Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Mastek Limited Q1 FY26 earnings conference call. 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 * then 0 on your touch-tone phone. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Asha Gupta from EY LLP, Investor Relations. Thank you and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Jico. Good day to all of you. Welcome to Q1 FY26 earnings call of Mastek Limited. The results and presentation have already been mailed to you, and you can also view it on our website, www.mastek.com. Before we begin, please note that Mr. Umang Nahata, the CEO of the company, is unable to join today's call due to a personal bereavement. To take us through the results today and to answer your questions, we have the top management of Mastek, represented by Mr. Ashank Desai, Principal Founder and Chairman, and Mr. Abhishek Singh, President of UKI and Europe. Mr. Ashank will start the proceedings, and Mr. Abhishek will then provide a brief update on the business performance and financials for the quarter gone by, and post that, we will open the floor for Q&A session.
As usual, I would like to remind you that anything mentioned on this call that reflects any outlook for the future or which can be construed as a forward-looking statement must be viewed in conjunction with the risks and uncertainties that we face. These risks and uncertainties are included but not limited to what we have mentioned in the prospectus filed with SEBI and the subsequent annual report that you can find on our website. Having said that, I will now hand over the call to Mr. Ashank Desai. Over to you, sir.
Thanks, Asha. Good afternoon to all my dear investor friends and analyst friends. Good day for people outside India. As Asha said, we have an apology due to the absence of Umang Nahata, our CEO, because of a very close bereavement, unfortunately, over the weekend. However, we have two of us here who will be involved in any case as we answer questions and address you. If I look back this quarter, I would say it is a strong beginning for FY26. A lot of expectations, a lot of green shoots, and a lot of initiatives which are fine into results at the revenue level and profitability level. As you know, we have delivered almost 13.2% year-on-year growth on income, total income in rupee terms, and net profit, of course, grew 28.7% in rupee terms. For operating EBITDA, grew 10.8%.
These are year-on-year growth, which certainly makes us feel satisfying in terms of our performance. The strong point of the performance, of course, is the UK, which has always been doing quite well over the last many quarters, as you know from our state. We have grown 26.5% year-on-year there again in rupee terms in the UK. Certainly, we had a big outcome, which is beyond our existing sectors in government and interest. We were very successful in opening a large account in BFSI, and that kind of going to create certain goodwill and certain name reference for us, which we have talked about, and that is going to be a new point in our inflection point in our growth in the UK.
The U.S., of course, we would have liked to do better, certainly, but there have been headwinds in some of our accounts, and some of that did impact. However, when I look at our pipeline and the backlog, I feel happy that we have achieved good order booking this quarter, and the pipeline looks quite healthy for future growth. EMEA, of course, has been showing lesser growth because certainly we are now focusing on profitable growth rather than just growth, and Umang is certainly working quite hard in that area, given his earlier experience too in that geography. That would certainly reflect in some of our numbers in EMEA at a profitability level. The real good, another thing which has happened is, really speaking, AI. We are really feeling very satisfied and very energetic about what's happening in AI, particularly in healthcare. Sorry, particularly in the U.S.
We have more than 10 accounts, more than 10 accounts where we are presently working on various groups of concepts, various areas of AI, GenAI, Genetic AI. The U.S., as you always know, has been ahead of others in terms of technologies, and our customers in all these areas do give us a great satisfaction. With these 10 customers, more than 10 customers, in fact, driving that way into the AI market, we do feel that we have a great future ahead in AI, both, as I said, productivity improvements and possibly new applications. In terms of EBITDA, of course, our journey continues. We, of course, had issues in terms of headwinds in the U.S., and that did impact EBITDA. We also are investing, which we are not reducing our investment in tomorrow's technologies, as I talked. Both of these impacted EBITDA.
The last point I will quickly talk is about team selection. Umang and his team and the board together are very much involved in a team of two senior people for us. One is the President for the U.S., and the second is the CFO. At the corporate level, we are quite near to the things we have been shortlisting. We have been interviewing. I hope to see results very soon on that aspect. With that, I'll hand over to Abhishek, our President for the U.S., UK, and Europe, and all of you know him as earlier as our CFO. So, Abhishek, please take over for me.
Thank you, Ashank. Asha, just checking if I'm loud and clear on this side.
Yes, sir, you're loud and clear. You can go ahead.
Super. Good day, folks, and warm welcome to everyone on our Q1 FY26 earnings call. As Ashank touched upon a few of the financial parameters as well as the operational update, I'll be elaborating it over the next 25- 30 minutes. I'm happy to take your questions right after that. I'll start with the financial performance and weave in the business updates along with that. I would start with reiterating the comment Ashank made, which was about it is another steady quarter of robust financial performance despite all the headwinds and macro situations that we have been experiencing in the major geographies that we operate in. All of you know the tariff-related situation which impacts retailers in the U.S. market. You know the impact of war and uncertainty in the European market, and as a result of it, our clients are also impacted.
Having said that, despite all those factors, our revenue grew very well at 12.5% year-on-year to nearly INR 915 crore, which represents a sequential growth of 1% and a constant currency decline of 1.1%. If we dive further into the revenue performance, the growth was predominantly driven by our UK and Europe business, which registered a 27% year-on-year growth in the reported currency and 8% quarter-on-quarter growth. This was a, I would call it as a 360-degree growth, growth coming from all the major sectors that we operate in. Health was obviously the leader, having grown by 25%- 26% quarter-on-quarter, and it more than quadrupled year-on-year. The growth was also driven by a significant one from our enterprise business.
