Thank you, Steve. Hello, everyone. On behalf of IDBI Capital, I welcome you for Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation or IRCTC Q3 FY 2021 Earnings Con Call. On behalf of IDBI Capital, I thank IRCTC's management for giving us the opportunity to host the call. Before handing over the call to sir, with this call being CMD sir's last call, I would like to thank him for this opportunity given to us. CMD sir, it has been an excellent and a very insightful experience every time we have interacted with you. Of course, nevertheless, you have led the company through multiple transitions, which have been visible in the performance, both as regards the company's financials and at the capital markets as well. Of course, you will be missed. We will still thank you, and all the best for your next innings.
From the management, we have IRCTC's CMD, Mr. Mahendra Pratap Mall, and their Director (Finance) and CFO, Mr. Ajit Kumar. I now ask CMD sir to give his opening remarks. Over to you, sir. Mr. CMD.
Hello.
Yes, sir. Over to you.
Sorry, it got disconnected.
Sir, you may proceed with your opening comments.
Good morning, everybody. I wish you and your dear ones a great and safe 2021. We are meeting for the first time in this calendar year. I welcome you all to IRCTC earnings con call for the quarter and nine months ended 31st December 2020. Yesterday, the company had announced the unaudited financial results for the third quarter and nine months financial year 2021, and same have been disclosed on both the stock exchanges. As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted us across all the business segments, and hospitality was the worst affected. We wait on a year-to-year performance. However, quarter three has seen good improvement in revenue and profitability on quarter-to-quarter basis. All the segments apart from tourism have seen quarter-on-quarter improvement in profitability. Even the tourism segment would have seen an improvement, but for partial operation of Tejas trains.
I shall now hand over the con call to our Director of Finance and CFO, who will provide details of Q3 results, after which we'll have a question answer session.
Thank you, CMD sir, and a warm welcome to one and all to our Q3 FY 2021 Earnings Con Call. Let me first give the overview of the financial results, followed by a brief of our performance of each segment. Q3 revenue came at INR 234 crore, which implies a strong growth of 153% on quarter-on-quarter basis, though on year-on-year basis, it is still lower by 69%, impacted by the pandemic, as sir had discussed earlier. EBITDA margin for the quarter touched a new high of 42.2%, versus a loss of 6.3% in Q3 FY 2021, and EBITDA margin of 37.1% in Q3 FY 2020. This was driven by the quarter-on-quarter increase in profitability of the internet ticketing segment and lower loss in the catering segment. Tourism was the only segment we saw quarter-on-quarter increase in loss, but was largely offset by the decrease in losses in the catering segment.
Even the tourism segment would have seen improvement apart from partial operation of Tejas trains. The net profits for the quarter stood at INR 78 crore, versus INR 43 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 206 crore year-on-year. Let me now move to the business segments of the company. The first one, the internet ticketing. Internet ticketing segment generally has the second largest contribution to company revenue. However, due to the effect of the pandemic, it has been the largest segment for Q3 FY 2021 and nine months FY 2021. For quarter three FY 2021, revenue for the segment improved to INR 153 crore, versus INR 58 crore in Q2 FY 2021 and INR 27 crore in Q3 FY 2020. Income from service charge was about INR 95 crore, with 65 million tickets being booked through IRCTC. EBITDA margin for the segment improved to 76.3% versus 58% in Q2 FY 2021 and 55.2% in Q3 FY2020.
Coming to the catering segment. In Q3 FY 2021, revenue for the segment was INR 49 crores versus INR 17 crores in Q2 FY 2021 and INR 69 crores in Q3 FY 2020. Loss at EBITDA level declined to INR 8 crore versus a loss of INR 33 crore in Q2 FY 2021, and EBITDA profit of INR 30 crore in Q3 FY 2020. This segment continued to see the impact of the pandemic and only ready-to-eat meals were in service on the trains, and the pre-cooked meals were allowed for static catering units only. That also for part of the quarter. On the positive side, the pre-cooked meals through e-Catering have been allowed with the SOPs. We may see further improvements. The next segment is the Rail Neer.
