Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the IRCTC Q2F1-2026 earnings call hosted by Dolat Capital. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero, or your touchdown phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Gadda. Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Dolat Capital, we welcome you all to the Q2 FY2026 earnings conference call of IRCTC Limited. I take this opportunity to welcome the management of IRCTC, which is represented by Mr. Sanjay Kumar Jain, who is CMD of the company; Mr. Sudhir Kumar, who is Director of Finance and CFO; and also we have today with us Shri Rahul Himalian Ji, who is Director for Tourism and Marketing; and Mr. Manoj Sharma, Director for Catering Services of the company. Now I would like to hand the conference over to IRCTC management to take the proceeding forward. Over to you, please, Sanjay Ji.
Thank you, Rahul Ji. Good afternoon, everyone, and a warm welcome to the IRCTC Limited earning call for the quarter ended September 30, 2025. The company announced its financial results for the second quarter of financial year 2025-2026 yesterday, and the same have been filed with both stock exchanges. I will begin with a brief overview of our quarterly performance, after which our Director of Finance and CFO, Mr. Sudhir Kumar, will take you through the detailed financial and segment-wise analysis. We will then open the floor for questions. We are pleased to share that Q2F1-2026 has been a stable and profitable quarter for IRCTC, underscoring our strong operational fundamentals and sustained business momentum. The company reported a profit after tax of INR 342 crores, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 11.04%.
This growth was primarily driven by robust performance in our internet ticketing, catering, and tourism segments, supported by operational efficiency and disciplined cost management. EBITDA for the quarter stood at INR 404 crores, an increase of 8.31% year-on-year, with an EBITDA margin of 35.25% compared to 35.05% in Q2F1-2025. The improvement in margins demonstrates our continued focus on cost optimization, operational excellence, and revenue diversification. Revenue from operations for Q2F1-2026 stood at INR 1,146 crores, up by 7.71% from INR 1,064 crores in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. This growth was broad-based across all business segments, reflecting steady demand recovery and our ongoing efforts to enhance service delivery and digital capability. We believe that IRCTC's consistent performance reflects its resilient business model, strong brand equity, and customer-centric approach.
Our strategy remains focused on strengthening our digital ecosystem and expanding new-age offerings, enhancing operational efficiency across business verticals, leveraging technology for better customer experience and scalability, and exploring emerging opportunities in tourism, hospitality, and value-added services. Looking ahead, we remain confident of sustaining our business growth trajectory in the coming quarters, supported by our strong financial strength, efficient operations, and commitment to delivering long-term value for all stakeholders. Thank you very much. I will now hand over the call to Mr. Sudhir Kumar, Director of Finance and CFO, for a detailed discussion on our financial and segmental performance. Thank you.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you and your families are in good health and high spirits. I'm pleased to share with you a brief overview of IRCTC's financial and operational performance for the second quarter of financial year 2025-2026, along with a comparison on a year-on-year basis. This will be followed by a question-and-answer session. During the quarter, profit after tax stood at INR 342 crores, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 11%. Our total revenue for the quarter stood at INR 1,209 crores, which is 7.5% more than the corresponding year of the previous year. EBITDA for the quarter rose to INR 404 crores, an 8.31% year-on-year increase. EBITDA margin also improved to 35.25% in comparison to 35.05% previous year. Improvement of EBITDA demonstrates IRCTC's successful cost management and operational efficiency. Now, I come to segment-wise highlights. Internet ticketing.
Internet ticketing segment continues to be a strong revenue and profit driver for the company. Revenue from this segment stood at INR 386 crores, marking a 4% growth on a year-on-year basis. This growth clearly proves the IRCTC's leadership in digital marketing. Currently, 89.24% of total reserve tickets of Indian Railways are booked through our online platform. This segment is the most profitable, with an EBITDA margin of 85%. When it is compared to last year, it was 81%, and it clearly reflects our improvement in efficiency. Catering. Revenue from the catering segment stood at INR 520 crores, showing an 8% increase on a year-on-year basis. The EBITDA margin for this segment remained broadly stable at 13% compared to the same previous year. Catering continues to be a steady and dependable revenue stream with consistent growth potential. It is further supported by growing passenger volume and customer-centric service initiatives.
Now, I come to rail needs. Rail needs segment reported revenue of INR 91 crores, representing a 4.6% growth on a year-on-year basis. EBITDA margin of this segment remained stable at around 10%, similar to last year's same quarter, and reflecting sustained operational efficiency and strong brand acceptance. Now, I come to touring. The touring segment has delivered a very robust performance with a revenue of INR 150 crores. It is 20.97% up on a year-on-year basis. This growth is particularly noteworthy given the temporary disruptions caused by geopolitical factors during this period. The EBITDA margin of this segment further improved to around 7%, against a negative margin in the same quarter as previous year, reflecting successful cost rationalization efforts and better business mix. Overall, the second quarter performance reflects IRCTC's resilience, strategic focus, and operational excellence.