As a lot of you tracking Mastek would know, that it was not a major focus for us, but over the last few years, we have put in a lot of energy, and that is starting to show green shoots, especially in the BFSI and data-led growth. The growth also came from our secure government space, where one of the large logos that we landed in January or December last year, January this year, ramped pretty nicely. Our Oracle business across UK and Europe has registered a few good wins, which gives us confidence of growth in the second half of the year. The revenues across our U.S. market registered some headwinds on account of muted spend from our major clients that resulted in a flat year-on-year number and an 8.5% QOQ decline in dollar terms.
However, there is a green shoot there because the order books grew pretty well, 25% quarter-on-quarter as well as year-on-year, and the pipeline continues to be fairly robust and strong, giving us confidence. Revenue in the EMEA market declined due to project closures. As stated by Umang and in our prior conversations, we have been pretty clear that we want to pursue profitable growth in the geography. As a result, some of the deals are right-shifting as much as projects coming to a closure. There was a decline in the revenues for the geography. If I shift the needle towards the profitability indicators, our operating EBITDA margins stood at 15% for the quarter. It declined 31 basis points quarter-on-quarter.
However, the most important point to note is that one of our largest clients, not just in the UK market, but the largest engagement, PanMastek, we secured a two-year extension come renewal of that client, and there was a major discount that we had to offer them. That discount kicked in and impacted for the whole quarter, and despite that, we were able to nearly have a flat operating EBITDA performance. It just reflects our ability to absorb that discount, continue to make the investments in the talent and capabilities to grow the business forward. We reported INR 92.1 crore in net profit for the quarter, which has grown by 28.7% year-on-year and 13.5% quarter-on-quarter. If I look at some of the other financial parameters, the cash and cash equivalents stood at INR 549 crore versus last quarter of INR 622 crore.
It decreased on account of the variable payout, which was nearly INR 100 crore plus within the quarter, as much as INR 50 crore plus of debt repayment. DSOs continue to be steady at 82 days versus 83 days last quarter and 92 days last year this quarter. 12-month order backlog stood at $274 million, which is 3.5% quarter-on-quarter growth and 5.5% year-on-year growth. That's the sum and substance of our financial performance. As I shift towards the business performance, I'll start with the geography that I lead and represent at the Mastek level. UKI and Europe business continues to deliver a very strong performance, both in terms of top line as well as in terms of order booking and the pipeline build that we are witnessing. The growth that I mentioned is coming from all the sectors: secure government, healthcare, and private sector.
Our Oracle business is definitely seeing recovery, led by Europe and UK in that order. The momentum is also coming from the data-led deals and some of the legacy transformation where AI is playing a very pivotal role. In this quarter gone by, we secured a large deal, nearly £15 million plus of PCV, which was an intersection of a financial services, large financial services regulatory organization here in the UK. It was driven by the data and the transformation of their data landscape. It also saw some renewals and extensions of the major engagement, both in secure government services space, in the NHS space, as well as in the enterprise space. These are all long-tenured engagements where a client continues to repose significant faith in Mastek and continues to extend its work with Mastek.
If I look at the business from a directional point of view, I would like to spend a few minutes and give you the highlights of the spending review. As you're aware that last year we had a new government led by the Labour Party. They had a tremendous mandate from the citizens here. We went through our spending review, the highlights of which got published a couple of weeks back. Some of the highlights which are relevant for Mastek and its business here in the geography are there is a reiterated commitment on increased spend in digital and tech across the departments. The government has committed to a £3.25 billion transformation fund, which will be focused on public services, digital transformation, and AI-led initiatives. However, there is also a strong mandate of 15% reduction in admin costs through automation and technology over the next five years.
Now, it is important to note that these cuts or these reductions would be achieved by higher digital spend or higher spend towards digitalizing the landscape that's already there. That's where Mastek is very well placed and positioned to make use of that and help the departments achieve that. The second highlight is the focus on NHS transformation. As most of you have observed, our growth in the geography, both in this quarter as well as over the last five quarters, has been driven by the growth in our healthcare business. That continues to be the major focus of the government. NHS has received £10 billion over the next five years, explicitly aimed at digital technology and infrastructure improvement, aimed at reducing the wait time and improving the operational efficiency for the patients.
The key areas of spend would be electronic health record, integrated care systems, and patient portals that allow for doctors and patients to engage with each other seamlessly, as well as for the capacity to be available across the health systems or across the regions within the NHS. The third highlight would be the commitment towards the cloud and efficiency push, government-wide mandate to deliver £14 billion in savings through digital and AI by 2028 and 2029. As I said in the first point, this further reiterates the fact that suppliers like Mastek, strategic partners like Mastek, will be engaged very closely with the departments in shaping up those spend to achieve the savings and efficiencies. There is a transition outcome-based digital funding model being established to unlock better value for money and more responsive delivery.
There is a new procurement policy that has also been launched that essentially wants the suppliers to outline the KPIs delivered, the outcomes achieved. This puts Mastek and suppliers like Mastek in a good place because our programs are delivering the value and there are palpable acknowledgements of the government departments, as well as from the higher-ups at the Crown Commercial Services. These things, when published, allow for other buyers to see who are credible suppliers and possibly consider their offerings. This also augurs well for us. Last but definitely not the least is the continued commitment of the government in terms of removing the technical debt and strengthening its position in the cybersecurity space. I'm happy to confirm that Q1 order booking also represented Mastek's first commercially completed win on the cybersecurity and services framework in one of the large public sector departments.
