases. We believe this will sustain investments in network expansion and support loading-led growth. We are well-positioned to capitalize on the growth opportunity through our expansive tower footprint and long-standing customer relationships. Data consumption trends continue to remain robust, reflecting the deepening integration of digital services into everyday life. As per TRAI's latest publication, the total data consumption and average monthly data usage per user during Q4 fiscal year 2026 grew by 31% and 20% year-on-year respectively. The shift towards 5G networks has further accelerated this trend.
According to TRAI, 5G usage alone grew 87% year-on-year, accounting for 43% of the total data traffic in Q4 fiscal year 2026, up from 30% in Q4 fiscal year 2025. These trends reinforce the need for sustained investment in network capacity augmentation, deeper coverage to meet rising customer demand, enabling growth opportunities for us. In terms of operational performance, order bookings remain strong from our major customers. We added almost 3,100 macro towers and 4,200 corresponding co-locations during the quarter, resulting in a year-on-year growth of 6.3% and 5.1% in tower and co-location base respectively. As a result, the total macro tower and co-locations stood at around 267,600 and 432,300 respectively.
Our industry-leading tenancy ratio was stable at 1.62x. Including lean towers, we ended the quarter with approximately 446,300 towers. Let me provide an update on our key KPIs. Making our network green and eliminating diesel usage is central to our strategy.
We added solar access to about 3,700 sites during the quarter, taking the overall site count with solar access to about 46,000. We believe that there is significant runway to solarize our tower portfolio. Diesel consumption on our sites has seen a reduction of 13% year-on-year in Q1 fiscal year 2027. This is achieved despite growing co-locations and continued network loading at our sites. I want to underscore that all of this is delivered while maintaining network uptime and customer experience. Our network reliability remains robust with an uptime of 99.955%. I will now provide an update on our key strategic pillars: market share, cost efficiency, network uptime, and sustainability. On market share, we have further strengthened our position with the customers, captured a healthy share of their network expansion, and movement of the existing expired tenancies to Indus.
Our performance is underpinned by dedication of our people, strong execution by our partner ecosystem, and resilient operating processes that help navigate supply chain disruptions while maintaining high standards of safety and quality. During the quarter, we further expanded our product portfolio with integrated IBS and build-to-suit hybrid solutions designed for large residential and commercial complexes, metro and railway stations, tunnels, highways, and marquee government establishments. These differentiate offerings have enabled us to further consolidate our leadership position and enhance our ability to address evolving connectivity requirements across a wider range of infrastructure use cases. Cost discipline remains a core pillar of strategy and deeply ingrained across the organization. Leveraging data intelligence and standardized operating frameworks, we continue to drive structural improvements in site rentals, supply chain efficiency, infrastructure costs, and partner management.
Digital interventions are driving operating efficiencies in many ways, including improved field force productivity, enhanced network reliability through predictive maintenance, automation of manual processes, et cetera. Our efforts have started to deliver tangible outcomes. We believe that there are opportunities available to drive significant efficiencies. Energy management is a key focus area from both a cost and sustainability perspective. During the quarter, we accelerated renewable energy deployment, expanded battery modernization initiatives, and further strengthened digital energy management capabilities, contributing to a 13% year-on-year reduction in diesel consumption. In addition, we have undertaken an ambitious program to replace diesel-based operations across a large portion of our sites with lithium-ion battery banks. This quarter was constrained as battery supplies were impacted due to ongoing geopolitical disturbances, but we expect to pick up steam on this project in the coming quarters.
On CapEx optimization, we have launched an internal platform aimed at simplifying tower design and site planning for our tower engineering teams, which will support the efficiency agenda. Our top priority, network uptime, remains fundamental to the reliability we deliver to our customers. It is a critical measure of service continuity and operating excellence. By strengthening visibility across the network and enabling faster, more precise field interventions, we are enhancing site availability, improving response quality, and building a more resilient operating backbone. This has resulted in year-on-year improvement in network stability. We have continued our ambitious digital operations transformation program that remains a key enabler for network reliability and operating efficiency. Leveraging telemetry, IoT connectivity, AI-led image analytics, reporting automation, and leading workforce management application of Xtelify from Airtel Digital Services.
The ambition is to turn Indus into a technology-driven enterprise, setting industry benchmark on how to operate distributed assets at scale. These capabilities are driving measurable improvements in workforce productivity, service assurance, energy. Coming to ESG, our commitment to sustainable growth and inclusive development continues to translate into meaningful outcomes. As part of our decarbonization strategy journey, we have expanded our renewable energy footprint solar deployments during the quarter, reaching an installed base of 259 MW. We also continued scaling up energy storage solutions to reduce diesel dependence and lower our carbon footprint. On the people front, our employee-centric culture was recognized with the prestigious 13 Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award. We further strengthened our safety agenda through the launch of a campaign focused on enhancing material handling practices across our operations. In CSR, we remain committed to positively impacting 150 million lives by 2030.