Q3 FY 2021 saw a quarter-on-quarter pickup in revenue to INR 17 crore versus INR 9 crore in Q2 FY 2021, though still lower than INR 59 crore in Q3 FY 2021. The current capacity is around 14 lakh liters per day, which will increase to around 15 lakh liters per day by end FY 2020. This will be achieved through addition of plants at Una and Bhusawal. The higher capacity will enable IRCTC to be ready with supply volume as demand normalizes in the future. Next segment is tourism. Of course, tourism segment has been impacted the most for the industry, which is a phenomenon worldwide, and so for IRCTC. While the revenue improved quarter-on-quarter to INR 16.5 crore from INR 4 crore, it is lower than INR 161 crore in Q3 FY 2020.
With lower revenue and partial operation of the Tejas trains, the loss at EBITDA level increased quarter-on-quarter to INR 11.4 crore versus INR 9.5 crore in Q2. For Q3 FY 2021, the CapEx was INR 15 crore, and for nine months FY 2021, it has been around INR 60 crore. The cash on the books as of end of Q3 FY 2021 was INR 1,560 crore with core cash of INR 406 crore. With this, we can now move to the question and answer session.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question you may press star and one on your touchtone telephone, if you wish to remove yourself from the question queue you may press star and two. [inaudible] Ladies and gentle men give it a moment while the question queue assembles
The first question is from the line of Ashwini Agarwal from Ashmore Investment. Please go ahead.
Good morning to all of you, and hope all of you are safe too. Couple questions. How do you see the tourism business evolving in the current quarter and the next few quarters? I believe you're restarting some of your Tejas Express trains with effect from middle of February, if I'm not mistaken. Could you give us some outlook here?
Yes, I'll first mention about tourism. Tejas is slightly different from tourism because Tejas, you can say, primarily is a travel mode. Coming to tourism, we have a wide range from mass tourism to customized tours. Our unique proposition is about this mass tourism by way of Bharat Darshan trains and pilgrimage special trains, whereby we carry almost 7-800 tourists on a sleeper class train to various places of touristic or religious importance, and we take care of everything. This is primarily senior citizens. In this segment, yes, we have made some inroads. In the month of December, we ran two Bharat Darshan trains, which ran to almost 90% occupancy. January, we have already done about three trains, and till end of the financial year, we plan to complete about 14 such tours.
You see, each such tour carries about 700- 800 passengers for a travel of anything between 10 - 14 days. In this segment, we are receiving very good response. In fact, in Lucknow, this last group train which started on 12th, it got filled up within four days.
That means it implies that the fear of COVID-19 is gradually going away, and these are the trains where social distancing and other things are also difficult to, frankly speaking, follow.
People have started moving. We are hoping that by March end, things should improve drastically.
Okay. Sir, any update on the Tejas trains? You started and then you stopped again because demand wasn't there.
Tejas we started in last festive season, that is between Dussehra and Diwali. You recall that was the time when COVID cases were also at peak. We didn't get a viable occupancy on those trains.
Right. After that, the cases have drastically come down. Now we have come down to a level of almost 15,000, 16,000 cases per day.
Right.
Positivity rate also has gone down drastically, barring two states, primarily Kerala and to some extent Maharashtra. This is perhaps a good time to start, and we'll start these trains from 14th February.
Will you be starting all of them, or you will start?
Two Tejas. We run two Tejas and one Mahakal.
Yeah.
Tejas are basically intercity trains. Mahakal is an overnight train. We'll start with two Tejas and then decide about Mahakal also.
Okay. Sir, on the water business, you had a capacity constraint in the past, but there is a significant investment going on right now. You'll get to 14, 15 lakh liters per day, but over the next 12 months, I think capacity is expected to increase, if I'm not mistaken, to 27, 28 lakh liters or something like that. How is the-
Capacity by March end will go up to about 18 lakh bottles per day.
Right.
You see, what happens when any plant is set up, normally during the first year, it runs at about 50%-60% capacity. Once it stabilizes, in second year, it touches a level of around 75%-80%. Third year onwards, it touches anything from 90%-100%, occasionally even more in some cases. Most of our plants were commissioned in last three, four years. Every plant will give us enhanced input. In addition to three plants or four plants which are commissioned during 2021.
Sir, how will the profitability change here? Will you see operating leverage play out? I just want to compare, as you migrate your customers from bought out water to Neer in your trains, I'm assuming that you will sell Neer first, and if Neer is falling short, you will sell a Bisleri or a Aquafina or whatever else. How do the economics from a profitability perspective?
