Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q1 FY twenty six Conference Call of L and T Technology Services Limited. 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. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sandeep Nayad, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you and over to you sir.
Thank you, Rayo. Hello everyone. I'm Sandesh and welcome you all to the earnings call of M and T Technology Services for the first quarter of FY twenty six. Our financial results, investor release, and press release have been filed on the stock exchanges and are also available on our website, www.ltts.com.
I hope you've had a chance to go through them. This call is for sixty minutes. We will try to wrap up the management remarks in twenty minutes and then open up for q and a. The audio recording of this call will be available on our website approximately one hour after the call ends. With that, let me introduce the leadership team present on this call.
We have with us Amit Chabal, CEO and MD Abhishek, executive director and president, Alin Saxena, executive director and president and Rajiv Gupta, CFO. We will begin with Amit providing an overview of the company performance and outlook, followed by Rajiv, who will walk you through the financial performance. I now invite Amit for his opening remarks.
I hope I'm audible and you can hear me fine. So thank you all for joining us on the call today.
First, let me provide the key highlights on our Q one performance. In US dollar terms, our revenue was up 13.6% year on year, while our q one SmartWorld seasonality predominantly impacted revenues to decline by 2.9% quarter on quarter. Our major markets in North America and Europe continue to grow sequentially. Our most profitable segment, sustainability, grew 16.4 year on year and 4.1% quarter on quarter to cross the 100,000,000 quarterly milestone and is now a 400,000,000 plus annual business on a run rate basis. Therefore, all three segments are at a 400 plus annualized revenue.
Based on targeted efforts to pivot on growth and improve our market share, we continued the large deal momentum in q one to surpass $200,000,000 in large deal TCV for the third consecutive quarter, which includes one fifty million deal, three twenty to thirty million deals, and six ten million plus deal. Again, for clarification, we will going forward, report LDPCV, which is largely TCV, and these are deals above $10,000,000 each. Our go to deeper scale strategy and proactive investment in new age technologies are leading to stronger partnerships with clients and a robust TCV booking. The LD TCV booking and TCV booking. The EBIT margin held at 13.3 for the quarter.
This is in spite of the revenue impact of SWC seasonality, headwinds in the mobility segment and support extended to strategic customers as highlighted in the previous earnings call. We expect EBIT margins to see an improvement in the coming quarters as growth gets broad based across segments. Now a few highlights and highlights on our technology and innovation charter. Today, our engineers have deployed multiple programs for clients in AI and have filed 206 patents in this domain. AI is also becoming central in our deal wins and is and in establishing strategic partnership with our clients.
Additionally, we are launching Plex AI, our proprietary AI framework, which accelerates product development life cycle for global customers. Plex AI combines smart prompting, contextual intelligence, and agentic workflows to significantly reduce product life cycle. FlexAI was originally incubated in the mobility segment, but has now been scaled and propagated to other segments using our multi vertical cross poly poly innovation approach. Overall, put patent portfolios stood at fifteen fifty out of it 952 are coauthored with clients and the rest are filed by LGTS. To address specific areas of client investments in The US market, we inaugurated a new design center in Plano, Texas focused on cutting edge technology, cybersecurity, and AI.
This will help us to expand our footprint in our key markets, helping us gain further market share. As an ITR compliant facility, the center is also equipped to design, develop, and test defense related products and systems. This investment made ahead of the curve, underscores LTTS's commitment to delivering advanced solutions with AI and tech and establish much more near shore centers tailored to evolving needs of our clients. With that, let me move to segmental performance and outlook. We'll start with mobility.
So starting with some good news, production of highway and aerospace and rail subsegment grew well sequentially and year on year for us. The auto segment continues to be in flux, and let me provide some color around BEV, hybrid, and ICE. China's alternative low cost innovation and stack in this area is creating disruptions to existing industry, causing further challenges to establish global players. This there is continued demand by consumers to get more of the features, which is which which with high cost of e r and d of development of OEMs in US and Europe is becoming slightly difficult. Our investment in building solutions like LTTS high drive and stacks of EV and hybrid coupled with our offshore delivery model, which provides a lower cost model as compared to a completely on-site model, have positioned us as a partner of choice for our customers, basis which we continue to win new programs, which I will detail in a bit.
There is, however, a short term pause in some programs and delayed starts in others. We expect these dynamics to keep automotive muted in the short term for another couple of quarters with growth returning after that. On to the deals we have won around SDV AI, next gen product development, software design, and digital engineering include a multiyear deal with a US automotive competence maker to deliver engineering support, including a spice compliant system, software function safety, cybersecurity, and quality assurance. We've been named the strategic supplier for Systems Group Steremy and Traton Group, A satellite company awarded LTPS a significant deal for software design development and embedded engineering for airborne systems. Overall, the mobility segment, we have won $510,000,000 plus deals in q one.