During Q1, our flagship programs, Saksham Pragati, along with Bharti Airtel Foundation, touched approximately 12 million lives across education and skill development, diversity and inclusion, digital literacy, health and hygiene, and community development. Our flagship initiative, Nari Samman, which promotes health and hygiene, touched 11 million lives in Q1, reaffirming its impact and success. Our annual ESG assessments and targeted capability building initiatives continue to help foster a more resilient, responsible, and sustainable value chain. I will now talk briefly about our Africa foray. Our progress is on track as major milestones have been achieved. We have now received regulatory approvals and operating licenses across all three target markets, Nigeria, Uganda, and Zambia. I'm happy to share that we have secured orders from our anchor customer, placed key supplier orders, and initiated partner onboarding process for network operations.
Rollouts are expected to commence in the next quarter and scale progressively across markets. We see an opportunity to create a strong foothold underpinned by our core strengths, high-quality service, delivery speed, reliable network operations, and cost-efficient infrastructure deployment. I would now request Vikas to take you through our financial performance for the quarter ended on June 30th, 2026, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, and over to you, Vikas.
Thank you, Prachur, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to present our financial results for the quarter ended June 30th, 2026. The customer network expansion activity remained healthy during the quarter, supporting a steady financial performance and continued strong cash flow generation. Talking about the financial performance for quarter one of fiscal year 2027, gross revenues grew by 4.6% year-on-year to INR 84.3 billion. Core revenues from rental were up by 5.2% year-on-year to INR 53.7 billion, supported by addition of both towers and co-locations by our customers. A major customer continues to expand its footprint after resuming its network expansion in 2024. On a sequential basis, our reported gross revenues and core revenues grew by 4.1% and 1.2% respectively. A 9.5% quarter-on-quarter increase in energy revenue aided the gross revenue growth, driven by seasonality-led increase in diesel consumption and increase in diesel prices.
Moving on to profitability, reported EBITDA was up by 3.0% year-on-year and 1.2% quarter-on-quarter to INR 45.2 billion. The EBITDA margin was lower by 1.5 percentage point year-on-year and 0.9 percentage point quarter-on-quarter, at 53.6% in quarter one. Please note that in quarter one of fiscal year 2026, there were write-backs of approximately INR 0.9 billion relating to collection of overdue receivables from a major customer. Adjusting for this, our EBITDA grew 5.2% year-on-year.
Our energy margin was - 4.6% in quarter one, compared to - 3.6% in quarter four and - 4% in the corresponding quarter last year, primarily reflecting seasonal factors and the impact of past period settlements. Encouragingly, our diesel consumption reduced by over 13% year-on-year, supported by digital energy management initiatives, fuel monitoring systems, solar deployments, and lithium-ion batteries. We remain focused on improving energy efficiency and strengthening margins through continued transformation of our energy management practices.
Our profit after tax was up by 0.5% year-on-year and down by 2.7% quarter-on-quarter to INR 17.5 billion. Adjusted for the aforementioned one-offs, our profit after tax grew by 4.8% year-on-year. The sequential decline primarily reflects a lower tax charge in quarter four last year, resulting from year-end tax adjustments. Our return metrics remained healthy, with pre-tax return on capital employed of 25.4% and post-tax return on equity of 18.9% over the last 12 months. Free cash flow remained robust at INR 14.4 billion during the quarter, reflecting healthy operating performance and disciplined capital allocation. To summarize, we delivered a resilient financial performance during the quarter, supported by continued customer rollouts, disciplined cost management, and robust cash flow generation. We also made progress on our Africa expansion strategy and remained on track to commence rollouts within this calendar year.
As supply chain conditions improve, we expect deployment activity to accelerate and support execution of our order book in the coming quarters. With that, I'll now hand it back to the moderator to open the floor for questions, please. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. First question is from the line of Vivekananda Subramanian from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. The first one is on the rental income growth versus the growth in co-locations. I see that whether one looks at it on a year-on-year basis or sequential basis, the rental income growth is mirroring co-locations growth. Just to understand this better, there is a 2.5% escalation. I understand that there is revenue equalization accounting. You also have renewals that come up every year, which implies that the 2.5% escalation, even after revenue equalization, translates to some revenue growth. I just want to understand from you, why is it that the rental revenues are not growing much faster than the co-location growth? That's question one.
Secondly, when it comes to your engagement with Airtel you have many synergies, one of them being the foray into Africa, the second one being the insourcing of towers by Airtel, and the third one, obviously, Airtel wanting to purchase more stake in your company. Just trying to understand better on each of these three points, how Airtel is thinking and what are the markers here on. Thank you.
Maybe the first one. Go ahead with the first one.
