Thank you for your time. Good evening and welcome to the MedPlus Health Services Limited Q4/FY23 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 star 100 on your desktop phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now have the conference over to Mr. Gangadi Madhukar Reddy from MedPlus. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Faizan. Good evening, everyone. On behalf of MedPlus, it's my utmost pleasure to welcome you all to the MedPlus Q4/FY23 earnings conference call to discuss the financial results, which were announced on 22 May 2023. We have with us today the senior management team, represented by Mr. Gangadi Madhukar Reddy, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Mr. Sujit Mahato, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Chetan Seetharaman , Chief Strategy Officer. Before we begin, I would like to mention that some of the statements made in today's discussion may be forward-looking in nature and may involve risks and uncertainties. Please note the disclaimer mentioning these risks and uncertainties inside one of the investor presentations shared with all of you earlier. Documents relating to our financial performance have been circulated earlier, and these have also been posted on our corporate website. I would now hand over the call to Mr.
Madhukar for his opening comments. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Madhukar.
Thanks, Faizan. Good evening, everyone. At MedPlus, we're proud to have a dedicated team of over 22,000 people who consistently demonstrate discipline and hard work in delivering essential services to our valued customers. As of March 31st, we have been serving the healthcare and household needs in 552 cities across seven states through our extensive network of 3,000 healthcare and digital pharmacies. During the current quarter, we have subsequently expanded our presence into 55 additional cities. In addition to our pharmacy operations, that has operated 3 integrated radiology centers, 4 slightly smaller radiology centers which have state-of-the-art ultrasound machines, and over 100 collection centers. These facilities play a crucial role in our commitment to providing accessible diagnostic services to our customers. Our growth expansion initiatives remain on track, and we continue to grow our presence. Over the past 12 months, we've added a network.
That led to 184 stores opening in Q4 alone. Notably, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have the highest number of store entries with 88 and 53 stores net additions. Our store openings in Q4, 58% were in Tier 2 and beyond, reflecting our strategic focus on these targets. Currently, out of our 3,822 stores, 1,675 are located in Tier 2 cities and beyond, which are advantageous in terms of store economics for us. We recognize the potential of these markets and aim to further expand due to the maturity of our operations and our subscription capabilities. Q4 had 19 store closures slightly higher than the 19 in Q3. However, taking into account both openings and closures, we see a net addition of 19 stores in Q4 and a net addition of 19 in Q3.
Over the past 12 months, we've successfully added +1,024 stores. In terms of age of our store network, we have categorized our network values. Approximately 30% of our stores are less than one year old, around 19% of our stores are in the second year of operation, and the remaining have been operating for more than two years. To illustrate the impact of the rapid store expansion on the age of the stores we have entered, by the end of Q4, approximately 49% fall in less than two years. In comparison during Q4 of 2022, only 40% of our stores are less than two years. It's important to note that all stores within less than two years age category are still in their nascent stage, and from a financial perspective, they currently have a negative impact on our operations owing to the discount.
However, as these stores mature and we expect them aggregating costs will lead to a problem quickly. We closely monitor the time it takes for our new stores to take over. Those open between April 2022 and September 2022, approximately 65% of them achieve break-even within 6 months of operations. Additionally, around 21% of our new stores reach break-even within 7 months of operations. As a result of that, our network has grown to INR 3,862 with INR 2 million sq ft compared to 2,738 and INR 1.6 million sq ft at the end of March 2022. The average store size was 587 sq ft. In the year since our start, we have 3,715 stores less than 600 and 1,107 stores, or about greater than 600 sq ft. In terms of expected sales, we have strategically positioned going on for our each year's entire trading program.
Our private label range is designed to offer customers high-quality products at affordable prices. Currently, we accomplished over 500 of our curated SKUs spanning both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical strategies. Private label sales accounted for 15% of the.
Sorry. The audio is not very clear, sir. I request you if you can keep the mic slightly closer to you.