This vindicates our solution stack, and we are actively engaged in securing many more deals. The pipeline in mobility overall remains robust with a lot of action in auto, P and OS, aero and rail. We continue to work with our clients to get these to closure. We believe that overall mobility will stay muted in the near term and expect turnaround in the second half of FY twenty six. Coming to sustainability, the sustainability segment did well with 16.4% year on year and 4.1% quarter on quarter growth to cross the 100,000,000 milestone for the first time in a quarter.
The large deal closure in the previous quarters are ramping up, leading to further growth during the year. More than half of the large deals won in Q1 are in the sustainability segment, which is our highest profitable segment. Subsegment details, in plant engineering, we continue to see strong demand in oil and gas and CBD led by greenfield and brownfield CapEx projects. We're also seeing ongoing demand in plant modernization for increased efficiency, sustainability and safety net projects for legacy clients. Key clients continue to ramp up with us.
In fact, Q2 will see us back with a 50,000,000 account on an annualized run rate basis, which is a milestone that we should all be happy and proud about. In a large deal of fifty million dollars, we were chosen by a global energy major for enterprise data and digital services based entirely on our proprietary tools. Moving on to industrial subsegment, we continue to see ramp up of large deals signed and a robust pipeline of deals going ahead because of our AI led interventions in the PDLT offerings. A couple of details, we've signed a strategic agreement with Tenant company to advance sustainable new product development. We will set up a dedicated offshore or have set up a dedicated offshore center, engineering center for them.
Second, we've also signed a definitive agreement to support product sustenance and lifetime development for a semiconductor equipment manufacturing company across multiple product lines. Overall, for the sustainability segment, we see an increased large deal pipeline and expect the growth momentum to continue with both industrial and plant sub segments doing well this year. Now to Tech. The tech segment grew 29.4% year on year as it includes the benefit of Intelisys revenue for the quarter. Though as expected, q one is down sequentially on account of seasonality for the SmartWorld segment subsegment.
With the integration of Intelisys Complete, the software and platform subsegment with its software and AI offering has seen a good response from our customers across hyperscaler, fintech, and health care. The media and tech subsegment continues to evolve with new technology areas and experiencing significant transformation driven by advancements in AI and immersive technologies. We continue to grow in The US market and have seen some traction in our semiconductor accounts. We are posting from these in this area and expect to close them shortly. In the MedTech subsegment, demand is being led by AI investments across digital manufacturing for sales engineering and Quora.
All of them have shown good growth despite some delays in decision making in The US market. We have onboarded new logos, especially in ophthalmology space, which should aid further growth. Overall, MedTech is expected to grow further in the second half of the year as we look forward. In the smart cloud space, we have developed a domain centric computer vision ops platform applicable for urban and smart spaces, public safety and our utility and manufacturing. We recently won a safe city project in India leveraging AI and analytics to enhance public safety with an adaptive travel and traffic control system.
Our in The Middle East is progressing, setting up a strong foundation with a pipeline, and we expect that FY twenty six will be the year when we start revenues from The Middle East. In the tech segment, there are various large deals in advanced stages of negotiation, which we hope to sign up in the coming months. This will help us continue tech growth trajectory from Q2 onwards. Before I come to outlook, let me provide some overarching color on the state of the market as we see today. One, given the dynamic nature of the market, our clients are still very cautious in decision making.
But based on multiple conversations, have confidential code that we ran across our client base, a large number of our clients see things stabilizing. And as a result, h two potentially being better than h one. Two, we are seeing AI become a central area of focus to our clients. The AI way of engineering e r and d is beginning to gain traction, and this is an account enterprise tech leaders who believe that they are behind their peers in embracing AI to accelerate product development and improve productivity. The poll also finds that 30 of the clients are engaged in full fledged AI program while others are still in POC stage.
Therefore, the AI spend appears to be real. This is resulting in deals and programs coming up for bids and rebates. Third, we're setting up our localized and regional supply chain along with software defined everything, industrial automation in the near term and robotics in human rights in the medium term will continue to drive space. With that, let me discuss our outlook. Our unique balance three segment approach allows us to grow in a derisked manner and safeguarding us in the current uncertain market environment and tightened demand conditions.