Thank you, Vivekananda, for the question. I think you're right. See, as far as the rental income is concerned, of course, the biggest source of growth is the expansion in the tower and co-location. You are correct that the next source of growth is the escalation that comes in. What happens is First of all, the growth from escalation or the growth from, let's say, 5G loading, et cetera, are much smaller compared to the growth that is driven by the co-location and the tower additions. Two, I think there are basically drags within the revenue rental line in the form of, let's say, whenever we have renewals, we do have to give the discount on renewals as per the framework agreed.
The fact that the revenue equalization, because the first set of bulk renewal had happened back in fiscal year 2021, fiscal year 2022 financial year. A lot of them are actually reaching a point where the revenue equalization is also sort of dragging the growth a bit, because we are almost in the fifth, sixth year of those towers. Everything put together, I think broadly what you see in the numbers is basically a growth number that is closely mimicking the tower and the co-location growth. Somewhere the escalation and loading-led growth are sort of offset by the revenue equalization as well as the renewal discounts.
On the second question, if I understand the question correctly, you're saying is how is Airtel synergies adding value, right? You mentioned a couple of points, I'll probably just touch one or two on them. From an Africa perspective, where the value that is getting created is, as we are expanding in Africa, from day one, we have an anchor tenant. That fundamentally enables us to confidently expand, knowing that we are first tenant on the tower, which in other case, we would have to look for a tenant. I think that is enabling us start up much faster in Africa. Secondly, there's enough leverage in terms of the experience being present in Africa for us to be able to expand.
I think synergies, where it creates value for both, I think are being looked at, and we are looking to see how we can maximize the advantage of those synergies. Similarly, from our Indus Towers perspective, we have seen the growth that has happened over the last three, four years, where we have expanded at a significantly large pace in terms of our tower additions. Which has also created opportunity for us to be present in a large part of India, and have a room available for a second tenant as well. I think that is how we are leveraging the synergies to create a maximum value for both Indus and our parent company. I don't know if that answers the question. That's what I thought.
Sure. Just a couple of follow-ups. Number one, there is some insourcing by Airtel, which is allowing you to add towers at a faster pace than the overall tower footprint expansion for Airtel. I just want to understand if this is actually a very good strategy, because if Airtel were to exit from a rival tower company, then surely the non-Airtel customers may also then look to exit or ask for more discounts than what you have been providing. Because like you said last time, the Jio contract is still not renewed. I'm just trying to understand this better. Is the insourcing really helping you? Because you may currently have a tower currently which is, say, two tenancy or three tenancy.
For Airtel, when you, let's say, build a new tower where it insources the network from third-party tower co to your company, could there be a possibility that you may lose out on the second customer on an already existing tower where Airtel is already present? That's what I'm trying to understand.
No, I'm not sure how would that lose a tenant, because at the end of the day, see, for us, when we are adding towers, honestly speaking, we don't look at whether it is coming through an insourcing strategy or not. I think our strategy is very simple. If we have an order book from a customer, we execute. The strategy belongs to the customer in terms of whether it's moving a tower or creating new tenancies. I don't think there is a net loss of tenancy because of this strategy anywhere for us. I think it's reflected in our numbers as well. I think if you look at the numbers that you've seen in the last few quarters, it is reflective of that. I don't see a risk as far as that strategy is concerned at all.
Okay. Sure. That's great. The last one, which I was asking on Airtel, was with respect to the stake purchase that they were doing. Are there any conditions or is there anything that you would like to discuss in that regard, which will help us understand Airtel's intent with shareholding in Indus?
No, I think it's a discussion that you would have to have in the Airtel earnings call rather than with Indus.
Vivekananda, it's a shareholder matter, basically. It is absolutely their decision. There's no condition attached. It's very difficult for the management to comment on this.
Okay. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from line of Manish Adukia from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. My first question actually is just a follow on Vivekananda's question, and also to your comment that part of your growth was driven by moving of the expired portfolio of one of your customers to Indus. Wanted to just understand it a bit better. Is that now largely done or basis whatever visibility you have, that as a driver could still continue in the foreseeable future? If you can maybe just add some more color to that, please. That's my first question.
Manish, to be honest, I would not like to comment on the breakup of the growth itself. What I can say very clearly is for the next foreseeable future of the next three, four quarters, we have a very strong order book, which is a combination of network expansion and moving of towers of tenancies. I think all I can comment on is that we still have a very strong order book for the next three, four quarters. In the previous quarter, the initial part of the quarter was slightly impacted with the geopolitical situation, where we fell because the tower manufacturing got impacted a little bit due to the LPG shortage, which has now been recovered. I think we continue to have a very robust order book, and we'll continue to expand, whether it's through network expansion or movement of towers, as the case may be.
Very clear. Thank you for answering that. Second question, again, just a quick clarification on your earlier comment on energy margins. When you said that energy margins were partly also impacted due to past period settlements, can you, again, maybe explain that a bit better as to what do we mean by that?
Manish, I think, that's basically the major impact is from seasonality, but there are basically certain settlements that do happen with a time lag. We have had, let's say, some settlements during the quarter, which pertained to last financial year also. As a result, there has been some impact. But these are basically much smaller. I think the bigger impact comes from the seasonality.