Sure. The biggest support we have to increase the share of private label products in our customer shopping basket are progressing positively. Notably, our private label pharmaceutical range has shown promising growth contributing to 8.4% of our overall revenue. Further, our expanding presence in Tier 2 cities and beyond is making a significant impact on our revenue mix. Some of these markets accounted for 38% of our revenues in current quarter, amounting to an increase of 30% in the same period last year. This indicates the success of our expansion strategy and the growing effectiveness of our offerings in these markets. We continue to expand our coverage of clinical care online orders. This complements well with our physical stores. MedPlus will continue to focus on increasing the coverage of the two-hour delivery offering.
Small shops have a share of online orders that continues to maintain a higher share than home delivery, reflecting the convenience and accessibility of our store network. Our strategy on online remains unchanged. We will not spend heavily or impress customers online, and we'll continue to maintain our omnichannel as a profitable channel. Now, I request you to give an update on our numbers.
Thank you, Madhukar. Now, on our quarter's performance, our consolidated revenue was INR 12,500 million, which has a growth of 29.7% on a year-over-year basis and 5.3% quarter-over-quarter. Our consolidated operating EBITDA stood at INR 406 million, representing 3.2%. This is a 37.6% year-over-year growth and 9.6% quarter-over-quarter improvement. About 99% of our revenue is from our pharmacy operations. The pharmacy operating EBITDA was INR 447 million, representing 3.6%. Our store's performance, I would like to update on our store's older than 12 months. Revenue from this store in Q4 was INR 10,737 million, or 88% of our pharmacy revenue. These stores had a store-level EBITDA margin of 10.6%. The store-level operating ROCE of these stores stood at 60.5%. A word here on the store-level EBITDA margin by age and retail.
While stores greater than 12 months had a margin of 10.6%, this was 11% for stores greater than 24 months and 7.8% for stores in the age bracket of 13-24 months. If we allocated non-store-related costs, the operating EBITDA of stores greater than 12 months would be INR 537 million, which translates to a margin of 5%. Our net working capital for Q4 was 64 days, which comprised of the following: the inventory in our warehouse was 35 days. As you are aware, because of the sales trajectory of new stores, their inventory turnover is lower in the first year. In quarter four, the inventory level of our first-year store was 114 days. In comparison, for our store older than 12 months, the inventory was 39 days. Now, I request Chetan to update on our diagnostic data over to you, Chetan.
Thank you, Sujit. Good afternoon, everyone. At the end of March 2023, in our finance market of Hyderabad, we had three full-service diagnostic centers, four level two centers, plus we had just over 100 collection centers. In Q1 of FY 2024, we expect to open our fourth full-service diagnostic center, and we have already gone live with three additional level two centers. So that's seven at the end of Q4, being currently 10 and expected to be 11 by quarter end. There's a sharp gap for people who are not already acquainted with our approach to diagnostics. Any customer of MedPlus Advantage plan can avail the full range of radiology tests and pathology tests at 75% discount to MRP. There are three differences in our model versus our typical tier. Firstly, we do not operate via franchising. Secondly, our collection centers are housed within our existing pharmacies.
Thirdly, our plan is designed such that we do not depend on the referral network of patient pictures. We have launched the MedPlus Advantage plan in February 2022. Up to 31st March 2023, we have sold a gross of 75,000 plans. Since these plans have a one-year validity, going forward, we will be disclosing active plans and underlying lines. As on 31st March 2023, we had 93,000 active plans and 163,000 underlying lines. While we expect seasonality advance in Q1, we have crossed the milestone of 100,000 active plans, and we are now sitting outside on the 150,000 milestone. Plan renewals is an important area for us. Given that diagnostics is not a high-frequency usage, say like groceries, our preferred metric for monitoring renewals will be renewals within six months from expiry. At this stage, it is only good for us to draw a trend.
However, we will provide an update in next quarter's call. That's our update on diagnostics and back to medical.