I'm encouraged by our robust backlog order book, which has been improving quarter on quarter and year on year, and a healthy pipeline of 50,000,000 plus deals slated to close in the coming quarters. That's why increased order book with a focus on resilience and profitable growth. We look forward to a double digit growth over FY 'twenty five, while maintaining our medium term outlook of $2,000,000,000 of revenue. Thank you all for your continued support. With this, I'll now hand over the call to Rajiv and then stay back for questions. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Amit. Greetings to all of you. Let me begin with the key highlights for quarter one FY twenty six. Our focus on growth has led to another quarter of healthy large deal wins over $200,000,000, which provides comfort that H2 would be better compared to H1.
The sustainability segment now stands at $100,000,000 quarterly run rate, and all our three segments have crossed the $200,000,000 annual run rate. This vindicates our diversification strategy and a well balanced portfolio, especially during these dynamic times. This quarter saw 13.6% year on year growth in dollar terms, though there was there was a decline in sequential revenue due to seasonality of SmartWorld business, headwinds from macro environment and challenges in automotive sectors. Despite these challenges, our margins have been resilient and stable compared to previous quarter. We continue to innovate and build next gen solutions.
Glad to share that we've been recognized in the leadership quadrant by ISG in aerospace and defense services 2025 in Europe and by HFS in engineering research and development service provider 2025. With that, let me take you through Q1 FY twenty six financials, starting with the PMM. Our revenue for the quarter was INR 2,866 crores, a growth of 16.4% on year on year basis and a decline of 3.9% on sequential basis due to recent reasons mentioned earlier. Our EBIT margin for the quarter came in at 13.3%. It saw a slight improvement over the previous quarter.
We expect margins to show gradual improvement from year on. Moving to below EBIT, talking about other income. Other income was 51 crores, higher on sequential basis, majorly due to foreign gain. Our effective tax rate for q one was 26.9%, better compared to our expected range of 27.5%. Net income for quarter was INR $3.16 crores, up 1.5 on quarter on quarter basis, which is 11% of revenue.
Moving to balance sheet, let me highlight key line items. Our q one DSO was at ninety eight days compared to eighty eight days in q four. Unbilled days at seventeen in q one compared to eighteen days in q four. The combined DSO including unbilled stood at hundred and sixteen days compared to hundred and six days in q four, which is still within our target range of hundred ten to hundred fifteen days for the year. We expect this to improve as the year progresses.
Our free cash flows came in negative 28 crores due to seasonality of our SmartWorld business. Our cash and investments stood at INR 2,431 crores at the end of quarter one versus 2,981 crores at the end of quarter four. This is an account of payment of dividend and balance consideration of Intelisys acquisition. Moving to revenue metrics. In dollar terms, we reported revenue of $335,000,000 compared to $345,000,000 in q four, decline of 2.9% in reported terms. Talking about segment margin performance for quarter one FY '26, mobility segment margin for QMAN came in at 15.3%, lower compared to previous quarter stemming from delayed decision makings of large deals, pauses in existing programs and discounts being sought by customers.
Sustainability margins for quarter came in at 27.4%, showing a significant improvement due to ramp up of large deal wins in both subsegments. We are witnessing healthy pipeline and deal closures in this segment, which will continue to aid revenue growth and margin improvement in the coming quarters. Tech segment margin for the quarter came in at 9%. Pleased to share that our integration plan for Intelisys acquisition is on track and showing improvement in revenue growth and margins. Though we saw a decline in the segment in the margin compared to previous quarter due to continued strategic support for select programs and customers.
Moving on to operational metrics, the on-site offshore mix showed slight improvement towards offshore compared to quarter four. Offshore percentage now stands at 56.1%. The T and M revenue mix was 62.2% in Q1, slightly higher compared to quarter four. With respect to client profile, which indicates number of million dollar plus accounts, showed a sequential improvement in the 10,000,000, 5,000,000 and 1,000,000 category. The client profile will continue to improve in coming quarters.
Our client contribution to revenue was slightly muted compared to quarter four in the top 20 category. We expect revenue from top customers to improve going forward as we run targeted programs on client mining. Headcount came in at $23,006.09 26 in q one compared to $24,002.58 in q four, while attrition came in at 14.8%. We've been leveraging AI and automation for customer projects and also driving internal efficiencies. We now see a trend of nonlinearity between revenue and headcount.
Realized rupees for q one was around 85.48 to the dollar, an appreciation of around 1.1% versus quarter four. Before I conclude, let me provide visibility on the margin trajectory going forward. We expect our EBIT margin trajectory next to to be better than H1 based on continued momentum on large deal wins, revenue growth in higher margin segments and leverage on operational efficiency, including AI led automation. We continue to aspire for improving EBIT margins to mid 16% levels between q four FY twenty seven and q one FY twenty eight. Thank you.