Given, let's say, the history in recent quarters and years, is it safe to assume that generally you will have a 1H where energy margins will be weaker and as we approach 2H, those should get better directionally?
Yeah. That's the nature of the business because we basically end up consuming a lot of diesel during the 1H, first half, simply because of very heavy monsoons and so on. We do face a lot of weather disruptions. Second half is usually better. That's been the nature, and you will see that pretty much in most of the years. That's the phenomena that we have been facing. At the same time, I just want to sort of also highlight that, while we do have these impacts coming from diesel, but the fact that we are also trying to transform our entire energy operation, focusing more on renewables as well as batteries and so on, I think that will help us reduce our dependency on diesel going forward, in the forthcoming years.
From that perspective, I think we should be able to sort of mitigate a lot of these seasonality impacts, maybe a few years down the line, but currently that's what it is.
Very clear. Maybe just last question on Africa, since you've called out it now, roll-outs would come in starting next quarter. Would you be able to provide any more color and visibility in terms of, one, let's say from a 12-month perspective, what could the incremental tenancies from Africa look like? From a near-term perspective at least, at a group level, could these Africa roll-outs be margin and return dilutive, or do you have enough visibility on at least margins and returns being around where group level margin returns are? That's my last question. Thank you.
I think, I'll answer the first question. Maybe returns part, Vikas, you can comment on. I think as far as the numbers of tenancies and towers is concerned, I think I just want to say this is something that we'll start picking up in quarter two. Since we follow a practice of industry-leading disclosures, the numbers would come as it becomes material, and you'll start seeing the disclosures happening accordingly. You want to comment on the margin?
See, Manish, I think as far as the financials are concerned, I think first of all, let me just explain that we are still working through the MSA and the rate cards and all the commercial arrangements. One of the objectives for Indus to sort of be in that market is also to generate more efficiency and more value, for all the operators, and not just Airtel as an anchor, but for all the operators in the market. While we are in that phase of discovering and finding those sources of efficiency and basically try and reduce the both CapEx and OpEx cost per tower, I think, as we sort of stabilize and as we become slightly more matured in that, I think that's when we will start sort of seeing more stability in our financials.
Currently it's a lot of moving numbers, we are still discussing MSA and rate cards and all that stuff. A bit of a early stage for us to comment on the financials and the returns. Maybe few quarters down the line we'll be more clear about it.
Got it. Just a clarification on that comment. As of right now, we are working with one anchor tenant, do we, in any of the three countries, have any visibility, let's say from a 12-month perspective, where we may also have a second tenant? Right now it's just too premature to have that visibility on maybe a potential second customer?
I would not say one way or the other. I think what we are doing is, as we are establishing our ground presence and we have an anchor customer, we are engaging with the other customers as well and creating a value proposition for them. I'm sure as we expand, that opportunity will be there from growth. I cannot say whether it's going to be 12 months, 15 months, or three months, but that's an opportunity that we have in mind as we expand the footprint.
Very clear. Thanks a lot. Thank you for answering my questions. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rishabh Dhancholia from HSBC. Please go ahead. Rishabh, can I request you to unmute your line and proceed with your question?
Yeah. Hi. Sorry. Thanks for the opportunity. Appreciate all the clarity around Africa business. Since we are planning to roll out next quarter, even though we are not discussing the group level impact, is there any indication on the unit economics? Like what is the cost, expected CapEx per tower or expected lease rental per tower? If anything can be shared on those lines. Secondly, if you could have more color on the order book from India. What proportion of incremental tendencies in last three, four quarters are actually coming from Vodafone Idea, and how should one think about the order book going forward, especially given Vodafone Idea is still working on its capital raise. Any comments around that would be appreciated. Thank you.
I will first talk about the India part, and then maybe we'll touch base on Africa. On the India part, as we mentioned earlier, I think the order book remains strong, and you've seen the results that we have shown in Q1 rollout, where Q1 was slightly impacted by the tower manufacturing in the initial part due to the West Asia conflict, which has now been resolved.
Given that situation, you've seen the rollouts that have happened in Q1. I know for a fact that our order book remains strong, and I think the momentum that we have seen in Q1 would be maintained or improved as we improve the tower supplies. I think that's the visibility I can give you, that we have a strong order book for at least the next three, four quarters that we have visibility on. As it evolves, we'll keep you informed. What was the question on Africa?
The unit economics.