Thank you, Chetan. So going forward, what can we expect from MedPlus? We currently operate in a very attractive pharmacy tier. So that price has grown on the back of our store expansion. We have over 4,000 stores right now, and we provide those general benefits which we will continue to do as we go forward. So our expansion plans continue to remain in place for the next 12 months.
Sorry to interrupt you, sir. The audio is not clear to us.
Okay. Our cluster-based network enables profitable omnichannel service, and we continue to expand this every step. Scale allows larger shares of our price to be bought. In our diagnostic products, we have proven that we can use our pharmacy stores. Possibly, other healthcare clinicians can be able to explore other revenue patterns and incremental sales without increasing costs. So that's kind of the update. I request you to open the lines for questions.
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 touchscreen 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. First question is from the line of Prakash Agarwal from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good afternoon. My first question is, I'm not sure if we already said, but what is your store guidance for Q1 2024?
It will remain on the same lines, Prakash, most likely anywhere from 800-1,000 stores.
Okay. And shall we close at 1,074 net?
At 1,074 net, yeah.
Okay. These are largely in the existing states, or do you plan to introduce any new states?
Well, definitely. We're looking to expand into Chhattisgarh, Kerala, and Madhya Pradesh. But these will be small stores, you could say. There are between 20 and 25. There are four cities of the three cities that Kochi, Indore and Raipur. We will stabilize our operations and then replace them from there.
Okay. Currently, in these states, there are no stores as of now, right?
These are completely new states for us, and we are going there because they are contiguous to the states in which we operate in a major way.
Okay. One clarity on the SSG growth of 12-month-plus stores. 15% is a very strong number. I'm just trying to understand, is there any one-off outreach? Is it sustainable?
Definitely, Q3 and Q4 are slightly different for us normally, I would say. The seasonality effect will be there to some extent. You obviously can't expect the same in Q1. Outside of that, a little bit of seasonality, there's nothing more to it. There's no one-off to the growth.
Full-year basis, how would this look like?
Full-year basis, I can give you the information. We expect that we'll grow at least 70,000 customers each year on the overall number. We're not talking extensions, specifically.
Yeah. So if we go to planning SSG growth for 12-month+, that should be what? 5%-10% range, or?
Yeah, I would assume it's 8%. It's 8%+.
Okay. Got it. And lastly, on the diagnostics, so Q4 ramps up now on the existing and the membership. I think in 1-2 quarters, we'll be in profit also. So what's the way forward? I mean, so would we expect to go to a new city, or will we go more deeper within these states, or what is the plan here?
We will fully expand into Hyderabad right now. We are around 10%-10% discount to fund. We will add a few more until we cover Hyderabad fully. We will continue to expand the membership, and I don't think we'll venture into a new city if we have grown significantly from this number. Currently, we're happy to tell you that we have around 100,000 members right now. The plan is now fresh as we check moving on to B2B tech. Now, almost 99% of it is B2C, and we think with the full network being set up across the city, we will be in a position to make the offering available to our B2B customers. Alice, you can answer this. I don't know if you have anything to add, Chetan.
No, I think, Madhukar, that's fine. Prakash, if you have a follow-on, I can see Chetan.
Okay. If I may say, last one here, omnichannel Q&Q business, Prakash, has online been muted, and we are back to offline, or how do we do here?
Yeah, the omnichannel, actually, I don't know if you look at the Q&A online segment, there are omnichannel five. That has been tracked for a reason or two, but there are a certain set of customers who want to go online, and unfortunately, there's a lot of operators out there who are really being tired of going to be fine. So those who are enjoying towards that are probably going to go there. Those who are there with us continue to stay with us, and we're growing slowly out there. But I think till the noise of all the people drops significantly, I don't think we will see any significant growth on that.