Sum and substance being that the beneficiary of the spend review are Health and the Ministry of Defense, both places Mastek is very well entrenched. There are clear mandates on efficiency and adoption of AI, including other automation tools, where again Mastek is in the pole position to secure the benefits out of it. Moving forward to the U.S. geography, I would say that while the headwinds in two of our major sectors, retail and health, resulted in the quarter-on-quarter revenue decline and the year-on-year flat revenue performance, there are some green shoots and interesting developments that are worth noting here. Some of the major deals or the key deals within the quarter that we won were mostly led by our AI capability. The AI-led testing automation capability strongly resonated with our Oracle clientele, and we won four or five new deals just on AI-led testing.
These are small POCs at this point of time, sub $0.5 million- $1 million kind of engagement, which can be delivered over the next few quarters. The key point is that the clients are willing to test the technology, willing to take the advantage of that technology, and use Mastek as their sounding board to test it and further adopt it. The second part is the renewed commitment towards building the sales team led by the Geography Head. As Ashank alluded, we are in advanced stages of onboarding my peer in the U.S. geography. The focus of Umang himself, he spent over the last six weeks in the geography, meeting the clients, restructuring the team, reorienting the team for where the growth opportunities are.
One of the key themes continues to be, apart from the AI-led opportunities, the account mining and broadening our services in the accounts that we have. As most of you know, we have made acquisitions in the Salesforce capability, the data capability. These accounts have historically experienced only one service line-led engagement. As we are moving towards their business problems, business challenges, we are understanding the fact that we can bring in other capabilities as well. Data clients are looking for CX modernization as well. CX clients are looking for data solution and how do they monetize their data and basically impact the client outcomes. This is the commingling that he has been driving, and we are seeing a robust pipeline as much as some of the conversions as well.
EMEA market will continue the focus on profitable growth, and this will be driven by our foray into the healthcare space. As most of you know, healthcare has been a strong point, but the foray would be towards what I call the electronic health record or the acquisition of Cerner by Oracle, where Oracle is calling it as a healthcare GBU. We have onboarded a very seasoned Cerner professional who has an insight on combining our traditional Oracle capability with healthcare and Cerner capabilities to lead that growth. This capability, ladies and gentlemen, would be relevant for all the geographies that we operate in, as much for UK, Europe, as much for the U.S. market. Overall, I would conclude the narrative with the reaffirmation that we are not only restructuring ourselves in the U.S. market as much as finding the avenues to drive the growth.
We are executing strongly in our UK and European market, following the policy, following the trail where the investments from the government are being directed towards, both in health and in the larger public sector, expanding our enterprise business space with the successes in the BFSI space that we talked about. Horizontally, looking at app dev and data continues to be the strong pillar for us in the geography and EMEA market for the strategic capability that it helps us build as much as profitable growth. With that, I will offer it back to the Operator to take the questions, if any. Thank you, folks.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchstone 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 comes from the line of Jalaj from Svan Investments. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Yes, go ahead.
Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question was around the UK geography. It's heartening to see the growth and margins coming together this time. I just wanted to understand that on a segmental level, we are sitting almost at 19% laid margins. When should we understand that it goes back to 23%? Is that happening near term or how long would it take to go back there?
Jalaj, thank you for your question. I want to reassure you that we in the geography as much aspire for going back to the same levels of margin. However, it will be a slow build given the fact that the twin facts of the growth that we have experienced over the last five quarters, they come with very differentiated capability ask, which was not our traditional strength. These capabilities require us to have Program Managers, Product Managers, Enterprise Architects, Chief Architects, which are essentially being sourced from the market right now as a lateral hire. These capabilities take a longer duration to build. What we are focused upon right now is having the graduates and apprentices program here in the geography to generate a pool of security-cleared resources who will contribute to the margin improvement. Right now, it's a subscale investment of 25 or less FTEs who are getting trained.
The second one is that the quarter also experienced a massive discount impact of the largest client engagement that we had. Despite that, we were able to improve the margins. Absorbing the impact of the discount and investing in the future workforce via the graduate and apprentices program will take us a few quarters before you start to see the benefit of those.
Okay, got it. Understood. Sort of a temporary push in discounts. Just on the discounts part, is it a broad-based thing which is happening around or it's very client-specific or account-specific we'll have?
This was an account-specific one, Jalaj. The fact that it was one of our largest clients, yeah.
Got it. Understood.
The impact will be a little bit more.
Got it. Sir, specifically on the U.S., I just wanted to understand that either there is growth or there is margin, both are not coming together and it's very volatile if I were to just compare it to a UK geography. What are we, partially your headwind in the U.S. economy explains it, but otherwise, are we set as an internal engine for the growth whenever it comes? Are we there? It is going to take longer.
Thank you, Jalaj. I guess this might be the question of many other participants on the call. Let me try to answer it in a comprehensive fashion. You're right that it's either growth or margin. Having said that, U.S. in the context of Mastek Limited still continues to be a distinct geography. The phenomena that impacted us the most was the muted spend by all of our largest clients. If you look at it, one of our largest engagements in the healthcare space, payer space, they ramped down significantly given the cost pressures that they were experiencing, especially in the payer segment. The retail, as all of you know, is really under the impact of tariffs. They are cutting their discretionary spend. Both these accounts had an impact on our top line. You would imagine that some of the cost or the structural cost of operating the U.S. geography is nearly fixed.
The efficiencies or the costs that we had to drive have been done, and this is what I call the skeletal spend on which the U.S. geography will be built up. The next $1 million or $2 million or $5 million or $10 million, if you look at it quarterly or annually, the revenue that comes in will contribute disproportionately to the bottom line. From where we stand, Jalaj, I would say that we see that we have bottomed out for sure. As the revenue grows over the second half of the year, it will get back to its operating EBITDA levels, which is the near double digit to the low double digit that we have experienced.