The unit economics. I think the unit economics of Africa, as I mentioned earlier, we will follow the practice that we have followed here as well, that we'll keep having quite a transparent disclosure on this one as we finalize things. As Vikas was mentioning, we are currently finalizing the terms of the MSA and everything. Let us have that visibility, and once we start rolling out, we'll have clear disclosures on what the margins et cetera from Africa will be. As of now, not like to comment on the numbers per se as such.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Sachin Salgaonkar from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for the opportunity. I have three questions. First question, just wanted to better understand the visibility on the order book, what you guys are having. Is it contingent on one of your customers raising capital or irrespective of whether capital is raised or not, there is a good visibility on order book? The related question was clearly, as Prachur you indicated, there were certain supply chain disruptions which happened at the start of the quarter. The geopolitical issues still continue. Are the supply chain issues largely behind us or we might see some impact of that in future as well?
Sachin, the visibility of order book, as I mentioned earlier, we have visibility of the order book that is firm for the next three to four quarters. As I mentioned earlier, we have seen the orders coming through in Q1, and we have delivered that. I think that order book stability is there irrespective of what the funding situation is. As far as supply chain issues are concerned, I think there was some reconfiguration done by the suppliers in terms of how they manufacture towers and how the LPG impact was mitigated. I don't believe from a supply chain perspective, tower supplies would be a constraint to deliver in Q2. Unless there is some event that happens, which we are not currently aware. As of now, for quarter two, we don't believe supply chain will impact the tower growth.
There is some impact on the battery supplies, which we believe will start recovering from August, but that is not impacting the tower growth. We have the material available for delivering new towers, as per the order book. I think the supply chain disruptions from a tower supply point of view is behind us. I think that's one thing.
If I may just add some perspective on the order book, Sachin. I think broadly, we track the numbers very closely. For all our customers, we basically also ensure that whatever their expansion plans are, we are able to garner the bulk of the market share from them. That is what we keep tracking. We have sort of successfully been doing that with bigger portion of the market share.
Got it. A follow-up to that, as tower additions were a bit slower in 1Q. Now that the supply chain disruptions are behind, we should see the tower addition normalize to your historical growth going ahead, right?
Historical growth is relative on how far in history you're looking at. I think, as I said, I think Q1 initially, April, I don't think Q1 full quarter was impacted. Initially, in April, we had some impact of the tower supplies, which is behind us. I think the tower growth will be there as per the order book. Exact numbers. I think we'll see how we deliver and monitor supplies. In Q2, typically, sometimes we are impacted in some states because of the monsoon situation as well, due to waterlogging, et cetera. I think that may impact a few states in terms of their growth. I think that number keeps fluctuating a little bit in terms of what is the on-ground situation.
From an order book perspective and the delivery, I think the order book is strong, and we'll try to maximize the delivery in the coming quarter itself.
Got it. My second question is regarding Africa. While in three countries we get a sense that your MSAs are in place. Any sense now in the kind of investments what are expected to be made out there? This is also in sync, I presume these investments are relatively much smaller, so I presume we should expect a continued stable dividend payout framework, and it is unlikely to be impacted because of this entire Africa investment program, right?
I think I would like to answer the dividend question first. I think as we have mentioned earlier, that the board is committed to distribute dividend and distribution of cash to the shareholders in one form or the other. That will continue. I think Africa is a long-term strategy, and it is not one or the other. I think dividend is a separate track, and it is going to be. I think board is committed to distribute the FCF, and it will not be impacted by the Africa expansion. I think that's the one part. As far as the numbers of Africa is concerned, as I mentioned earlier, that as we start deploying, and we'll follow the practice of full disclosure as we've been doing in India, and you'll start getting a hang of the numbers very soon as far as Africa is concerned.
Thank you very much. Sachin, I'll request you to come back for a follow-up question. Next question is from the line of Saurabh Handa from Citi. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. Two questions from me. Firstly, on exits, we've noticed that the trend, at least on a year-on-year basis, is largely stable at around 300- 350 range. It's down quarter-on-quarter. Could you talk a bit about this? I'm guessing this is business as usual, but given that with one of your tenants you have previously spoken about tenancies coming up for renewal, any further updates on the discussions on that front?
No. In fact, if you see in this quarter, the performance was quite good. We have put some specific efforts as well in business as usual to reduce the churn by making sure we have proactive renewals and we stay engaged, because typically we have a lot of operational churn that happens. I think, we maintain the operational rigor, so it's as usual. As far as the tenancies and renewals, it's a constant discussion with the customer, but we continue to maintain high quality of service, we have not seen any major or disproportionate churn happening from any of the customers.
Okay. That's great. Thank you for the clarification. The second question was actually just to follow up on one of the earlier questions on Africa. You did say that the CapEx in Africa will not impact your free cash flow and distributions. Essentially, are you sort of clarifying that it would be the India free cash flow, which will be used for distributions to shareholders, and Africa CapEx will be separate? It could be debt-funded or whatever, but that will not influence your distributions in India.
Saurabh, let me clarify year that. I think first of all, as far as Africa is concerned, while we are not able to share any numbers at this stage, but directionally, I think we are not really, in the context of the CapEx that we spend in India, the numbers are not going to be very, very big. The initial years, one or two years, will have CapEx, which will be moderate from the overall India perspective. Second is, basically even that CapEx and investment, we are actually anticipating largely debt-funded investments in Africa. To that extent, I think the India free cash flow, we really don't expect Africa business to impact that much. As far as the distribution policy is concerned, I think that cash will still be available, and we will see how the board decides going forward.