I think that's the thing. And these most online guys are reducing discounts, and now, I guess, it's dropping slow. Okay. We don't see the effects of it until we go forward. Right. Okay. Okay. Thanks. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashraf Hussain from Nuvama Group. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good evening. Prakash, good day. My question is actually about cash dilution. When I look at this FY24, almost 1,000 stores in 2024 maybe similar run rate at the same time. And with cash in books, it looks to be a bit better than what I see your capex after. It's likely to be a bit better. Just wanted to look at this time, can we see a good cash generation from our existing store? And also, is there any plan to raise fund in the near future?
I think so. So on the balance sheet, as you're right, we have around 280 stores to cash. And if you observe, our books are net debt-free, which means that there's enough headroom for a leverage. But on an active basis, with the expansion work complete going on, easily we can target 700-800 stores with the existing cash. We are mindful of the cash, but we won't, at a certain point in time, go out for a line of credit for working cash requirements.
Okay. At least down to Q1, we're still looking at the credit requirement.
At this point, it's only working cash scale, actually.
Okay. Thank you. Secondly, you mentioned that there is a seasonal benefit in Q4. Is that driven by private label non-pharma or contribution increases quarter-on-quarter from 5.1%-5.7%, or is this continually sustainable even in the coming quarters? Any color on that?
Non-pharma does not have any seasonal kind of benefit out there. This year, we are focusing on that a little bit more. We were at around 3.5% last year, and the effort is to actually bring it up to 7%-8% over the period of this year. Yeah. So by non-pharma, we want to mean it. The portion which I'm talking about, the FMCG part of 3.5%, the focus is to make that come to 7%-8%.
Okay. Looking deeper then, is it that existing network year one, or as we move to tier two, tier three, that's leading to that continuation?
No, no. It's just a system, which basically means we are expanding the range of products, making them slightly better visible in the stores, but also changing the format of some of the new stores out there to make it easier for customers to pick up these products earlier. Some of our stores, almost all stores, where we serve from behind the counter, and the deliveries are also served from behind the counter, we set slightly more access for customers to pick those up. So our newer stores are coming up with a self-serve model in the front, which makes it easier for us to deliver deliveries out there.
Okay. Very good. And last one in diagnostics. Now, I think we started last year in February. We have almost more than one year over now. Is there any renewal rate that we are tracking for diagnostic customers this year? Could be very helpful if we start with that.
Yeah. I suppose just to recap, in the past, we have said that we intend to maintain the average, but we had low SSG growth. We expect the pace to achieve continuity till end of Q2. It's important for these new stores that have been open to follow the same trajectory. So we expect to have improvement Q3 onward. The pace that we had decided earlier can at least continue till end of Q2 of 2024.
Okay. So with my customers, in terms of patients or all these clients in your planning, after renewed debt, you would have slightly expected a return last Q2?
Okay. So that's a great question. And I'm sorry I misunderstood your question. So yes, we will talk more about renewals as we go forward. So what I had mentioned was that the right way we have determined that the right way to look at renewals is not exact on-time renewals, but renewals within a six-month of the plan expiry. So it's still early days for us to give a guidance. What we have seen is that we are having 33% renewal from the March 22nd of August, and that's just 60 days since their plans expired. But this is very early. We need more time to form a view and subsequently to give you a guidance.
Yeah. This is very helpful. Thank you for helping me.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Harith Ahamed from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Can you share the member discount rate for the pharmaceutical segment that we're seeing currently for the quarter? And then do you see this trending down basis for what you're seeing with respect to competition and then phone charges, especially the online price?
Yeah. Discount now stands at 30.1% overall. Unfortunately, it did not come down as yet. While we have seen slightly less advertisements from one of us or one or few of our pharmaceuticals, we have at least two of them who are making enough money right now, and they're all talking about a 10% discount for the first 3 purchases even today. So we all know about the struggles of one of our companies, at least on the online side. But the thing is, it is not. It's not a cost. It has to be paid. So that's the thing. Are we seeing any dropping in discounts? A little bit, but that's not really affected us as of now. Okay. Not only operating a bit more than for the pharmaceutical segment again. We are around 3.5%-3.6% for the last couple of quarters.