I now hand it over to the moderator for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions, may press and 1 on the touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press and 2.
Participants are requested to use handsets while asking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question is assembled. The first question is from Manik Panija from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. First question was for Amit. Basically, some of your other PR seem to be slightly more positive with regards to the automotive passenger weekly demand. So your comment is actually slightly more stronger.
If you could just talk about, is it customer specific impact that because of this you see a more muted performance? That's question number one. The second question is with regards to the margin outlook and why we continue to retain the mid 16% of this margin target by q four twenty seven or or or q one twenty eight. Just wanted to understand if you could broadly talk about how should we be thinking about the scope for recovery across gross margins and NPL on a go forward basis.
Okay. So, Malik, this is all on a lighter note, we don't do automotive only. We do a lot more. Right? We're diversified player.
So the good news here. Now if I specifically talk of auto, see, I'll tell you generically, and I'm not talking LGDS clients specifically, US automakers are in a flux because they were investing EV till two quarters ago and now are not sure whether to invest in continue invest in EV or should they go back to ICE? Right? Number one. In the case of European players, which is facing competition from China and the Chinese stack and EV stack, the China EV players are selling cars at a third and a fourth of the price of the same cars available in from the European OEMs.
That is putting immense pressure on them to reimagine the stack. At the same time, FBB features that were being rolled out by US OEMs and European OEMs are being pushed out because of the dynamics in the market. So that is creating the pauses, that is creating a little bit of dynamism, shall I say. Now the positives are that that European traditional European the r and d players and the small amount of US players, and they are very few and you are aware of it as well, are unable to service the later gen offerings that are required by the OEMs out there. That is creating an opportunity for companies like LTTS and our peer group.
We also announced a 50,000,000 win last quarter just before the quarter ended in auto. I reaffirmed that we had, in terms of the wins we have had in this quarter. I am being cautious on grounds of prudence in the auto sector. The deals are robust. The pipeline that we've got is robust.
Now it depends on what we close when. And if it does does, it will turn out as an upside for us. So that's broadly where I am on auto. I also wanna reaffirm to you, we have not paused any investment. In fact, the Flex AI tool came out of mobility.
We could have killed it thinking that nothing will happen in mobility right now, but we've actually taken it forward. Second, LTTS iDrive 1 dot 0 was launched last year. Ltts two .0 the idrive2.0 will be launched in the next two months. We already have production customers for LTTS idrive1.o, and we have customers lined up for ltts2drive2.0 as well. So science, like I said, market a little bit of flux, but there is an opportunity.
Let us see where it goes. The year is to be cleared up. Rajiv, I'm gonna hand over to you for the margins.
Sure. So, Mani, to talk about the margins, there are various levers that we are continuing to work on.
First, of course, the growth and quality of revenue. Right? We've been talking about large deal wins, and particularly, we've seen good traction on of large deal wins in sustainability segment, right, which is, of course, going to improve the mix of revenue within high margin segments, leading to improvement in margin. That's one. Second is, we've talked about productivity levers, operational efficiency, be it in terms of pyramid, pressure intake, offshoring, looking at automation, AI, etcetera.
These are areas that we continue to work upon. Third, from an SG and A SG and A standpoint, I would guide that you should model between 10 and a half to 11 and a half percent of SG and A cost. Fourth, we've talked about Intelisys integration plan. This is an integration plan that we've built for the next eight quarters, where you will see incrementally margin improving. So these are all the areas that we're working upon.
Largely, what we've talked about is h two will see better margins compared to h one because some of the strategic support that we called out in q four continues to be there in q one and may extend even in q two. But thereafter, we expect that some of these strategic supports that we are calling out should turn into either billing or phasing out beginning quarter three. Hence, h two margins will be better compared to h one. So those are few things which gives us the confidence to get to mid 16% level by quarter four f I twenty seven or quarter one f I twenty eight.
Sure. That's a good a challenging question for Amit. With regards to the strong pipeline that we spoke about and some of the special on the own do you think, probably not expect the little bit, but some some time, like, '27, we see a repeat of the kind of growth that we saw in television, any of anything in the movie settlement?
So, again, on it, we are getting into conjunction here. We are reading three leaves too much. My humble request to you, dear friend, is allow us a quarter to come back to you because there's a lot of play here on auto, like I said. And I am confident that the stack that we have built is there. I'm also confident that this is going to come back.
In fact, I said that auto should come back by after a couple of quarters. That's what I said. And mobility will come back because of T and OS and Aero. It will come back from quarter three onwards. And maybe quarter two, if you've been the deals and the ramp up happens.