There's a major difference. What happens when some stations and some trains are exclusive Rail Neer stations. As and when our production and capacity and logistics stabilizes, we request Railway Board to declare more and more stations as Rail Neer stations. On those stations and those trains, nothing except Rail Neer is sold. It's only at the stations where Rail Neer is not available, either because of production constraint or logistic constraint, that Indian Railways, I mean, Zonal Railway Administration, it approves various brands which are sold at those stations. Gradually, as and when our reach goes up, we approach Ministry of Railways to declare more and more stations as Rail Neer mandatory stations.
How does the profitability on a per bottle basis differ between Neer and between bought out water?
Bought out water, we have no control over that. We have no accounting for that. We are responsible only for producing and distributing and selling Rail Neer.
Okay.
Profitability obviously depends primarily. Cost-wise, cost of production, there will hardly be any variation. It is basically logistics cost.
On bought out water, you don't take any margin?
No, we don't take any margin. Bought out water is purely handled by Railways. We don't have any stake in that.
Okay. There you don't have any play.
No.
Okay. Unlike the food which gets ordered, where you get a certain-
Yeah. That is the difference. Yeah.
Okay.
Sorry to interrupt, sir.
Yes.
Sir, this is the operator. For the follow-up, sir, I request you to rejoin the queue, please.
No problem. All the best, sir.
Reminder to participants, please limit your questions to one participant. If you have any follow-up, request you to rejoin the queue, please. The next question is from the line of Jinesh Joshi Prabhudas Lilladher. . Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. I have two questions. If I'm not mistaken, in the month of November, some 465 trains were operational. What I want to know is that, what is the current count as of now, and by when is the full capacity expected to fly?
Sir, answer to your question is purely in domain of Indian Railways. November, what you mentioned, 465, I can say there are a lot of festival special trains also running during that period. Right. Currently, we are running about 400 trains. I mean, Indian Railways is running 400 trains, for which we are booking the tickets. This number keeps on changing. Like, in a particular section, if a waiting list has gone beyond a number, then immediately another train is run after that.
Sure. Sir, these 400 trains, what proportion of total capacity do they represent?
It's a very wide question because these 400 trains are primarily mail express overnight and mail express trains, then Shatabdi Rajdhani type train. If you compare it only with mail express trains, then it may be around 60% of the trains. If you compare it with total number of trains, which includes passenger and other trains, then perhaps the ratio will be lower, which may be around 35%-40%.
Sure, sir. Sir, in opening remarks, we mentioned that the convenience fee income was INR 95 crores. Did I hear that right?
Yes. 44.
If I look at the internet booking revenue, that figure was INR 143 crores. If I reduce the convenience fee of INR 95 crores, we have some balance income of INR 48 crores, which has come from other non-convenience fee related charges.
Yeah.
This appears to be slightly higher than what it was in the last two quarters. Has anything changed between now and then?
No significant change. One major thing, number of ticket has gone up. Number of ticket has gone up, so financial charge transaction has gone up. Now, this money comes primarily from the footfall on our website. Number of ticket going up, footfall on the site increases, advertisement potential goes up. Transaction volume goes up. We have some share in that, so that also goes up.
Okay, sir. Got it. One last question. In the catering business, by when will the tariff hike start getting reflected in the numbers? What kind of margin expansion can we expect because of this?
See, catering, currently, we have instructions to serve only ready-to-eat meal, which is on MRP basis. As and when this relaxation for supplying regular meal, which was done pre-COVID, then revised tariff will be effective from that period only. Revised tariff was issued on November, I think October, November end, which was implemented for mail express train, but for Rajdhani Shatabdi, this was to be effective from 20th of March. The moment this relaxation of supply of pre-cooked meal is given, revised tariff will be applicable from that period only.
Sir, margin potential?
Margin potential, if we compare it with pre-COVID period, obviously the margin will be much higher compared to earlier.
Okay, sir. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. A reminder to participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Ankit Gupta from Alchemy Capital . Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Sir, can you tell me the number of tickets booked in this quarter as well as in nine months?
Currently, we are booking almost eight lakh tickets per day. Pre-COVID, we were booking about 9.5 lakh tickets per day.
This quarter.
This quarter, we have booked 5.5 crore tickets. That is 55 million.
Okay. Now we are booking 6 lakh tickets per day.
About 7.5 to eight lakh tickets per day.
Mr. Gupta, sorry to interrupt sir, but your voice is breaking up. We request you to move to a better reception area, please.