How should we look at this number for 2024, given that we have a higher percentage of our stores, which are about 12 months? And then the 1,000 store addition targeted. So overall, any guidance on this number? Going forward, although I can't speak for Q1 right now because Q1 typically is not a great model for us, but over the period of one year, I think we will slowly start to see an increase in the overall margin. For us, we still have a significant number of stores which have grown two years. Two years is where the actual potential of the store is seen. We expected 10% kind of at the two-year level, and today, 60% of our stores are under two years. Given that we are going to be adding anywhere between 180-200 stores this year also, I don't expect a significant change.
If any change were to happen, it would most likely happen because of the benefits of sales on, let us say, reducing the cargo costs or maybe reducing the maintenance costs or possibly increasing the margin supply trailing. But the downward track will continue to be. Okay. And one of the diagnostics business, Chetan, you mentioned something, a number for our level two centers. So just trying to understand how different are these from the service centers, and if you can also share the total gross block or investment in diagnostics today. Okay. So I think the first part of your question, I think we are currently describing our centers as two-service diagnostic centers. Those are the ones that have MRI, CT, and downwards. The next definition we use is level two centers.
These are diagnostic centers which have ultrasound and below, and in one case here or there, it may have an MRI or it may have a CT. But these are our level two centers. The third is the collection centers, which is an extremely interesting feature because our collection centers are housed within our pharmacy. So going in the reverse order, currently, we have over 115 collection centers in Hyderabad, and we currently have 7 level two centers. We have 3 full-service diagnostic centers live, and in this quarter, we expect 1 more full-service center to go live. So at the end of the quarter, we will have 4 + 7 and any new collection centers that we open. On your question on gross block, I'll reply to the question.
Yeah. Gross Block, I'm sorry, for our diagnostic business, it's around INR 98 crores, and the Net Block is around INR 90 crores.
There's a number of around 170 or so that we see on the balance sheet as assets under the segment. What makes the difference?
Sure. I can share. I'm sorry. So last year, part of that. Close to INR 77 crores should be right-of-use assets, which is the lease asset for our pharmacy centers, and there are other major components of our assets.
Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. Thanks for taking the questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prakash Agarwal from Axis Capital. Please go ahead. Mr. Agarwal, your line is in Talk Mode. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Hi. I just wanted to check on if there's an update on that automated warehouse that you gave my name?
Yeah. So for that, as you know, yeah, Hyderabad warehouse today sends out 50% of all the cartons now through automated sorter. We were having a little bit of an issue with building up the new warehouse in Hyderabad. We actually moved the first part to Chennai. Chennai, we have just taken a premises, which is very good. We are looking to set it up with full automation. I hope that we should be able to get it out in possibly 3-5 months from now in return.
Hyderabad side, it's not happening anymore?
It will happen. It'll probably be the second one which will go on. Hyderabad, we were planning to actually build up the city and then house the entire thing. So that has entered into a little bit of a struggle, so with the connection issues and all. So hence, we have leased a premises in Chennai, and we're setting that out right away.
Okay. And the way we would be entering Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Kerala would be to start with supply from adjoining states and follow up with their own warehouse, or what is the plan?
That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. So they are adjacent, so we'll be supplying from Nagpur and for these two places, both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, and from Chennai for the Cochin side. This is inefficient, but we believe it would be much better than setting up a new warehouse for us, INR 25 crore kind of operation. So till that becomes stable and profitable, we will not actually set up a warehouse.
Okay. Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Divya Daga from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. I have two questions. My first question is, can you explain about inventory? What about the inventory we have that gets sold or expired?
Sure. So all pharma-branded inventory is bought on a fully returnable basis. So at expiry, it is returned to the manufacturer for full cost recovery. They exchange it for some other product.
What about private labels, sir?
Private labels, then, of course, we have the inventory yet, so we don't sell it. It usually just gets dumped.
Okay. And can you explain to me the number that in this year happened?
The private label expiry of the name?
Yes, yes.