Certainly there is a complete mindset of a steady and progressive dividend going forward as well.
That's very clear. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Bineet Banka from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi sir. Thanks for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. Firstly, on the CapEx per tower, if I divide the growth CapEx for this quarter with the number of tower added, the number which I get is around INR 39 lakh per tower. According to my understanding, the standard CapEx for a typical tower will be around INR 20 lakh- INR 25 lakh. What explains this divergence between these two numbers? The second question is, do you have any sense of what percentage of Vodafone Idea tenancies came to Indus versus what it used to be historically?
Bineet, on the first one, I just want to give a very high-level answer, then maybe I'll request you to get in touch with us offline for more detailed understanding. Broadly, within our CapEx, there are various things. There are basically replacement and maintenance-related CapEx. There is CapEx on solar, there is CapEx on batteries and so on. Simply dividing the total CapEx number by the tower rollout will not be the right way of looking at it. We can walk you through the details, maybe offline, so that you have a better understanding of our CapEx. Coming to VIL, I think, we cannot disclose customer-wise information. Like I said, we are certainly very focused on garnering the bigger portion of the rollout plan, and to that extent, we have been successful so far.
I don't really see any major issue as far as the market share is concerned.
Just more follow-up on VIL. There was news around BSNL and Vodafone Idea possibly tying up the towers. Is there any risk to Indus losing some of those tenancies to BSNL towers?
I cannot comment on the speculation for such news. What I mentioned earlier and what Vikas reiterated, we are currently securing a larger share from all the customers that are rolling out, we'll continue to do that, and that remains our target and focus.
Thank you. Bineet, I'll request you to come back for a follow-up question. Next question is from the line of Sanjesh Jain from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity. I've got a couple of them. First on the tenancy sharing ratio, we have been tracking it below the current tenancy sharing ratio, 1.37x in this quarter, which is not helping us to draw a bit faster. It's because of the relocation demand or the insourcing of Airtel. Given the portfolio of the order we have for next three, four quarters, does it show a trend where we can actually improve the tenancy sharing ratio? That's number one. Number two, on the piece of rental, what we have spoken, that's not growing probably. Are we adding a lot of tower in rural, which may come at a lower price than the urban towers, considering the land rentals are very different? Number two, there is also additional tenancy sharing, which is happening there.
The combination of portfolio is one of the reason why we cannot see the entire 2.5% or the rental remaining flattish on a year-on-year basis. That's number two. Number three, this battery CapEx, which we are doing to improve the energy efficiency or this entire effort of energy efficiency, and the investment we are doing is largely to reduce the energy losses. Considering in the fixed fuel pricing era, which we had earlier, where we used to make the margin, how does this CapEx covers the ROC profile? These are the three questions.
What was the first question?
Tenancy sharing ratio, 1.37x.
Yeah. I think, to be honest, I would not look at tenancy ratio on a quarterly basis like that. I think it's a portfolio as it expands, and it is not an impact of either relocation or a thing. I think it's what the market is today, right? I think at the end of the day, we have to look at the macro picture of the industry and what the tenancy ratio drives it. If you look at the absolute tenancy ratio of Indus today, it is still one of the leading tenancy ratio across the world, from a portfolio perspective. In a three, four customer market, I think there is a certain amount of tenancy ratio that is achievable, and we will continue to do that and do better than that. Vikas, you want to add something?
Yeah. Sanjesh, I just wanted to add a perspective here. First of all, I think for the last two, three, four quarters, you are seeing that our co-location addition is outpacing the tower addition. As a result, our incremental tenancy ratio is in the range of 1.3x, 1.4x, thereabout. Maybe it is not close to the basic tenancy ratio of 1.6x, but it is still very healthy compared to what we were seeing, let's say, two years back or even 1.5 years back, when VIL was not really adding too many tenancies or co-locations on our base, right?
From that perspective, I think it is an improvement. Two, we basically had explained this earlier also when we were rolling out a lot of towers, that towers are a long-term infrastructure. They are basically a 20-year, 30-year cash flow business. Rolling out towers, even with single tenancy in the beginning, really helps us create that runway where the second tenant or the third tenant can come in the future, right? From that perspective, I think it is clearly a growth path for us going forward. I would not really worry too much about the 1.37x for a couple of quarters. Let's look at long term.
How does the portfolio look like in the order book? The ratios will continue to remain in this range or s ee quarter- to- quarter.
Yeah, we'll see quarter- to- quarter, but like I said, we do expect the co-location additions to continue to outpace the tower additions going forward. Of course, this is subject to the capital infusion of one of the customers, is VIL, but we do really see that trend should continue.
Second is rental flat.