Yeah.
Yes, sir.
Sir, as you said, our trains are only 35%- 40% of the total trains. Our tickets have already reached 8 0%-90% of the pre-COVID level. Why is there a discrepancy?
You see, all these mail express trains, they used to have three or four unreserved coaches.
Yeah.
Now, those unreserved coaches have been converted into sitting reserved coaches. Each seat is allotted, each seat is reserved to a particular passenger.
Okay.
Right?
Yeah.
Those tickets are also booked by us now. Earlier, it was part of unreserved ticketing system.
Yeah.
Which was handled by Indian Railways. Now, with the conversion of these seats to 2S class, this reserved booking is done by us. When I mentioned about 8 lakh tickets per day, roughly 30% is from that segment.
Okay. Sir, do you expect that once COVID is out, then these will again be converted to unreserved seats?
I don't think so.
Okay.
Non-reserved will largely be for passenger trains because these are long-distance trains.
I think it will continue.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. Operator, participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question, may press star one at this time. The next question is from the line of Sanjay Bembalkar from Canara Robeco. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, first of all, thank you for your leadership and best wishes for the future. Just one area which I want to probe more, when can we get more clarity on the future leadership for the company, sir?
The government has a procedure of appointing directors, so applications have been called up. The only thing, interview will be held. Maybe another three to four months, things should be clearer.
Thanks.
Thank you. A reminder to investors, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Sujit Jain from ASK Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Mr. Mahendra, good wishes to you and best of luck for your future endeavors.
Thank you, sir.
I have a question on number of tickets. INR 55 crore, INR 95 crore convenience revenue, which means INR 17 per ticket in this quarter?
Yeah, it's approximately 18. You see, we charge INR 20 on sleeper and INR 40 on AC classes. However, for UPI and BHIM, we charge INR 10 and INR 20. Our average realization pre-COVID-19 was about INR 20, INR 20.5, which has recently gone down to around 18 point something, because the share of BHIM and UPI is going up. As I told you, this segment of unreserved, this seating which was there unreserved earlier has been converted into reserved segment. This is the class from which more and more BHIM and UPI bookings are coming.
They will be non-AC?
They are non-AC.
Correct.
Sitting unreserved is non-AC.
Yes. AC tickets as a percentage of the overall book in the quarter would be what, roughly?
Non-AC ratio is about 1/3 , 2/3 . Again, this 1/3 , 2/3 was excluding this 2S category. Suppose 10 lakh tickets are sold per day. Out of that, 3 lakh is this 2S. Out of the balance 7 lakh, roughly 1/3 is AC and 2/3 is non-AC.
The 2S meaning the mail that you just explained.
2S is sitting reservation.
Got it. You are saying 2/3 , 1/3 , 33% would be AC of the remaining 7 lakh. Correct?
Of the remaining INR 7 lakh, yes.
Okay. In Rail Neer, if you can quickly explain the business model. The bottle gets sold at INR 15 per liter. For every bottle that gets sold in Rail Neer, how much you earn, how much comes to your P&L as revenue? How much you have to give the bottler or to the manufacturer?
Most of these plants, they are on the PPP mode, wherein we give them land and we give them the capital support also.
You as in-
What happens, normally we buy this water at about INR 5-INR 5.5. To this, we add GST and logistics cost, and we transfer this bottle to seller at INR 10 for distance within 50 kilometers, and INR 10.50 for distance beyond that. In this entire process, we have a margin of about INR 1.3 per bottle. In addition to this, we get about INR 40 lakh as a license fee from each plant in lieu of land given to them. In addition to this, sometimes you must have seen the labels on the water bottle having some advertisement. That is extra source of revenue.
License fee is per annum, and you will book it every quarter, divided by four.
Yes.
Okay. One quick question is that the OFS has happened. Government stake at 67.40% When will be the next tender of OFS?
It's difficult for me to decide. It's basically Ministry of Finance and DIPAM, when they decide and convey to us, and then we...
No, we understand that. What we're asking is, when is the next that they are allowed with this OFS? Because there'll be a certain cooling- off period in between.
I think two years is cooling- off period for us.
Okay. Sir, I'll get back. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sanjay Kumar from L&T. Please go ahead.
Sir, I wanted to know that when the long-distance trains are going to be established. A lot of trains are still on hold.