The company's diversified business model, strong digital backbone, and disciplined execution continue to position it well for sustained growth in the coming quarters. Now, I conclude my remarks. Now, we will now open the floor for question-and-answer session, please.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one, or get touched on 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. The first question is from the line of Sucrit Patil from Eyesight. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, team. I have two forward-looking questions. The first question is looking beyond the quarter numbers. What is the bigger plan for IRCTC? As digital platforms, tourism, and catering evolve, how are you planning to build a lasting edge beyond just ticketing growth or catering contracts? Is there something deeper that the company is planning that will make your competitors hard to copy your model? Thank you. That's my first question. I'll ask the second question later on.
Thank you, Mr. Patil. I'm happy to tell you about our bigger picture. You see, we are already making our road for two major activities. One is our payment aggregator business. We have already got in-principal approval from RBI on 4th of August, and we have been given time to submit our proposal application for license, acquiring license finally. So that we'll be able to submit, say, in the month of by the end of January. And the second, and this business appears to me as one of the future leading businesses for IRCTC. The other big plan for IRCTC, besides its normal business, is unified travel portal. Here, we are aspiring to give a travel solution through a unified portal. And by making this portal, we aspire to cross-sell the products to our existing customers and to the additional customers. So here, we will improve our UI/UX.
We'll use AI/ML and Ajit Kumar's AI. And we will facilitate the passengers. We'll make their experience very nice. And that's our plan.
Thank you. My second question is regards to margin and cost planning. When cost rises, whether it is catering inputs or IT investments or any compliance issues, how do you make sure the margins stay ahead without slowing down growth? Is there any system that you have built or you will be building which will help you keep the profits in line even when things are getting a bit un—you cannot foresee certain things coming in the future? I want to hear your view on this. Thank you.
You see, in that scenario, you have only two ways to do these things. First is you increase your price or you increase your volume. So we believe in increasing our volume because in most of the sectors, we are known for our delivery at affordable prices, be it our tourism product, be it our catering products. All our products are designed to gain from the volume and not from hiking the price. Like we are selling at INR 15 rain layers. We are selling catering meals, full meals at INR 80. So all these things are affordable prices and getting volume. Thank you very much.
Thank you for the guidance, and I wish the entire team best of luck for Q3.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jinesh Joshi from PL Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, I believe prepaid catering is now available in the Amrit Bharat trains. So was this 7% growth in catering that you saw attributable to that? And also, if you can clarify whether all Amrit Bharat trains will operate on that prepaid model or not, and how many trains are we currently servicing right now?
You want to know how many Amrit Bharat trains we are serving now, or you want to know overall trains we are serving?
Currently, how many are we serving? And if you can also tell us what can be the universe over here.
The whole universe today, it is 1,318 trains. And out of which, around 15 Amrit Bharat trains we are serving. At the moment, none of the Amrit Bharat trains we are running on prepaid model. But yes, the policy is out. Of course, this will give us a good gain. But we are putting our system in place to take up this work.
If I remember—yeah, yeah. Thank you, sir. Thank you. So if I remember right, earlier, our universe was somewhere around 1,500 trains, and our reach was at about 1,300 trains. And now you mentioned that additional 1,380 Amrit Bharat trains will come up. So does that imply that our universe doubles or basically how to think about it? Because yeah, yeah.
I could not get your question. Please repeat it again.
Sir, our current catering reach is 1,300 trains, right?
Sure.
Right? And you mentioned that additional 1,318 Amrit Bharat trains are something which will come up in the future. So does it imply that the—
No, no, no. Currently, we are running currently all trains put together, mobile services we are providing in 1,318 trains. And only 15 trains are Amrit Bharat trains.
Oh, understood. Understood. And how many more Amrit Bharat are about to come was my question. How big is the universe?
The universe is quite big, but exact number you can get only from Ministry of Railways.
Thank you. Okay. And secondly, just one small clarification required on the cluster-based contracts that were awarded sometime back on quite the two-year basis. So these new contracts, I mean, are all of them now hitting our P&L, and we are accruing revenues at right prices, or some of them are yet to hit our P&L?
No, you see, there is a mix of cluster trains and SBD trains and temporary trains. You see, we have given contract on cluster trains which have been already awarded where we got the tenders through. And in those trains also, when the SBD trains anew will expire, those trains will be converted into cluster trains. And there are certain trains which could not be pulled in the cluster. Those trains we are running on a temporary basis. So all three types of trains are still working.