That's the way I would explain it, that there are green shoots given the pipeline, there are green shoots given the AI-led deals that we have concluded this quarter, and the confidence that we have given that clients are interested in having these conversations. Also, the fact that time spent by Umang Nahata restructuring it has ensured that the team is talking PanMastek capabilities in each account and not just a particular service line or a particular capability, which ensures that you are mining your clients and making it what we call a customer for life. Yes, there are some immediate pain points, as you saw in the quarter's performance, but we see a lot more robust from the current vantage point, Jalaj.
Thank you. Mr. Jalaj, may we request you to rejoin the queue for follow-up questions, please? Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ravi Menon from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I just wanted to understand the segmental margins, and that shows that UK and Europe profitability has improved significantly quarter on quarter. I think this is despite the productivity benefit that you said, the discount that you've given. I wanted to understand what's helped this improvement. Similarly, the EMEA segment profits are down nearly 48% year-on-year, while the revenue is down only 16%. North America, I think you did explain that there was a lot of fixed cost, and now our segment margin is just 2.9% versus last quarter's 12%. It's a big swing in profitability, but you're saying that that could bounce back. I would appreciate your thoughts on all these three segmental margins.
Thank you for your question. Some of the UK profitability or the UK and Europe profitability is a function of the maturity of the geography. We have a very clear line of sight of the programs that are ramping up. In that phase of ramp-up, it may be dilutive, and when does it come back? Q4 had, if you recollect, also a pretty stellar revenue performance sequentially over Q3. The ramp-up cost had come in, and there were a lot of one-timers that actually came in in one go. Some of those benefits we have experienced as it ebbed in Q1. When we ramp up the security-cleared environment, you have a holding cost of folks because they go through the security clearance. Security clearances are for each department or each engagement. Some of those things, I would say, naturally tapered out in this quarter, and it helped us recover.
Also, the fact that we had given this discount, conceptually, it was agreed with the client way back in November, December of last year. We had good, solid three to four months to prepare ahead of time to see what we could do with the pyramid, what we could do with the grade mix and stuff to help offset some of these impacts coming our way. The best way I would explain it is the relative maturity of the various geographies and our ability to plan ahead of time and execute, which we are now taking across the geographies under Umang's leadership. That's what helped us recover in the UK and Europe segmental profitability. However, we are continuing to invest in the graduate programs so that we have the workforce for the future as the business growth becomes more and more visible.
If I look at the U.S. market, what I said in the last query is what I would repeat here, that the revenue reduction had a disproportionate impact on the bottom line, or practically all of that fell through the bottom line. As we grow back, and some of it is visible to us in the second half of the year, we will see the margins climbing back. The Middle East is a function of just timing, I would call it, as per our policies. We had to make provisions of that bad debt, and the payment is impacted by the client cyclicalities and client situations. As it recovers, I think next quarters would have a better margin performance. Having said that, we are absolutely committed to doing profitable business in the geography as far as the Middle East is concerned.
Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate that. Just a small check about the number of clients with annual billing more than $1 million. That's come off slightly quarter on quarter, but your $3 million plus, I think that's actually gone up. Is it just some of the ramp-downs in the U.S. that's caused this decline in the $1 million plus tier?
That's right. It also is a result of some of the programs and projects coming to the natural conclusion, especially in the Oracle landscape when we execute on ERP or HCM implementation or large implementations. As it goes live, obviously the revenue tapers off. That's a natural phenomenon, and you observed it appropriately.
Thanks very much, Abhishek.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Sushovon from Anand Rathi. Please go ahead.
Is my point audible?
Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Yes, I appreciate the opportunity. I just wanted to understand the headcount bit. We have seen almost a 13% reduction year on year in the headcount and almost 5% quarter on quarter. I just want to understand what's the rationale for that. Is it better productivity or are you seeing higher subcontracting? If you could just shed some light on that, that would be helpful.
Thank you. Thank you for your question. It's a combination of both. The first and foremost is that productivity continues to be one of the major levers of margin stability as well as margin improvement. Yes, we are very, very focused on that one. The second one is the nature of the engagement gives us a very clear idea of where the workforce is required. If the growth in the UK-Europe market, as you see, is coming from a security-cleared landscape, even in the BFSI space, we are dealing with a lot of large regulators who have security-cleared environments. You have to orientate your workforce towards the demands that are coming in. Your observations are appropriate that, yes, it's a combination of both.
Having said that, we are looking at where the requirements are, and if we need to hire within the geography to train the workforce for the current and future requirements, we are doing that as well.
Can you say this is especially in the UK or are you seeing this headcount reduction in the U.S?
The reduction is predominantly driven by our offshore population that we had. Some programs that ramped down had a reduction. The trainee workforce that went into production, there was a natural attrition as well. Some of our high skills are experiencing attrition as well. Yes, it's a combination of all. In the UK geography, we have had net headcount increase.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Hasmukh from Tata Mutual Funds. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just one additional question on the Greenville trend or the 12-month order book trend. There is definitely in the last couple of quarters a slight improvement. How to think about this? A few quarters back, we were doing a 15%- 20% sort of year-on-year growth here, right? Now, with the nature of ways which you are calling out, that they may come at us, let's say, lower ACV, higher TCV sort of a, let's say, number. In that context, how do you see this number going forward?
Thank you, Hasmukh. I would like to qualify that we are not seeing a lower ACV and a higher TCV deal. The businesses that are coming in are reasonably well spread out in terms of ACV to TCV ratio. One of the reasons why our 12-month order backlog is not growing as robustly is that some of the large chunky engagements that we have in our public sector estate here in the UK are going through their extension or renewal. It will experience or is getting a shorter renewal given that the spend review and the budget approvals from the government had not gone to the departments. The departments were just giving you a three-month or a next six weeks kind of extension. I would expect that some of these things should come in, especially with two of our major engagements in health and in secure government space. I don't see any major cause of concern here, though the numbers are not translating.