It is for Indian Railways to decide, and they are studying the occupancy level at various routes and various trains. Trains are being started in phases wherever demand is there.
Yeah.
There are section where in addition to running all the regular trains, some clone trains are run because there is heavy demand.
Yeah.
We have no control over, frankly speaking, starting or stopping a train except three of our trains. Indian Railways is doing that exercise.
When this Tejas is going to resume, Mumbai Ahmedabad Tejas?
We'll start from 14th February again, both Lucknow-Delhi and Mumbai-Ahmedabad Tejas.
Okay. Thank you so much.
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Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prolin Nandu from GMO. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Mr. Mahendra. Am I audible?
Yeah.
Yeah. Couple of questions from my side. When is this budget that you have mentioned of 7.5- 8 lakh , is it the current run rate or the booking per day?
It is current for January so far.
Okay. In terms of internet booking of the railway tickets, the overall market share was around 75%, 75% was still booked on the existing window before COVID. What is the number right now?
It's around 91%, 92%.
Okay. Once let's say this pandemic cleared out of way, what is it that you think that this number will settle at?
We are hoping that this will sustain at this level, because all of us know the comfort level in booking a ticket sitting at home rather than going to a booking office, standing in queue for an hour and doing all that exercise. Anyone who has once seen the convenience, I don't think they will go back to window again. We hope that this ratio, this percentage, this market share will continue. At the same time, we also know that a certain percentage will always be there on window, because there is a basic difference in the nature of ticket bought from window and bought online. If somebody has bought a ticket from window and he is waitlisted, and he boards the train, he is authorized passenger. He is not treated as ticketless traveler.
Whereas with online ticket, with this e-ticket that we give, if somebody is in waitlist and he travels on the train, he is treated as ticketless traveler, and he is charged penalty accordingly. A small segment of passengers, those who have to travel by any means in any case, he will buy ticket from window then even with waiting list, he'll board the train because his main objective is to reach the destination.
Got it. Sir, last question is that, we get so many hits per day on our portal. We have such a rich customer database. What are the plans apart from advertisement to monetize that data?
Somebody asked the question, I think before that, with a calculation that INR 95 crore is from ticketing revenue and non-ticketing, non-convenience fee was about INR 45 crores. We are doing all out efforts. Out of that INR 45 crores, roughly INR 7 crores, INR 8 crores, maybe INR 10 crores will be from advertisement. The rest is from this type of efforts which you are mentioning. And we are executing more and more projects for monetizing the footfall.
Sir, in terms of the potential of monetizing the footfall, where are we? Are we 20% there, 30% there? Just a rough number, if you can put a number to it.
It is very difficult to define.
Sure.
At least 100 of people have approached me that I'm sitting on a goldmine, and somebody say this potential is INR 500 crores, somebody say INR 5,000 crores, but nobody comes with a concrete listing how to extract the gold from the mine. It's an unknown potential, frankly speaking. Whosoever comes with any concrete proposal, we allot him. Go and do it.
Understood, sir.
Success rate there is not more than 10%-15%.
Okay.
If you have anything concrete proposal, you are most welcome.
Sure. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Nihal Jham from Edelweiss. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you so much. Sir, just one question from my side. I just wanted to know what could be the proportion of tickets that are booked via the UPI and the BHIM route and discount that you're offering, does that have a definite period after which it'll get over, or it's going to be permanent in nature?
See, BHIM UPI booking earlier was in the range of 15%. Now it has reached about 22%-23%. There is no definite period, but we can always change it. Discounts given is, as I mentioned in reply to one of the queries, that for non-AC,INR 20 and AC class is INR 40. For BHIM and UPI, it is INR 15 and INR 30. For BHIM and UPI, it is INR 10 and INR 20.
Do we have a plan of wanting to conclude this discount anytime soon, or that's a call we'll take later?
We'll take later.
Okay, sir. That's all just from my side. Thank you so much.
The next question is from the line of Manish Poddar from Nippon India AIF. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Just some few questions. One is, can we talk about the CapEx for FY 2022 and 2023 in terms of both the capacity CapEx and the CapEx which you were intending to invest in this?
We had planned for about INR 150 crore for all the projects. Now see, we have virtually deferred the CapEx by one year. Especially this CapEx on internet ticketing segment. We got all the licenses renewed by a year and deferred it by one year. Hotel CapEx also, because there was delay in finalization of bids. So far we could finalize the tender only for Khajuraho. There are some issues with Kevadia hotel. Virtually, you can say that entire CapEx is deferred by one year.