Thank you. I will take this separately. No problem. But sir, one last bookkeeping question. If you can share the number of tickets booked for the quarter and the convenience fee, and also the share of UPI transactions.
Yeah. Total tickets during this quarter booked is INR 13.55 crores, and UPI share is 49.81%. And convenience fee share is INR 252 crores.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Just I would like to understand about this exceptional item which has been announced in this particular quarter related to the Tejas Express train. If my memory serves right, is it related to the reduction request that we have made towards certain charges for turning the wake? Please give me clarity on this same. And is there anything more to happen here? Thank you.
Yeah. This exceptional item is because of the discount we got from Indian Railways on the holiday charges of Tejas Express. This is INR 5.8 crores. Thank you. What's your next question onto that?
Yeah. So and this holiday charge now, since this has been aligned, so the reduced rate is what is applicable to us for the current fiscal onwards?
Yeah, yeah. The same rate is continuing. No.
And any color we could get on this Tejas Express? Is it making profit at this point? And any utilization? Any other input that we could share how the operations are working right now?
Yes. It worked with total Tejas revenue is INR 37.31 crore out of which INR 3.38 crores are profit. And our occupancy of Ahmedabad is 87%, and Lucknow is 56%.
Okay. Okay. Now, about the rail net business, we have highlighted that we would first close the already announced plan. So any development in terms of what all new capacity we are expecting to getting live in the next 12 months?
Yeah. First of all, our Bilaspur plant, which is not working at the moment because of some reason of the state government. So now the issue is resolved, and we will be very soon starting the Bilaspur plant. So that will add capacity of 72,000 bottles per day. Besides, we are in the process of announcing the capacity of our Danapur and Ambern ath plant from 1 lakh bottles to 3 lakh bottles. And we are also hoping to install four more plants across India.
Is it safer to assume this brownfield capacity can come in the next 12 months, but the four more plants might come probably in the next fiscal?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Sure. And on the tourism business, we keep innovating in terms of new revenue stream and opportunity. So is there any other thing that we are working right now or any smaller initiative that has taken up scale within the tourism subsegments?
I'm happy to inform you that we have started taking up MICE events. And recently, we have done it for Indo-ASEAN countries, this mart, where IRCTC in Bangkok for the first time organized the mart infrastructure. We participate in PATA. And we have been given by MEA this work, not to Ministry of Tourism.
Sorry, we got it from where?
From MEA, Ministry of External Affairs.
Okay. So was it representing this mart, which you were mentioning? Sorry about my knowledge on this subject. So was it like India section which we hosted in that ASEAN event or something more than that?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It is not only for India, but it is for ASEAN also. 11 countries participate.
Sure, sure. So in the MICE event, is there because this is a very diversified segment, so how we are trying to identify the area which we will participate and areas which we may not?
You see, general MICE everybody can do. But now we have planned to make a cluster kind of thing where we will divide all the ministries and the state government in five clusters. And it will be backed by good partners, PPP partners. And we'll try to capture this business from government and semi-government organizations, including the PSUs.
Pretty interesting. So any profitability, will it be like a fixed top-up margin on the cost-plus basis, or it will be a function of other revenue stream and what we collect?
You see, it will be what we have thought of is a minimum margin of 8% we'll keep. And as I told earlier that we work on an affordable model. So whatever benefit we can derive because of our capacity or our market presence will certainly give benefit to the organization so that we get more and more business, of course, with the 8% return.
And just lastly, will this revenue be part of our catering initiative, or it will be part of our tourism initiative?
Of course, tourism.
Sure, sure. Thank you so much. I'll join back the queue. And congratulations on starting this new venture. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kartik Gada from Multiple Wealth. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for this opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, sir.
Yes, Karthik, please. Please go ahead.
Yeah. I had a question related to the balance sheet. So when I look at the six-month revenue, it is at INR 2,300 crores. And when I compare this with the debtors, debtors are at INR 1,548 crores. So just wanted to understand the composition of debtors. Even when I look at the March numbers, the fiscal 2025 numbers, the debtor days are coming at more than 100. So just wanted to understand which are the segments which are contributing to this and what would be our strategy to bring down the debtor days?
Yeah. Mostly, this is more than 80% with railways, which is our parent organization. And it is basically that it's a continuous business going on. Every day, there is a new bill coming in, and we are getting this money back also. So we monitor it in a better way. We are trying to use this automation also where HST because bill verification is a critical issue here. We have many trains which then run then TT of the train that verifies how many numbers are actually taken meals. And based on that verification, we get the bill cleared. So what happens at the moment, all the major trains, they are using HST. So we are in the process of linking this HST with our billing process. So once this is done, of course, it will certainly help us in at least getting it verified quickly.