So we're not giving it up. So I'm saying, I would like to I would like to make sure that I deliver whatever I commit to you all in a call. We really appreciate your confidence in us. So a little bit of caution there, please.
Sure. Thank you all the best for your future.
Thank you. The next question is from from Philip Capital India. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Couple of questions from my side. Firstly, Amit, on the revenue conversion. So last three quarters were pretty strong from the deal timing perspective. How are you seeing the revenue conversion? Is the revenue conversion on track, or you are you seeing some delay into the macro uncertainty? And second question is on the overall pipeline. So the last three quarters have been pretty strong in terms of the signings. And so should we expect this 200,000,000 daily number to be a new date for NTPA? Yeah.
So, Karan, thank you. So, Karan, first, I would like to confirm to you, our aspiration is to con is to stay at this $200,000,000 LD TCV every quarter.
And I, in fact, wanna start inching upward. And I tell you what we have changed. Once we have gone to these segments, the three segments externally and seven segments internally, we kind of now have seven sales organizations in the company. So I do expect this to start bearing fruit and growing as we go forward. So that is Members of the management, we can't hear you.
Participants, please stay connected while we reconnect the management. Participants, the line for the management has dropped. We are reconnecting them. Please stay connected. Thank you.
Thank you for patiently holding your line. The line for the management is reconnected. Over to you, sir.
Yeah. I'm sorry, Karan.
Don't don't know what happened, but I'll repeat. So, Karan, to answer your questions straight, the $200,000,000 LDPCV should be considered as something that we will continue to try and deliver as we go forward. We've got with the segment approach, we've got LDCs in every segment, and we expect this to continue to fire. Number two, in terms of pipeline, we have a robust pipeline. It's grown quarter on quarter and year on year.
Not just that, order backlog because of this TCV closure has increased year on year for us and quarter on quarter as well. Now in terms of execution, we have more or less on target on execution. You can see that in the sustainability growth that you are seeing. Also, would like to confirm to you that outside of SmartWorld, the company quarter on quarter has grown sequentially as well, and that is a result of of the pipeline getting converted. Like I mentioned in the automotive segment, there were pauses and some delays that our clients wanted in in specific cases and some program cancellations.
But that is a one off from just automotive. Other than that, the rest of it is all in line and growth.
Okay. Just a follow-up, outside of HSBC, you mentioned company as you want to quickly quantify how much is the growth there?
We we don't do that, Karan, but I can confirm to you that the swing of HSBC in quarter four was there. And we hope that as we go through the year and we start getting released revenues, some of that will go away, but that is what we've done as we move forward into FY '26 and beyond.
Okay. And last question is on on the top client, there has been a decline across the top five, top six to ten and eleven to 20 client bucket. Could you clarify what happened there and what's the outlook on top 20?
See, that was largely driven by the automotive decline that you saw in in revenue. See, if you if I look at it, mobility. Right? See, see, if you take the percentages out, the degrowth was what? About 2,000,001.9. 1.12. Right?
So 1.x was a decline in mobility that we had. So if you look at it, TNOX and Aero grew to make up, and automotive came down. Right? So overall, it was kind of, I mean, it will be nice, kind of flattish, but yes, a little bit of decline. But if I look at it, that has what has impacted some of these accounts, but I would not be worried about this.
Kindly give us a quarter or so. You will start seeing some of these improvement. In fact, part of my commentary I announced that we will, in quarter two, hit our first 50,000,000 ARR account yet again, and it will start reflecting the URV report trailing twelve months to you, but we see ARR ourselves. So I would like to provide you confidence that you would see this improve. I would not be too worried about it at this stage.
Okay. Thanks, Amit, and all the best.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, I request to participants to please limit your questions to two per participant.
Should you have a follow-up question, we request you to rejoin the queue. The next question is from from Equities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Amit, just want to understand the SWC part a bit more here. As you mentioned that outside of SWC, the business view.
Now basically, typically, we just have two data points. I think in both years, know, 05/25 and '26. In q one, our revenue fell by around $10,000,000 sequentially. Assuming that that is all attributable to LWC, I mean, is this a seasonality that we're going to continue to see going forward as well that we have a basically a ramp up in q four and then a sharp ramp down of almost $10,000,000 in q one? Or do you think this is going to come down over a period of time as we find more deals?
Just an outlook on that because I think overall, our business continues to be stable, but this is the one which is probably tracking the number down.