Okay. Would you be able to let's say with airline ticketing in quarter three versus quarter two, how many tickets should we have booked, let's say, on multiple quarters overall?
5,000 tickets per day is the current volume. Quarter three it was around 3,500.
I'm sorry.
Currently it is 3,000. Up to quarter two it was around 3,000. There is a growing trend in that.
Okay. Just one last one. I could be wrong, but have you launched the miles program or when is it expected to launch?
I think within this financial year it is expected to be launched. We are doing the technical integration for that.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dharmesh Kant from Art Ventures. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, sir. Congratulations on a very good set of numbers in the given environment where there were many challenges. I have two questions. First one is on the convenience fee. What's the outlook going forward? Is there a likely chance that this fee can be revised upward? The second one is, this quarter the margins were exceptionally high. When the things are normalized, assuming that, FY 2020 kind of operation is back to where it was in FY 2022 and 2023. Is this margin sustainable going forward? I mean EBITDA margin.
See, your answer to your first question is, currently we have no thinking about increasing the convenience fee because our current margins and revenue is good enough to take care of company. Your second, obviously it's a matter of simple calculation that once the operation normalizes to pre-COVID level. In all segments you see, ticketing because of number of tickets going up, in catering because of increase of tariff, tourism also by increase of volume. Obviously it's a sheer calculation that will tell you that EBITDA margin will go up if operation normalizes to pre-COVID level.
Just EBITDA margin will go up from where it was reported in Q3 FY 2020. This quarter EBITDA margin is likely to go up forward on normalization of operation. That is what you are saying.
Q3 onwards it will improve quarter by quarter because there is a growing trend.
Okay. That's terrific. That's great. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Ashwini Agarwal from Ashmore Investment. Please go ahead.
Sir, just in the past, what was the kind of full capacity number of tickets being sold on a per day pre-COVID compared to the 7.58 lakh number that we have now? What was that at the peak?
See, there may be exceptional days of peak when even 15 lakh, 16 lakh tickets are sold, but pre-COVID-19, if you take a broad average, it was about 9 lakh tickets per day. Currently, even with around 40%, 45% of the trains running, we have reached a level of 8 lakh tickets per day. This increase is contributed largely by conversion of unreserved seat into reserved seats in Mail Express trains. See, each Mail Express train runs with about four to five unreserved sitting coaches. All the seats in these coaches have been converted into reserved seats with a new class of 2S, second sitting.
Yes, sir.
This unreserved ticketing has now moved to reserved ticketing and we are beneficiary. Currently, the figure which I mentioned about 8 lakh tickets per day, roughly 30% is contributed by this class 2S.
There were two drivers for you. One is the shift from unreserved to reserved because this 2S class came in, and second is your 75%, 78%, 91%, 92%.
In future, what is going to happen, more and more AC coaches will be put into service.
Right.
Instead of sleeper. This will be another growth driver because for every AC berth, your realization, your revenue is almost double.
Just to confirm, the charge for a sleeper is INR 20, for AC is INR 40 per ticket, and for 2AC.
INR 15 and INR 30.
INR 15 and INR 30. For 2S also you charge INR 15 or it's a lower number?
INR 15.
INR 15 only.
Okay.
Thank you, sir. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Sure, thank you.
Next question is from the line of Susmit Patodia from Motilal Oswal Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. My first question. What is the user base now and what are the number of active users?
Total database is about 6 crore. Active users is about 5 crore. Daily new registrations are about 25,000 users per day.
Okay. Sir, second question is the no-run period or the agreement disagreements you're having with Indian Railways. How much is the amount?
This is for Tejas train you are mentioning?
Lease charges.
Lease charges for that.
From first April to third October.
The lease charges for that and fixed haulage, it'll be around INR 14 crore for both the trains.
INR 14 crores.
Yeah.
Okay. Sir, last question is with respect to this interest coming down, will it include pension or gratuity?
No.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much and all the best.
Thank you. Urmil. Is Urmil listening?
Yes, sir.
Urmil. I have some other fitting engagement. Now Mr. Ajit Kumar, our Director of Finance and CFO will reply to all the queries. Please excuse me, and thank you, everybody.
Sure, sir. Thanks for your time.