And that much time we'll be able to save. So I am very hopeful to get a better proportion.
Okay. So would the major chunk of this debtors be coming from the catering segment? Would that be the fair understanding?
Yeah, major catering.
Okay. And this initiative which you mentioned, the automation initiative, is it possible to provide any timelines what kind of improvement we can say by end of this fiscal year or the next fiscal year, something of that sort?
Yeah. It is already in the process. We'll first do it on a pilot basis. And if it is getting through, then we'll be going all out by the end of next financial year.
Okay. Okay. My next question is related to the payment aggregator business. So thank you for the commentary, the initial remarks. So if it's possible, anything which you can share, what will be, again, the timeline after we get final approval from RBI? What would be the timeline, and what will be our strategies? How do we plan to monetize this segment?
You see, we are already into this cement business, but of course, for our internal customer only. And there we have a good sense and business sense of this particular business. And after six months, once we get the license, we are already in the process of putting our people at the right place. We have already set up a subsidiary which will be looking into this business alone. And we have our business plan, how we'll go about it. But I can tell you that our business alone, presently, we are doing with our IP only 20% of the total transaction GMB value, which we have a scope of around 100%, going up to 100%. So something around INR 70,000 crore, whereas we are doing only INR 13,000 crore round business. This business already existing will tap that. And we have business plan which I don't want to discuss openly here.
Otherwise, you know that it's a very competitive field. And you will get to know once we do it. Thank you.
Okay. Just last question on the internet ticketing segment. So now you mentioned that we have a very high share of almost 90% of Indian Railways online tickets booked. Again, it depends on ticketing growth from the railway side. But how we can get higher growth? This quarter, we are seeing four percentage growth in the revenue. So again, how can we get higher growth in the internet ticketing revenue? Hello?
Oh, sorry. Sorry, I was on mute. We have two segments of business earning revenue in this particular IT revenue segment. One is convenience fee, which depends on the percentage of reserve ticketing IRCTC is doing online. And the other is non-convenience fee. So presently, we have improved our non-convenience fee by 13%. And we are very hopeful to increase it further. So that's how we'll be able to manage and maintain our IT segment growth.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much for all the replies.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may restart and run to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Harsh Yadav from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. I wanted to ask a question on Bharat Gaurav train. We had mentioned in Q1 that you were going to add one more rake. Has that been deployed? What could be the booking trend for Q3, Q4 that you see? Also, how many departures have you completed in H1?
We have already got nine coaches. Presently, we have deployed these coaches in our regular trains, regular Bharat Gaurav trains. We are doing good business of Bharat Gaurav train. You see, this year, our tourism, this quarter, our tourism revenue has grown by 21%. Contribution of Bharat Gaurav train is quite a lot.
Okay. If you could also provide some light on the booking pipeline for Maharaja Express, because you had mentioned 20% growth in Q1. Has that momentum sustained in Q2?
I am happy to tell you that even for the next year, we have got quite handsome booking. This year will be touching, I think, highest ever booking on Maharaja Express.
Okay. Okay. A question on this ABSS. You had mentioned in Q1 that station upgrades were impacting static units temporarily. Has that been resolved, or is this continuing? How long do you think this impact would persist?
No, this is still continuing because the stations are getting commissioned slowly, but they have been taken up simultaneously. It will give us a very good business in the years to come.
Okay. Just a few more questions. You had mentioned this IRCTC co-branded UPI credit card. Is there any update on this? Have you planned anything?
You are talking of SBI co-branded card?
Yes.
That business is continuing. We are still with them. Besides that, SBI, we have collaborated with RBL also.
Okay. Just one last question. If you could share the AC, non-AC ticketing with.
I am just trying to tell you about the figures also. Loyalty program last year, this quarter, we have gained INR 15.35 crore. There is a jump of 26.65%. What's your next question, please?
I wanted to know AC, non-AC ticketing share for Q2.
Just a moment. AC is INR 6.75 crore out of INR 13.55 crore. Non-AC is INR 6.8 crore.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
A very good evening to everyone. I'm Rahul Himalian, Director Tourism and Marketing, looking after the tourism and internet ticketing business. As you have seen, that H1 as well as quarter two has shown us a robust growth of 7.71% from revenue for operations. And the EBITDA has been around 8.31% variation. With this, it has set the zeal and momentum in us to perform in Q3 and Q4 and make the financial year 2025-2026 a remarkable and momentous year. Wishing you all the very best. Wishing us all the very best in this endeavor. Thank you.
On behalf of Dollars Capital, that concludes the conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.
Thank you.