So, Rugur, thank you so much. And, you know, you've been you've been rising up, of course, to us as well as you move through the year. So Rugur, number one, SWC swing this year from quarter four to quarter one was greater than $10,000,000, and it was made up by the growth of LTPS heritage business and IS organic growth as well. Because IS also came in a certain base. We want to grow IS.
Right? So IS grew, LTPS heritage grew. As we see, the swing was greater from quarter four to quarter one. Right? And the swing so we've been able to manage it a little better.
Now had automotive not given us a surprise, you will have seen a much smaller swing in terms of the decline. Right? So that's the reality. Having said that, we are working hard to go to stabilize this. We are very choosy in the contracts that we are bidding for in SWC.
We are trying to even it out by getting more work from Middle East right now. In fact, I will request Abhishek, who's our director, to talk about this as well a little bit. And then there's other business, we go with the segmentization and more people in the large deals team, more people in the sales team, and US and Europe starting to grow for us. We believe that when you come to q one of FY twenty seven, the decline should be lower or not there. Our intent is not there.
Yes. I mean, if you can see that on SmartWorld, the solution is what we are doing.
So I think we have to resubmit a couple of points. I truly believe that our growth in the international segment, US and Middle East, and the kind of deals we've seen there, US subscription, the data center side and Middle East on led by platforms and and other platforms that we're building on computer vision. These are the kind of deals which will be more service heavy, and that should reduce the same that you're seeing. But again, this is something that we're working on the pipeline, of course, but till it can work, it's not converting. So let's hope that in the coming quarters, will be much better.
You're talking about this vision, you know?
Yeah. That's the first thing. The computer vision platform that they need. What we have done is the last seven years of work we have done in smart city, there are more than 50 use cases of various smart city solutions. We are building a platform where we intend to have a model studio where not just our models, but even customers can try out their models, their data. This is work in progress. We should be able to release the MVP shortly. And from there on, the sandbox, the customers can play on something ambitious.
And, of course, based on what we have uniquely achieved in the industry and this platform will continue taking the market in the coming quarters.
Got it. Got it. Thanks for that, sir. Very comprehensive answer.
Looking forward to a much lesser decline in the one q f I twenty seven as we just promised on it. Just a one quick follow-up for for Rajiv. In fact, two just two quick questions for Rajiv. So, Rajiv, I think if I understand correctly, I mean, as there will be business has traditionally been and then we acquired it also, it is a lower margin business. So shouldn't q one automatically have a margin tailwind if there's a little business ramp down in that quarter?
I mean, we didn't see an expansion in in q one last year and this year as well. So could you just take me through the math as to why despite lower revenue, you see that basically flattish margins in this quarter or nothing in, let's say, a kind of a jump in margin?
No.
I think it's spot on, and I think I'm expecting a question like this. So really what has transpired is, see, as the business, though you call to be relatively lower margin, it still has an impact on the overall margin. Right? So there is a decline in account of SWC seasonality impacting the margins. But what we're also seeing is we are you know, that strategic support that we've called out continues in Cuba.
Right? There are other programs that Amit highlighted in terms of auto that also faced some headwinds. Right? You had some program for this. So there is more than what you had to deal in q one compared to q four.
And that's essentially where you see that despite these headwinds through the l LTTS heritage business, particularly wins in sustainability and growth in sustainability segment, we've been able to marginally improve EBIT margin. And essentially, that's where it is. Right? Now if you really dig this out and play forward q two, q three, we are anticipating some of these headwinds will phase out, leading to improvement in coverage with this.
Got it. Got it. It. A last bit, the cash flow in this quarter was, I think I missed your original comment. Anything to worry about or just basically a quarterly thing and some of the cash flows maybe spilled over to the next quarter?
Yeah. I it might sound a similar response. Actually, that this is a SWP seasonality effect. Right?
Much like revenue, you kind of see an uptick because we're in project kind of business. Of course, with milestones being delivered, that follows through with higher cash payment. So you will see the uptick. You will see cash improving from here on. You would have seen a similar pattern in quarter one last year, where we had negative cash flow, but we recovered to deliver almost 108 of free cash flow all of FY '25.
We are hoping to get there, if not 100, at least 90% plus free cash flow.
Perfect. Great. Thank you so much for taking my questions, and wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to participants to please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from Ravi Menon from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Congrats on the strong last year. I just wanted to check on, you know, the tech segment, you know, where you said that you experienced some support to customers. Is this in semiconductors?
Can I request the let's just leave leave it at that? Can you just just do it?