I think last quarter it's okay. Give me a second. So can we come back to your offering on this? This year, the number was slightly higher, I must say, and that is mainly because of the one-time release kind of inventory. Otherwise, it is usually manageable. Typically, we see that the overall profits from private label are so high, across market is 80%, we are easily able to take a small inventory from that.
Okay. My next question is, are we expecting 7% of operating profit margin sustainable in near future that we have in the strategy?
So if we're talking about EBITDA growth from here where we are at around operating EBITDA of around 3.5-3.6, that's going to be slightly more gradual, and it should be a result of both operating benefit as well as increase of new products coming in and growth management. So as of now, I can tell you that for all the network, for all two years and more, we will actually be at an overall EBITDA of around 7%. But that's the end-of-year number. Otherwise, if you take out the rental inventory and the regular operation, that's going to be around 5% for stores which are open years. And that thing is important.
Okay, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ankit Bansal from AMD Investments. Please go ahead.
Hello? Hello. The seminal question is, for the kind of model you are pursuing, operating in some of the states like in the south, when you will move to bigger cities or newer cities like Delhi, North India, where I can share of myself, I have never heard of MedPlus before the IPO. So what is your strategy? How will you go deep into that market? How will you operate? How will you attract customers getting medicines from you rather than from the established player in the north and a very well-established player in the north? What are your views on that?
Sure. See, we currently operate in seven states, and we're going to three new states this year. But don't take the seven number fully out there. I know it's a smaller distance of the overall 29 states we have. But the seven states account for around 45% of the overall market of the country. We are also there in all the big cities except Delhi. In six of the top seven cities in the country, we are there. We have 450 stores in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Chennai, around 300 in Kolkata, 350 in Pune, and up here around 100 stores in Mumbai. So except for Delhi, we're there everywhere. The plan is for us we believe that the markets in which we are there are good enough for us to grow for the next several years, but that doesn't mean that we'll not continuously expand slowly into the continuousness.
We continue to grow. We will take a call in Delhi when the time comes. As of now, we have more than enough market to actually grow into. But it will take your deep, deep research to get into a Delhi market because it's a very unorganized market. People like to buy from their 1mg type medicine shop. You have to change, I think, your model. I don't know how you do that. But with the strategy of opening new stores and new stores, I don't think it's going to work out in states like North India because I have seen people, they are very much organized with the buying of their medicines from the particular shop. Instead of buying from a player like you where they have not heard a single tiring name of you before the IPO. Sir, your comments, how could you penetrate into this market?
Okay. As you have mentioned, you have made some very good points, and we'll reflect on them. Could we move to the next question?
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Siddhant Dand from Perpetuity Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hi. I'm Siddhant , Perpetuity Ventures. My first question is, we have seen a gross margin improvement of around 40 basis points. Sir, what could be the possible reasons for it, and what part of it is contributed by private label?
So on the private label, actually, the earlier portion of our speech, it was clarified that we have around 14%, under 50% share in sales. From the gross margin improvement, yes, we have seen some efficiencies in inventory management and lower provisions. So that contributed to an increase, and I think you have explained that here as well.
So, can I get a breakdown of this expansion for private label? Is there any data related to this?
I think we can do that offline.
Okay. No problem. My next question is, the earlier cap for this, there was around 124. Can you give a break-up between the diagnostics and pharmacy business?
So on the diagnostics, I'll clarify because that will help you. On the diagnostics, as of 31st March, the gross block is around INR 96 crore, and the net block, as of 31st March, is around INR 90 crore. The balance can be if you are referring to the segment result, there is a right-of-use asset, which is recognised on 160 assets, and therefore, you could now make your transition.
Okay. Do we have a guidance for the next year for both pharmacy and diagnostics?
Capital should be there. What is missing for the diagnostics business? For the most part, we have already announced our plans, maybe small investments here and there within the existing centers or some additional connection centers that we open. But in context of what we have spent so far, no material move is expected in the next FY24.
For the pharmacy business?