Got it. Got it. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Amit Chandra from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. The first question is on the margin expansion that we have seen in the UK geography. What part of the margin expansion there has been attributed to currency, if you can quantify that? Plus, overall, where we are in terms of our journey to achieve the 17% to 19% margin. Obviously, we know that we have seen the pressure in margin in the US geography and the Middle East geography. Overall, where we are in that journey?
Hi, Amit. Thank you for your question. First and foremost, Amit, the major expansion in margin that we experienced in the UK, it's worth noting that most of the businesses we deliver in the geography. There is no margin expansion, at least for the onshore portion. The only offshore portion would have the benefit of it. I would say that it wouldn't be more than 25- 30 basis points overall here as far as the UK business is concerned. You said you asked something on the U.S., and I missed catching that one. What was your question on the U.S.?
I was just asking, just trying to understand where we are in terms of the margin journey that we earlier alluded to, 17%- 19% at the company level.
Thank you, Amit. I would say that as far as this financial year is concerned, we are pretty committed to having a stable margin performance and pull all the levers that help us maintain that stability as well as create the positive bias. As you can see with the UK business, I outlined that we are further investing in the workforce that will meet the demands of the future, and those workforce will come at a better margin because these are the graduates that you're training from within as against hiring laterally. All these initiatives that are going in parallel also consume your margins as much as giving you the margin improvements. I would commit on behalf of all of us that we are more towards stable to upward bias for this financial year.
Okay. In the U.S. geography, are we seeing some higher attrition there, mostly at the top management level in the U.S?
Not really. The attrition that happened, Amit, all happened either in the early part of Q1 or late part of Q4. Since then, we are now in the net hiring mode, both the hiring of onboarding of U.S. geography head as well as a couple of account managers increasing the sales coverage. I would say that as far as the leadership role is concerned, we are in the net hiring mode in the U.S. geography.
Okay. The last question is on the Middle East geography. Do you have any plans to exit that geography?
No, Amit. There are no such plans. As a matter of fact, what we are trying to do is to use that geography for really strategic purposes. The first and foremost point is how do we keep that geography profitable, which means even if you have to reduce the engagements but have profitable engagements only, that's the focus. The second one is what I touched upon in the early part of the conversation is that Oracle has converted health into a global business unit after the acquisition of Cerner and integrating it with the fusion capabilities. That geography forms the incubation of Mastek's Cerner healthcare and fusion capability intersection. We have a very senior ex-Cerner professional and CIO of multiple health organizations join Mastek early part of Q1.
He's driving that strategic initiative where his test cases will be in the Middle Eastern market, and it'll expand beyond in the APAC as much as Europe, UK, and the U.S. markets. The Middle East provides us with some strategic value.
Okay. I will add, Abhishek Singh, saying that as you rightly mentioned, that is the way it has been contributing. This is not only last quarter or last year, but last few years, that certainly there has been large talent development and POCs, etc., which have benefited the other sectors.
Lastly, on the CFO hiring, when will you have a stable CFO?
I'll take that on behalf of Ashank, Amit. The first and foremost is that the process is really, really active, as you would guess. We had the shortlist from the earlier round as much, and then a few others that Umang's looking at. The idea is to be within the statutory timelines that are there, as you know, without a CFO for 90 days. We tend to be in the penal zone with the company law. We want to do it at the earliest, Amit. That's the best I can share with you.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Naveen Baid with Nuvama Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Just to continue, what is the subcontracting cost that is going to?
Say that again. I heard you as subcontracting cost. I didn't get the full question.
Yes, for the quarter.
Subcontracting cost for the quarter, I think I can. I don't have that number top of my head. We can have it to you via Asha.
Sure.
I don't have the exact quantum. I'm looking at the segmental, but I don't have the exact quantum.
Okay, sure. No, you take it offline.
Sure.
Okay. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Shankar Narayanan S. with iThought PMS. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. My question is regarding the revenue they contract in terms of time and material. There's a slight increase in the time and material contract. I could understand it's partly due to the nature of the business. In these uncertain times, don't you think that we should be more focused on fixed price contracts to help their margins? I just want to tell you a thought.
Thank you, Sankar, for your question. I would like to tell you I'm smiling at this one because of two reasons. Engagements with clients on TNM or fixed bid, neither of them give you more assurance than the other model. It's essentially about what is ailing the client and what is it that you are trying to solve. You can solve it as effectively in the TNM engagement versus fixed bid or outcome-based engagements. Traditionally, yes, as an industry, we have made more money on fixed bid because of the rotation, the grade mix, and whatnot. Having said that, in the Mastek Limited context, the kind of work that we do, the high-end transformation programs that we do, these things are relatively immaterial. It's about the skills and the capability that you bring in and the differentiated price that you can get for that.
I don't see this as a cause of concern. However, I do take your, I acknowledge your question that higher fixed bid means higher, better margins, but it also means significant risk coming your way. If you don't manage the scope, there can be scope creep. There could be change management that needs to be delivered effectively for you to protect your margin. Both types of businesses come with their own risk. At this point of time, I would say that we have a healthy balance. Last but definitely not the least is all the government engagements essentially happen in the TNM fashion. It has a fixed price, but it gets done in the TNM fashion. We call it as a deemed TNM or deemed fixed bid because that's the fixed price and you have to do it in a TNM fashion. We feel reasonably comfortable with the mix that we have.
Thanks for that explanation. My second question is regarding your revenue target.
Sorry to interrupt.
Sure.
Mr. Sankar, before you go ahead, may I request you to use your handset, please? Your audio is slightly muffled, sir.