I think the second is about the ARPT or the rental per tower per tenancy. Now, Sanjesh, I've explained this in the past also. I think one is we really don't use that metric too much to judge growth. There are basically five, six moving parts which impact the ARPT. Of course, as you rightly pointed out, the mix of the towers is clearly one of them. Obviously the towers, the heavier structures that we used to build earlier, the legacy towers, commanded a higher ARPT or rental.
The different designs or the leaner designs that we are doing now commands a lower rental. To that extent, obviously there is a mixed impact, which basically offsets any uptick from the escalation and so on. I would suggest let's not read too much into this because there is renewal discount, there is rural versus urban, there is different leaner structures and so on, which impacts this. There's not just one thing. There are five, six things that really have a play here.
From an even projection perspective, now that we are telling that our tenancy will outpace tower, that in a way tells that the ARPT will remain under pressure, right? Because additional tenant-
Exactly.
Won't come.
Exactly. Yeah.
That's the way to think, right?
Yeah, that's the way to think. It is basically, we need to think about the operating leverage, because any additional tenancy gives us very heavy operating leverage, right? That's the benefit that we are looking at.
No, that goes without saying. Just from a modeling perspective, now that we have a clear visibility in order book, that's the way to think, right? For the ARPT.
Yes.
The third question was on the battery CapEx. Let me explain the strategy a little bit so you can infer what it is. In energy, I think what the battery is supposed to do is to replace the diesel variable cost, because diesel is not the right way to operate, whether it's ESG or whether it's financials, either ways, right? What battery does is they actually kind of converts in the total scheme of things, we are converting an operating OpEx to a CapEx-based decision, which is long-term. Right? How the financial model works with the customer is eventually, we get paid for diesel, and we get paid for the battery. I think that's how it is going to be. From an Indus perspective, I think the revenue would still be there.
I think it's just going to come in a different form when it comes to battery. I think that was the question. It is not a battery CapEx at our cost. I think the customer would adequately compensate us for putting an infrastructure, and that is the nature of the infrastructure business.
Thank you. Sanjesh, shall I request to come back for a follow-up question? Next question is from the line of Kunal Vora from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Firstly, can you update us on your diversification plans, if any, besides Africa business? In the past, you were exploring smart cities. In between, there have been news reports you looked at EV charging infrastructure, data centers, fiber, like quite a few things have come out. Are you considering any diversification, or would you focus only on towers in India and Africa?
Yeah. I think we've explained this earlier as well. I think whatever POCs we did on that front, I think we have made a decision that as of now, today, in front of us, Africa represents the largest opportunity outside India and outside the tower business of India, and that's what we are going to focus on. Then any opportunity that comes, which will create value, we'll keep you informed as the case may be. As of now, the focus remains to grow in India, both in lean towers, IBS, in terms of putting the telecom infrastructure in the different buildings, metro stations, railways, I think. Those kind remain our primary focus. Africa, of course, is the tower expansion that we'll do. That's what is on the table, and that's what we are focusing on.
Okay. Secondly, on Africa, what will be the pricing strategy? Are you offering a discount versus the established players in the market? Would you break even if you have a single tenant, or are you assuming multiple tenants in your business? Please, if you can help us with some sense on how you're pricing.
I think I will not go into specifics, but in terms of the structure, how it works is, I think it is not always that we go to look at a market price and give a competition. It is a function of what is the cost per tower, what is the returns we want to generate, whether it's a single tenant, double tenant, triple tenant. I think, even for a single tenant, we have a return expectation from our investment, and that is going to be the strategy. We're not looking at a strategy which is based on what is in the market without looking at what the investment is.
The solution is what we invest, what returns we want to command, and what value we can add to the customer by making a tower, which is the reasonably cost tower, and that even at a healthy return, we are better than the competition on what we can offer to our customers. That's the broad strategy. I would not comment on specific numbers, but that's the broad strategy, that even at a single tenant, we expect a certain amount of return from our investment.
Would you cover the cost of capital with a single tenant, or you will need a second tenant to cover the cost of capital?
We will be covering the cost of capital even with single tenancy. Then, as the second tenancy comes, obviously, there'll be the advantage of operating leverage.
Understood. Okay. That's it from me. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Aditya Suresh from Macquarie Group. Please go ahead.
Am I coming through clearly?
Aditya, your voice is not clear.
Okay. Let me try again. Prachur, I had a question for you. You've spoken about multiple growth areas. Would it be at all possible to condense that down to a revenue growth outlook over the next few years? Should we be thinking about similar, let's say, 5% as what we have seen over the past three years, five years? Or do you see an acceleration in that pace of growth? Any color there would be appreciated. That's one. The second is, on your energy reimbursements. Here, the under-recovery has been meaningful, right? Like this quarter, I appreciate seasonality comments, but 4.5% now. Last year, was it 4%? The previous year it was 5%. Despite the seasonality comments, it's not really reversed. Could you speak about that trend too? Thanks.