Sure. I just wanted to understand when I am here because it looks like, you know, there's a little bit more of that this call compared to last week of QOQ. That's why the SWC seasonality, your margins have gone down in the tech segment. So that's why I wonder if this is, you know, like, the it's it's become a little bit more widespread. Is it more customers or a larger extended support?
No. It's not not wider customers. I just there are two specific customers. And like we told you last quarter, Ravi, this was a quarter four, quarter one, and potentially a little bit in quarter two support that will be done, and that is the end of it. And there are various other measures being taken in the company that we are taking, and that is why Rajiv confirmed to you that from an EBIT trajectory quarter, you know, h two will be better than h one.
And it's our goal to try and get there. A lot of work being done right now and work in play.
Right. Thank you. As a follow-up to Rajiv, are you I mean, once we have asked Intelisys.
One one only. Ravi, also, please keep in mind that the new eight solutions that we are launching, etcetera, we are also we've got a robust pipeline in all three segments, you know, mobility, facility, and tech. It's some of these deals that we're expecting to get on get closed quickly in the quarter earlier before the summer holidays. It will it help us as well. So what various thinking work on it.
Thanks so much. Appreciate that. And, Rajiv, if, you know, once we're passing through the acquisition, how should we think about the seasonality of margins in our business here overall considering SWC? Should q one be the lower low point and the or q four be the lowest for margins? How should we think about seasonality for margins?
So, Ravi, can take to almost say that, look, you know, q one is the bottom in terms of margin. What probably we are little worried about is, you know, is there any further structure drop in q two? Having said that, I think we've got, you know, enough and more to be able to improve margins from here on. Right? So you will see gradually margin improve.
The reason we're calling out q two is because we're still seeing some of the dynamics being played out from a macro standpoint, but we're hoping q two is the last quarter, and then we'll see margin improving thereafter.
Alright. Thanks so much and best of luck.
Thank you. The next question is from Sandeep Shah from Equis. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks thanks for the opportunity. Just a clarification question. The guidance which we have given for a double digit growth in this year, we are reiterating. But the last time in the earnings call and the press release, we have mentioned about constant currency.
This is this time the press release does not mention a constant currency. So is it any assumption change in terms of a full year guidance this time?
No.
Okay. So one can set towards you in the guidance in based on 04/1958.
04/2005.
Yeah.
Yes, sir.
Okay. Okay. And directionally, one can assume this growth would be more back ended rather than second quarter may pick up significantly.
Need to be worked. I mean, internally, those are much higher. You know, you see man man proposes, god disposes. Right? So please leave it out, my friend.
But all we say is that it's too see, you will see growth in revenue from here on. No second doubts about it. How much can we grow in q two and then take to q three and then to q two four, it should work.
Okay. Okay. And Raju, just a clarification. This quarter, we had 11.9% in terms of our SG and A, which I agreed because of the lower revenue base.
But one thing, one can model is 10.5 to 11.5. So what are the extra things which we are doing beyond our growth as a lever which will decline into SG and A as a cost?
So Sandeep, I think part of this and if you do go back few quarters, we've been running at that 10 and a half to 11% SG and A clip. Right? The increase in SG and A from quarter four was largely because of the intelligence. Right? Intelligence being a smaller company had higher levels of SG and A.
As part of the integration plan, we are continuing to look at opportunities on optimizing and also efficiently managing some of the SGN account. So what you will naturally see is that we come in between the 10 and a half to 11 and a half percent range, and that's the reason I'm guiding to model in that range.
Okay. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the from MK Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity.
Just two questions. First on the Intelisys, can you provide me, sir, how does integration playing out in the growth rate, momentum playing out pipeline and other thing? Because when we acquired, I think we are very ambitious target to scale the business in three years. If you can provide some update on that. Second question on the clarification side.
Last quarter, we said organic growth to be better in FY twenty six compared to FY twenty five. Are we maintaining or we think because of weakness in some of the segments that might be tough? Thanks.
Okay. Vivek, thank you.
So first question on Intelie that you asked. So we have a we've created a three year in fact, a five year plan for Intelie. And for Intelie, you can divide up into hyperscalers and ISC business, which was two third of the business, and or half of the business, half of the business. And half of the business is in retail, fintech, non banking institutions, which includes private equity and providers and pet care. Right?
So that's the area that they play or we play with Intelie. So we did two or three things. Early immediately, what we have done is we have taken the hyperscalers, combined it with our hyperscalers and going full hog at that, and we've actually now launched about 40 AI agents and about six agentic AI tools that can be leveraged for hypercalers. In the other three sub segments, which is retail, fintech, non banking, which includes hyper includes private equity, and in in providers and pet care, We have engaged with doing a strategic plan of how can we make each of these these three sub sub segments to a $100,000,000 each in six years. And that is in play right now.