Thank you. We move to the next participant. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Sujit Jain from ASK Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
I just had a query. In the beginning, when we actually had this ticketing platform, who delivered that and what was the cost?
Ticketing platform.
Yes.
We started right after this internet ticketing. It started in 2013, and from there only this journey of this convenience fee and the service charges just started. In the one time also this was as a digital promotion, this was taken away also. Of course, we were compensated. After that, the Ministry of Finance and as well as the Ministry of Railways have given this authority to decide this list of the convenience charges to which we termed as a convenience charge. From 2018, 2019, we are charging this around INR 15 and INR 30. For UPI and BHIM, of course, it is discounted around INR 10 and INR 20.
Hello?
Seems like we lost the connection from the current participant. We move to the next question from the line of Tushar Bohra from MK Ventures. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity, sir. Just quickly checking, I'm not sure whether this was covered earlier. I would like to understand when the dedicated freight corridor comes in over the next couple of years. Structurally, what are the positives that we could see for the passenger trains and in turn for IRCTC across the different lines of business?
Yeah. The DFCCIL, when it will start to operation, it already has some of the segments already started. Once from end to end it starts, then we'll have the capacity and then those passengers, because there is always a gap between demand and supply. The demand is more. That means the more number of passenger trains will be running and DFCCIL will also offer its track and all that, maybe, or whatever charges. Indian Railway will run more passenger services. The number of the quantum number, the lift will be there of the number of passengers. Most probably, what we told that in the COVID time, around 90% of the booking is by the online ticketing. This is the number of magnitude of passengers will increase.
The volume will increase, and then we intend to benefit from that because of the more number of bookings. More the convenience fee for the internet ticketing. As well as catering also, because catering another segment, Rail Neer also another segment. Whatever the services which we'll offer apart from internet ticketing, the catering, then Rail Neer. All these things we intend to benefit, so that will be beneficial to us in the long run.
Sir, it would be fair to assume that with the dedicated freight line and passenger line, the overall train speed should move up and therefore, your travel times-
Yes, very correct. Now there's almost saturation in the route. Once this is freed, the capacity will be more, and the trains will be run at a higher speed. Of course, with more number of the end-to-end services, the trains will start running. That's the part of the projection. That is our prediction also.
Behaviorally, is it a good assumption to make that as your travel time shorten significantly, for shorter distances, the tendency would be to go for external catering a lot more in percentage terms?
It all depends, because one is, if you see the geographical location of India. There are both end-to-end long-distance trains, one night, two nights, and all that. Of course, there's the type of trains with the intercity. Both will increase, the volume will increase, the number of passengers will increase. This is not that there will be a real shift immediately from the train to road ways. For example, from Delhi to Lucknow, or let's say from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. Already, the roads are in a very good condition. The people have their own cars and all that, but still railways are also running the trains, and we are running the private trains, Tejas trains, that is from Lucknow to Delhi and Mumbai to Ahmedabad, and we are running on profit.
Except for this COVID-19 times, of course, when we had to stop due to the low occupancy. Normally, there is a good profit.
Sir, one last, if I may quickly squeeze in. I would like to understand your three-year vision or outlook for what are the non-core services today, but which have more optionality. Like having your own wallet or the payment gateway or insurance and things like that. If you could help us understand, is there any optionality, significant profit optionality in any of these? Are you looking for that for the next three years?
Yes. Payment gateway, of course, we are very serious. We already have iPay, iMudra. In current state, there's a license we have to take it from the RBI. The board has already passed and we are applying for that. Then also we would like to, One of the great movers here in the payment gateway segment, and we will try to have more number of Maybe many of the state governments do not have this payment gateway, so we want to cater to that. Of course, then we keep on expanding as the demand. I guess that will be one of the more non-core areas which will give the good profit margin in the years to come.
How about the wallet service?
Wallet service also. The same. We are serious on both. We already have the iMudra. We are trying to get into the market, and already if you see the percentage of the revenue. This is one form of the core data for internet ticketing and the non-convenience fee also. We have the co-branded card and there's the proposal on SBI. We intend to get something from here from ad, something from this wallet, something from the payment gateway, something from the co-branded card. These are all the segments which we'll keep on adding up to our revenue.
The co-branded wallet, do you intend to build this as an offering beyond railways as well?