Yeah. As I mentioned earlier, I think because we can't make any forward-looking numbers to you, I think what we can tell you is in terms of the order book. The order book remains robust for the next three to four quarters. That's the visibility I can give you on growth. As we deliver every quarter, I think because the similar discussion happened in the previous quarter. As we deliver every quarter, we'll continue to establish that this robust order book is actually getting converted to delivery. At any point of time where the order book weakens or we feel that there is a slowdown, we'll be first ones to inform you. As of now, I think the order book remains robust, and we'll continue to deliver on that.
The execution may get impacted because of monsoon or something here and there, broadly speaking, I think the order book remains strong. As far as energy margin is concerned, as you yourself pointed out, I think the margin has been fluctuating a little bit. It saw an improvement this quarter. If you look at what Vikas had mentioned earlier, there is a slight deterioration compared to last year first quarter, as you mentioned, as the year improves, as the weather improves, we will eventually recover some of the deterioration that we have seen on account of seasonality and the settlements that we have done over last year. I think that's where we are. I think it's something that we are constantly looking at improving. We have made significant progress as far as diesel cost reduction is concerned.
As I told you that the long-term strategy that we have undertaken now to fundamentally eliminate diesel from the ecosystem, that will take a little bit of time because that fundamentally requires to redesign our sites and deploy those solutions at the sites. Over the next few years, you'll see a significant traction coming through on that front that will fundamentally improve the site performance. That's what I can comment as far as energy margin is concerned.
The line for the participant dropped. We move on to the next participant. Next question is from the line of Arun Prasath from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My basic question is on our maintenance costs, some of which we are capitalizing, some of which is appearing in the OpEx as well in the P&L. Can you just clarifiscal year what is capitalized and what is immediately expensed during the quarter?
Basically, this is done as per the accounting standards, Arun. For example, any battery or diesel generator that gets replaced at the end of life is a CapEx for us. As per the accounting standard, if there are, let's say, tower maintenance expenses, which are in normal course of business, like maybe replacing a few nuts and bolts here and there, or carrying out some maintenance activity on the ground, then those are basically normal business as usual maintenance activities, and hence they are expensed out. We follow the accounting standards here.
Right. In the last five quarters, if you see the maintenance CapEx that got doubled.
Arun, sorry to interrupt. Can you speak a little louder, please?
Yeah, sure. Hopefully, now it is better. What I was asking is, as a follow-up to that first question, is that the last five quarters our maintenance CapEx has doubled on a quarterly basis from roughly INR 250 crore to now around INR 500+ crore. This is mainly to replace the DGs and the batteries. At some point of time, this should stop and revert back to INR 250 crore. Is that the right understanding?
Yes, Arun. If you recall, some time back, we did mention about our strategy to migrate or transition from the lead-acid batteries to lithium-ion batteries or to basically more new-age batteries. As a result of that strategy, I think there is a very large base of lead-acid batteries that we use. I think somewhere those replacements are showing up in the INR 500 crore number that you were talking about. I think that transition journey will continue for some time, and after some time, we should see a moderation. Really can't tell you numbers, but directionally, we should see a moderation.
I think the one thing to note is these lithium-ion batteries have a different life cycle compared to lead-acid batteries. While the upfront CapEx may seem a little bit higher, however, over the period of the life of the battery being longer, the overall TCO and the CapEx outflow will eventually reduce because it will take a larger timeframe to reduce a lithium-ion battery than a lead-acid battery would do.
Are you at least done with the half playthrough or just the beginning of the
I think it's a longer-term strategy. We have a very large portfolio, we are taking precaution in terms of not replacing any battery which is not due to be replaced. It's a replacement cycle that is being followed. I think if you look at our portfolio of 260,000 towers plus another 20,000 linked towers, that's a significant portfolio. The journey will take a little bit of time, but it is the strategy that we are going to stick to.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, we'll take that as the last question. I'll now hand the conference over to Mr. Prachur Sah for closing comments.
Thank you. I believe that the company is strongly positioned to capitalize on the ongoing digital infrastructure expansion in India and large growth opportunities in Africa. Our ongoing investments across technology, sustainability, and customer service are strengthening our competitive position and creating a foundation for long-term growth and value creation. Before I close, I would like to thank Vikas, our Chief Financial Officer, for his outstanding leadership and lasting impact on Indus Towers. Under his guidance, Indus Towers achieved significant milestones in terms of how we perform financially and delivering better results for the shareholders. We are deeply grateful for his contribution and wish him very best for the future. Thank you.
Thank you, Prachur. I take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to all of you for your support and engagement over the last five years. I've truly enjoyed our interactions across various forums, and I'm grateful for the insights and perspectives you have shared along the way. My stint at Indus Towers has been quite fulfilling, and your continued interest in the company has been an important part of the journey. Thank you once again, and I wish you all the best for the future.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you, members of the management. On behalf of Indus Towers Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.