Sir, is it audible now?
Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Yes, sure. Sir, what kind of revenue target do you set yourself for the next three to five years? Because during April 2022, you have set $1 billion revenue by 2026 or early 2027. I could acknowledge that a lot of uncertainty happened from that period on. From here on, what revenue target do you fix for the next three to five years?
I think. Sankar, that's. Yeah.
Okay .
Yeah.
Thank you, Ashank.
I would say that I won't delve into those aspects, Sankar. Our focus as a management team supporting the Chief Executive and reporting to the board is profitable growth with a consistent northward trajectory. If you look at our own journey across different regions, you will find that we have had years of less than 10% growth, and here we are talking about 8%- 10% quarter on quarter growth as much. The key focus for the management team is about the northward journey, and the continuous calibrated effort gives you predictability of your growth and gives you higher confidence of growth, helps you navigate the uncertainties that come your way. The numbers are the result of that calibration. The realities of our business are very different in different geographies. Right now, our commitment is maintaining a northward trajectory, both in terms of top line as well as bottom line. Ashank, I will welcome your ambition and your vision here as a supplement to what I outlined.
No, as you well said, that's what you well answered it. Obviously, we would like to have faster than industry growth. Over the last four or five years, we have done that through organic and inorganic together. That pace, we would like to continue in terms of growth. That's where our ambitions were expressed in that particular time. We continue to move towards that. We are seeing that it is about aspiration as much as the vision rather than just setting a target. This is what we aspire. We aspire for faster than industry growth. We aspire for a much larger share of markets. Now with AI and other things, we really see a green shoot all over. Got it, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Ravi Naredi with Naredi Investments. Please go ahead.
Sure. I can ask this question to Ashank, sir, also? May 2022, our net profit is INR 333 crore, then 310, then 311, then 376. In the last four years, we barely grow. Can you tell more commentary for the next four years? When our higher staff will join, this is my main question from you.
Your observation is correct about the profitability. Certainly, a large part obviously comes from the cost increases that have happened. In terms of investment that we have made, both of these have generated into this kind of situation in spite of our best effort to go back to higher EBITDA. I would not like to announce any targets for the next four years. As I said, we have been calibrating ourselves against the industry, particularly companies of our size, plus and minus. We feel that we will be well within the overall industry numbers and like to do better, as I said. I would not like to put some three or four-year targets. Abhishek, you can add.
Thank you, Ashank. Ravi, you touched upon a very important aspect here in terms of profitability or the bottom line growth, essentially, which is what gives the confidence. I would like to, and this is very, I would say, generational question that I would like to answer from my take. You know, four years back, when you referred to it, the kind of profitability we experienced was driven by the twin phenomena, which were both because of the COVID. The first and foremost was that the SaaS platform adoption had gone through the roof. As a result, our Oracle service line business at that point of time, only one year into the acquisition, had grown phenomenally well. As the last gentleman asked that question on fixed bid, the predominant engagement was fixed bid.
Something that really helped us was the fact that there was no expenditure whatsoever, whether it is your office expenses, travel, hospitality, meals, entertainment, client engagement. There was an obvious cost saving that the organization experienced. As a result, there was a disproportionate profitability, both in absolute as well as in percentage terms. That was the juncture when Mastek Limited looked at its profitability and it had to make one of the two choices. Do you continue to enjoy this profitability, albeit for a short time, or do you invest in the organization to make it a robust organization for the future? Some of the things that Ashank touched upon are what we have done over the last three to four years. Things like service line capability, things like your marketing coverage, the various forums in which Mastek Limited participated to demonstrate its capabilities.
As a result, clients and prospective clients had the confidence to engage with Mastek Limited. The deal that we did with one of the large regulators here in the UK in the BFSI space this quarter in Q1 was a testament of their ability to understand and appreciate what Mastek Limited has been doing in the UK for the last three decades. We were an insular organization, not engaging with the market, not doing enough on the marketing side, not spending in the technologies that were emerging. All of these things required Ravi to make an investment, and that has made your organization more robust, made your organization more resilient, but it has come at the cost of margins.
As some of our geographies mature and reflect the maturity journey of the UK and Europe, you will see some of those things coming back, whether it was Amit's question of when do you get to 17% to 19% or some of the other investors asking the same question. My take on it is that we have made the investments. We have right-sized ourselves. There is an ownership of turning around the U.S. geography. There is continued execution on the growth opportunities here in the UK. We are using the EMEA market for incubation of new technologies. As we come in more synchronized under the current leadership, you will see the benefits of it coming in.
Thank you . I will only add to say that please remember that the revenue multiples that we had over these same five years in terms of X number of times over revenue didn't happen unless we invested, as Abhishek said, in marketing certainly and technologies and service lines. One example of marketing is the kind of ratings that we are presently getting. As you know, we were top five players in Oracle cloud implementation globally, according to average. Top five globally. That is the kind of ratings we were never having any time earlier. There have been similar reports on various agencies in IFG, Gartner, etc. Some of this effort has been towards revenue growth, and that requires some investment. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Harsh Chaurasia with Vallum Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. This is a short question.
Sorry to interrupt you, sir. Sir, your audio is not clear. May I request you to use your handset, please?
Audible now?
Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I had one question. If I see the growth of Mastek Limited from an incremental revenue absolute number, the majority of the growth has been polarized towards the top five clients. If I see 6 to 10 or even the non-top 10 clients, the growth has been very muted. I wanted to understand, at the same time, like when we see the million-dollar client addition is going up significantly, how are we going to do the account mining side and what are the investments on the sales side and even on the capability side we are doing? Now we have created a very good base of clients which can be scaled up further in the next three to four years. I wanted to get an idea on that.