Yeah. Of course. That is the intention. This is one of the features because we have the database, and if you see, we are the only one who have the authority to book the tickets online for the Railways. We have been given this license for the air ticket also. If you see this, we are having the lowest service charges for the air tickets. Those passengers who want to have a flexibility of this Railways as well as tie-up with the journey through the airways. We are the one who can provide a very good solution. Of course, the last end connectivity and all that we are trying to fix up. This will increase only.
Sure. Thank you so much, sir.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Priyank Chheda from Standard Chartered Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Just wanted to understand the update on railway privatization agenda and how IRCTC is going to participate or benefit it.
You see, this Government of India for the first time has come out with the tenders for the running of the private trains. These are around 150 trains will be there and 10 clusters are there. We are serious bidders because we are the only entity apart from Indian Railways, we have the experience and expertise to run private trains. We already run, of course, timetable trains, two Tejas trains, and one overnight is Mahakal Express we run. Apart from that, of course, the tourist trains and all that, this Maharajas' Express and all that, we have the experience of running. We are very serious here. Also out of 11 clusters, 10 clusters we have qualified on our own. One of the clusters we could not qualify because of net worth and all that, because of stringent criteria. Out of 11, 10 we have qualified.
Our expert team or the consultant expert team in-house, they are on job. Indian Railways have deferred this, what you said, this bidding for the next two months. We are very serious on this, and we are active participant and active player in this field. The way in which we have seen some Tejas trains, because you see, in India, the passengers, mobile, what you say, the highest passengers, they want to pay, but they want a good service. In the Tejas trains, though our fare is slightly 10%-15% higher than the Indian Railways. If you will be surprised to know that from Mumbai, 30 minutes before our Tejas and 30 minutes after our Tejas, the two trains of Indian Railways are running, and we are established between them, and we are still running profit from day one.
We had thought earlier that from one year after, two years or something like that we will break even. Whatever the slight publicity, slight marketing, day one we started on the break-even and a profitable segment. Then day by day, the occupancy increased, and we also started taking the feedback from the passengers, and we tried to take it to level. You'll be surprised to know the level of service, level of food, and level of catering, and level of whatever the cleanliness, hygiene, and all that, it is better than airlines. This is the comments of those passengers. Therefore, there is definitely a big amount of passengers who want to pay slightly higher but want premium services, and we are ready to cater to that.
Sir, detailed answer. Sir, just to add on this discussion, do we plan to add more Tejas trains? Tejas trains will be our focus or participating in the privatization agenda solely or which railway would be our focus?
Tejas train, this has to be decided by the Ministry of Railways. We have asked for it. We don't know the response to the Ministry of Railways. Maybe that if the private trains are running in operation, they may not give the license for more Tejas trains. That is up to them. We are open for both because there is a real demand and supply gap and between a few sectors, there's so much of the waiting list and all that. We are ready for both. We are geared for both. We are already in the talk of this regarding this private trains, how this lease financing and the rakes and all that we will take. Private trains also, on Tejas trains, we are open. We are open for both.
Whatever is a company, whatever profitable, we will take it. According to us, both are profitable ventures.
All right. Sure. Thanks, sir. Just last question, sir, on the latest segment.
Sir, sorry to interrupt, but for any follow-up requests, could you join the queue, please? Thank you. Next question is from the line of Agam Shah, Individual Investor. Please go ahead.
Most of my questions are answered. Just a follow-up, I wanted to comment again. Just sir commented that for AC compartment, an opportunity might open up. Can you just elaborate on that? I missed your point on that.
Yes. Please repeat your question slightly. Please be clear what exactly you want the answer.
For the AC compartment.
Yeah.
I think what is the opportunity there? Something you had said about that. That's why I missed the point there. Can you just-
AC compartment, I don't think that we have. Right. Just a minute. What you see, as of now, the internet booking convenience fee, it is INR 15 for the non-AC and INR 30 for AC. Now, suppose that this number as a trend is like this, that more number of AC trains will be there, more number of coaches will be there. Certainly the revenue that is the convenience fees will increase from INR 15- INR 30. In the spectrum also and magnitude also. We stand to gain by the more number of AC coaches.
Okay. Got you.
Okay?
Yes. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. Participants to ask a question, may press star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, in the time constraint, that was the last question. I now hand over to Mr. Hemal from IDBI Capital for closing comments.
Thank you, Steve. Thank you everyone for logging in for the call, and have a good day ahead. Thank you everyone.
Thank you.