We remain comfortable and confident, right, that the growth will be there and is there right now with a pipeline. Right? So so that is number one. Number two, your question on FY '26, I'm reiterating two statements. Number one is that we will have double digit growth.
Number two, we continue to work on making sure FY '26 will be a better year than FY '25. Sustainability is already helping us to deliver that. We are changing whereas we get the other stuff to be able to deliver for the year to be paid out by the end.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question is from Rahul James from Dola Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.
Just for clarification, the same for the first in the quarter.
Mister, your voice is breaking. We can't hear you very clearly.
Yeah. Is this enabled?
No.
Hello?
Yes. Much better. Please go ahead.
Yeah. So my question was, we talked about new client addition in this quarter. Is it led by Inteliswift? Or and if yes, then what is the contribution of this unit in the quarter?
No. The new client addition that we've had is and part the new client will be added in between. Tenee must have been added in quarter four. Right? So this is new client addition and addition.
There will team that have been working hard, my friend.
So do you have any This is across the board, and this must be smaller deals because there will be larger deals cumulatively around for, you know, the the bulk of that is are these coming as a smaller deal versus what we used to prune the account earlier versus now scaling some smaller size accounts?
I understand. So so I I heard you, Rahul. Are you asking, are we going after smaller accounts as opposed to larger accounts?
I'll give you a minute. Let me look at the report exactly what you're referring to. You give me a second, please. So so now I think I got what you are referring to. So now if I look at it, our quarter one FY twenty six has 200 clients that are million dollar plus.
Last quarter was $1.94, and one year ago, one seventy seven. See, this one ninety four is a new base within Credit Suisse. So from there, we have added six more into quarter one that are million dollar plus. Now if you look at it, so these accounts will move up. Right?
So there will be addition that will give you look at. There are there is there are specific clients that we are wanting to acquire, right, that we will acquire because we have a must have logo, need to have logo list that we have got, plus existing clients will grow. So so both will happen. I also want to con confirm to you our whole strategy of wanting a total of a million dollar plus. In fact, we try and say that if a client is not a million dollar client, annually for us in about four to six quarters, we don't want to be able to continue unless we are we are working on a specific technology area because it is not a viable thing for us to do.
So it's a stated policy within the company, respectfully to clients as well. So that has not changed out.
Yeah. So, Amit, why I was connecting the two is because the net active client addition is 38 versus, you know, it was very static, you know, prior to this transaction. So that's why I was just thinking that most of it might have come in the nature of this business.
No. Rahul, in fact, I would like to confirm to you that one ninety four is including in Teli. So the jump between one seventy seven and one ninety four, which is is is further Intelie. Correct? And the $1.94 to 200 is is there.
Now you must be also a three to total number of active clients. That is from four twenty nine one to four fifty nine. See, because there are seven sales teams in the company now rather than one unified sales team, so there will be more action that you will see. And as you see, the pyramid will grow up, and our whole goal is to go deeper to scale, build larger relationships, and so you will see more progress.
And just one last bit on the our expiration of q four twenty seven.
I know it's it's it's some time for that. But given the way macro are shipping, it's very strong deals and that you are having. We're not seeing the. So wouldn't be, prudent to, you know, have a different time line for that goal? Or you think it is the growth in the subsequent year could be much better, and that's why it's fair to stay with that number?
Rahul, I think good point. I mean, we still would like to stay with that timeline. Like I mentioned earlier, I think, you know, there are parts to this timeline. One of those is the intelligent integration, which is indeed planning out well, which, of course, gives us the comfort.
The second, like we talked about, we have seen a lot of large deal wins in such a good segment. Right? So along with plant engineering, we are seeing a turnaround in industrial products also, which gives us a comfort. We believe that some of the strategic support is more short term, right, if I were to call out. And beyond q one, q two, it should pay out.
Right? So we will continue to hold the timeline. If there is any, let's say, worsening of the, you know, global environment, then we'll call it out. At this stage, the basis remains the current global environment.
Right. Right. Thanks for the color, and congrats on winning consistently strong fees despite this kind of environment. Thank you.
Thank you, Rahul.
Thank you very much. That was the last question in queue. I would now like to hand the conference over to mister Sadish Nayyad for any closing comments.
Thank you, Dave.
Thank you everybody for joining us at this late hour in the evening. And if there are any other questions, questions, regarding to be answered, we will connect offline. Thank you and take care everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much.
On behalf of L and T Technology Services Limited, that concludes the conference. Thank you for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen, you may now disconnect your lines.