Abhishek, I will answer that question. If you look at our top five clients and top 10 clients in terms of ratios from quarter 124 to quarter 126, yes, that has increased a few percentage points for top five clients. However, top 10 clients also have grown up. I agree that we are constantly working today on expanding the deal sizing in Oracle, in Salesforce, and other areas. Some of that is reflected in some of our top 15, 20 customers moving up in terms of revenue per year. The idea is that we would rather have a smaller number of customers than what we even have in terms of revenue and increase the revenue per customer. That has been the strategy because as we start with Oracle and Salesforce, particularly Line, the revenue per customer is quite low. Now we are doing managed services. We are offering other services in those clients.
All of that, what we call as account mining, is resulting into that movement towards a larger revenue per client. I think it is a positive direction in which we are moving. Got it. Just one more question, sir. If it's possible, if you can give us this number, Mastek Limited wallet share in the top 6- 10 clients bucket and as well as the non-top 10 clients, just a broad approximate number for Mastek Limited wallet share. No, we wanted to share your topic. Yes, yes. I don't think we have that readily available. Abhishek, I can give you. Abhishek has some data, I'm sure, for the UK.
Yeah. Thank you, Ashank. I think there is tremendous headroom for growth. It would be an understatement in each of those top 10 engagements. If you look at it, some of the engagements would definitely be with the central government departments. They are spending in the £300 to £400 million annually in the addressable technology space where our revenue share would be less than £50 million or £30 million in certain cases. I would say there is an X factor of growth opportunity in those spaces. That's what we are enhancing our capabilities to kind of secure.
Got it. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jayshree Bajaj with Trinetra Asset Managers. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is, as you have mentioned, that you are still planning on increasing the headcount and many more investments. What kind of CapEx figure can I expect from 2026? What is the question? Sorry, I couldn't get that correctly. What CapEx figure can we expect for the FY 2026? CapEx, you are talking? Yeah.
CapEx would not be anything out of the ordinary, Jayshree. In our business, we are usually asset light. If you look at it, it still pretty much is a hybrid working model. It's work from home, work from office a few days a week. The physical capacity doesn't need any expansion at this point of time. Every headcount increase comes with the standard of the laptops and desktops and stuff, which is nothing major. It's in the ordinary course of business. Sum and substance would be, I wouldn't say that there is capital spend other than replacement capital spend or refresh, CapEx refresh, refresh. We don't see anything out of the ordinary.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I would request participants to limit to one question per participant. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Varun Gandhi from Fident Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thanks for the opportunity. My question to the management would be, I see that we're developing capabilities within AI, you know, fine-tuning LLMs and doing customer-specific tailorizations. However, this part of developing models, etc., would be commoditized, I see, somewhere in the low-tech AI segment. What does the management have in view or how does it think about this market evolving? I believe this is the most fastest growing segment also within your revenue.
You must look at it as a growth vector for the whole industry, yes. For companies like Mastek, it has some special significance. For example, there has been a large legacy core, which is Line, all around in the world. Some of the great experience we had with one of our customers in the UK, which Abhishek can, of course, talk more about, is one of such examples where we have opened up markets which were not available earlier. Commoditization is not something that does not happen in any technology. It does happen. However, the opening of doors that are happening, opening of new areas of work that are happening, opening of new applications that we are doing due to AI.
Like in healthcare, we are doing something which kind of would not have been done without AI. Some of that is totally new. It is not just new technology added, doing faster, better, but it is something much more than that. To Mastek, particularly, as I said, it is opening up some market segments which were not available. We are much more enthusiastic and we are putting, of course, time, effort, money into it. Abhishek, maybe you can add.
Thank you. Thank you, Ashank. I think, Varun, you've touched upon a very, very important question here and something that in our financial conversation we didn't touch upon as much in these chats. You are right that LLM is a commodity. Productivity is a given. Deployment will be the differentiator, Varun. Who deploys it best to deliver the outcomes that the clients require? This wave is about human and machine teaming. AI on its own is not going to deliver it. It still needs the human touch, human interface to deliver better outcomes. It is basically a better tool with competent people, with the right leadership and the right attitude to deliver the outcomes.
What Ashank touched upon is a successful legacy transformation use case that we have delivered as we speak that gives us the confidence to now approach those organizations whose applications are legacy and dated, and they run significant risk if they were to not modernize because A, it's not scaling, but B, it is also an operational risk for them. Languages like Pascal or Delphi, these are written 30 or 40 years back. They're still operating, but businesses have significant risk of how do you touch them. We have demonstrated it now and now approaching our clients to say, how do you want to go about it? Here is the playbook. Here is what you do. Here is how you de-risk it. This is, as Ashank touched upon, a major opportunity.
Here in the UK, as much as the successes that we have experienced in the US market with AI-led testing, that's giving clients the confidence that they can explore more with people who are our partners who are not bringing it as a proof of concept, but who have been there, done that, and delivered the outcomes. We are approaching this with a very high degree of confidence, having secured the deals and delivered the outcome at a very large scale for an existing client.
Understood. As far as I see, it's a growth opportunity, revenue growth opportunity, as well as your differentiation here is that you've already demonstrated product efficacy. Am I understanding it right? That is how your differentiation is?
Yes, you summed it very well. It also will be your margin improvement levers for future.
All right. Thank you. Thank you, Abhishek.
Thanks, Varun.
Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up from Ravi Naredi from Naredi Investments. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, sir, for the follow-up question. Sir, from which geography do you expect better growth in the next two years, like EMEA, UK, and U.S? Why not we appoint a separate President for each region so the company can grow in a better way?