Our insight, as you said, we're going to add anywhere between 800-1,000 stores, and each store typically takes an investment of roughly around INR 30,000, and that increases the inventory yet. Again, the management should keep coming to INR 40-300 crore.
Okay. So, my last question is for the diagnostic business. Do we have data for the number of tests that were conducted during the last quarter?
Yes. We do have that. I just don't have it handy. We should probably take it offline.
Okay. No problem. That's all.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Kadam from Canara Robeco. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Am I audible?
Yes, you are just a little low from your line. Please increase the volume of your device.
I'm looking at the question now.
Mr. Kadam , I'm not able to see you.
Hello?
Please go ahead.
Yeah. So I just wanted to check with the team. What was the reason for changing the repeating of the?
Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Kadam , but we are not able to hear you, sir.
Is this fine? Yeah. I am online. Is this fine?
Please go ahead.
Okay. So just answer the question from the management team. What are the reasons for changing the reporting in terms of their segmental?
Okay. I think if you observe, there's no significant change. Earlier, they were actually reporting segments retail, retail, and diagnostic. We have now merged retail also into retail because retail is not a main business for the company. Though it continues to be an operating segment, it no longer qualifies to be a reportable segment, and that's the only change. That's not a significant number.
Maybe if I just check the diagnostics, if I go to the segmental profit line, so this quarter, maybe assuming that last quarter, we are reporting those diagnostic services somewhere around profit for the segment of INR 46.8 million. Whereas now, if I just check the same number, what is it for the December quarter? It says something in the INR 62.69 million. Just wanted to know how to reconcile these two numbers.
I think what you have also observed is we are now clarified on the omnichannel finance cost, which was earlier going as part of pharmacy alone. That presentation, we have clarified it along with the segment change.
Okay. Maybe I'll just come back. I'll just help with reconciling this particular.
Sure. We'll do it.
Yes.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Neelam Punjabi from Perpetuity Ventures. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for asking my question. This is a congratulations for some good numbers. My first question is on your corporate cost. If we backcalculate using the disclosures that you have provided, it seems that the corporate costs have gone up sequentially. Could you please explain what is the reason behind this?
They have gone up slightly. I'm not sure if it is a significant number. The expected cost will come down as we go forward as the scale increases. But we'll see which happens and we'll come back to you on this.
Got it. Okay. So if you only saw we are operating on this side. There are some pre-operative expenses for pharmacy that come out for the corporate. What is the percentage?
I think there isn't one. It is the property which the company uses, which has a guaranteed period of 2-3 months to operate, right, from the time you get up. And second is the higher considerable number of employees which is required for opening a new store on a go-forward basis. That's from our presentation perspective and operation perspective. We call it out as pre-operative.
Understood. Okay. My next question is on the diagnostic business. Could you just highlight your strategy for incentivizing our existing subscribers to renew their existing plans? How are we incentivizing them?
Neelam, that's a very good question. To your right, we're bringing the focus on renewal. Currently, there is absolutely no differential between a customer who's renewing and who is buying a new plan. And this was actually done intentionally because we wanted to gather data on what is the natural pace of renewal. In the coming months, we will introduce a differential between renewal and new sign-up, which will automatically incentivize existing customers to renew on time.
Got it. Okay. And lastly, could you give a broader-level outlook on the aspirations for top-line growth and margins for the next 2-3 years?
So I'm not going to talk about the next 2-3, but for this year, definitely, we expect a top-line growth of at least anywhere between 20%-25%. That would be the minimum. On the margin side, I expect it will more or less be flattened, mainly because we will have a significant number of new stores coming at the event now. If there is any benefit which will come out of any automation we should do on the back end, or the scale benefits which come out of increasing top-line outcomes.
That's excellent. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I will now let you hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you. Thank all participants on this call for your interest in the medical journey. Our investor relations team can be contacted at ir@medplus.com.
Thank you, members of the management. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of MedPlus Health Services, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us. 20 minutes are connected lines.