Thanks, Ravi. We indeed have a separate President for each of these, as you know. We have a President for America. We have Abhishek here, who is President for Europe and the UK. We have a person heading our EMEA market. I didn't quite get the question. We are focused along those lines. Abhishek, you can add some.
Thank you, Ashank. Ravi, to the two parts to your question, yes, we have got heads for each of the geographies who are responsible for the P&L outcomes of the geography. That includes order booking, revenue, and profitability, as much as the tech direction, working with our central colleagues. Yes, we are very well situated structurally. To the other part, another question of yours, where would the growth come from? I think each geography is in a different trajectory of its maturity and growth.
While the U.S. is looking at Mastek being a champion challenger to disrupt the established incumbents who have got large wallet shares with large enterprises, with its AI-led capabilities and ability to do the legacy transformation, it will experience a different growth trajectory compared to the UK and Europe, which has got an established and a large base and is right now fighting on three of its four cylinders of public sector, enterprise business, and healthcare, and looking to grow its Oracle business as much. Middle East will continue to grow responsibly, using the geography to incubate new capabilities, as much as having profitable growth. It is also looking to grow in the Australia and New Zealand market, which behaves like matured markets, matured Western markets, which has the same billing rate and offers the same degree of profitability compared to the Middle Eastern market. Strategically, Ravi, we are very clear and executing on it. Thank you for bringing that focus.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is a follow-up from Jalaj from Svan Investments. Please go ahead.
Hello everyone. I have two questions. First is around order book. I've seen that the order book, after a long time, has passed the $660 million quarterly run rate after a long time. What sort of visibility or clarity can we expect, or are you seeing that FY26 should be better than FY25? That's the first question. Directionally, I'm not going to give absolute numbers. Secondly, I see that the headcount is reducing, but over the last four quarters, the people cost is increasing. How should I get a sense around it?
Thank you, Jalaj. Order booking confidence, yes, directionally, we endeavor to deliver a higher order booking, which is what will pave way for FY27 and FY28 growth. It's the biggest lead indicator that all of you and for us in the business, we look at, and that's what we are endeavoring towards. The second one that you asked about was the net headcount is reducing, yet the manpower cost is going up. You're right because it is also about the mix changing. A lot of the new programs have ramped up in onshore geographies where the cost per FTE is significantly higher compared to the offshore. That's what is driving the dichotomy that you're observing.
Understood. The sort of order book we are right now sitting in, are we very comfortable? I'm just asking, trying to understand specifically from a U.S. geography. The UK is running one full circle in. U.S., do you feel the GTM is in place? Still, there is a lot to be done there. How are we going around it? U.S. and UK, I guess, are very different in terms of the end client we are serving, and therefore, the GTM, what we have to approach it.
True. U.S., no, we are not satisfied with the order booking that we have secured, though it is still a 25% growth from the last quarter. It is a small base. I would agree with you even before you asked me that %s really do not matter. Yes, we are looking for a higher order booking quarter-on-quarter rhythm from the geography. As we get the geo head, I think that will follow its cadence. A couple of other key roles have been onboarded, and we feel that it is getting into the rhythm. UK will continue to, thank you.
Please go. Please go. Please go.
No, I said the UK will continue to pursue the mid-size as much as large deals, in addition to its operating rhythm right now.
Got it. Looking forward to seeing the growth coming to the US geography also.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sameer Dosan with ICICI Prudential AMC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Just to clarify, US has not turned out, but growth, when you think about, is it like H2 you mentioned in some other comments? In UK geography, I think there is 9% quarter-on-quarter USD growth, but I'm sure there is a lot of cross-currency change. What is the cross-CC constant currency growth here in the UK? If you can just clarify for me. When should we think about growth in the UK geography?
Y ou can shave off 100 basis points possibly from the currency point of view. The key point here, Samir, is that it's a fairly robust engagement here in the geography in the UK, whether it is health or defense or central government departments or our pursuit in the BFSI space, the deep account mining or helping the clients go on the modernization journey, the clients who have been with us for a couple of decades now in continuity, and we are helping them modernize. There are different flavors that give us a different degree of confidence. One of the investors did ask a question on the fixed bid versus TNM.
One of the biggest transformations that we have done using the AI has been in the outcome-based fixed price, which gives us the confidence that you can take this to the market and secure the client on their cost, on their time, and get them the outcomes. The long and short of it is that we would like to maintain this trajectory and secure a healthy growth to ensure that PanMastek, we are delivering a double-digit growth.
Okay. This year also, double-digit growth is possible, you think?
Sameer Headwinds Q1, we started a little soft as far as other two geographies are concerned, but who's to say there's still a solid eight months ahead of us? We can execute on that. That's the ambition. That's the endeavor. You know just one or two deals can allow us. Still, we are a relatively smaller base. One or two deals executed well within the year can get us the momentum to get back to the double digit. There is a headwind. You rightly observed it. We remain committed to get to that point.
Yeah, because, okay. In the U.S., should we grow from here? Like onwards, should we be able to show growth in the U.S. geography?
There is a positive bias from where we stand here. There is a positive bias, and there is a relative confidence for H2 to demonstrate growth.
Okay. Got it. Thanks. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for the day. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone for their interest and very rounded questions. Yes, we've started the year well as far as bottom line is concerned, as far as growth for the major geographies is concerned. The job is very well cut out for our U.S. business. That will be led by AI. That will be led by the new leader. That will be very well supported by all of us across the geographies, be it Middle East or be it UK. We will all bring our capabilities and capacities to align well with delivering that growth. The sum and substance of this quarter and our directional journey for the year and times to come is to maintain a positive bias, maintain a northward trajectory, and deliver a predictable and consistent financial performance for all of us. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Mastek Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.