Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Hitachi Energy India Limited's Q2 FY 2024 analyst 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, then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. N. Venu, MD and CEO, Hitachi Energy India Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you very much. Good evening, everybody, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us for the analyst conference call today. I hope, you're all doing well, and as probably you have seen, we have announced our results for the second quarter of the financial year 2023-2024. So in the next couple of minutes, I'll take you through our performance during the period ending September 30, 2023. And for ease of reference, I will mention the slide numbers. With me in the room today, I have our CFO, Ajay Singh, and Company Secretary, General Counsel, Poovanna, and Manashwi Banerjee, Head of Communication and Investor Relations. So energy transition and climate action plans drove order growth in quarter two, FY 2024.
This quarter, we witnessed some ease in the semiconductor trends, but certain inventory backlog needs attention. Despite the constraints, there is an overall improvement in our margin and PAT in the second quarter, even though compared to the last quarter, we came with a low base. With this, we remain committed to exploring new opportunities stemming from energy transition across geographies and creating a robust and sustainable clean energy ecosystem. I'm now referring to slide number three. As we review the quarter, I want to recognize our most valuable assets, our employees. Our commitment to their safety has been unwavering, right from the offices to the factories, on-site location, and they return this with their ownership on safety matters.
Right from subcontractors to trainees, continued immersive training is cascaded throughout the organization, through the teams, by specialists, to persistently reiterate our license to operate. Our efforts were acknowledged and recognized for excellence in health, safety, and environment practices by our discerning customers across verticals. We have received certificates of appreciation from customers in a variety of segments for our contribution towards improving health and safety and environment culture and customer service through project life cycle across plant build and operate phases. We received appreciation letters, awards, recognition from clients for maintaining superlative and sustainable safety practices at their project sites. Moving to the next slide, that is slide number 4, which is also very important. As you can see, we have kept sustainability soon after safety. That clearly shows that how important we are giving in driving the sustainability within our own organization.
The journey to net zero by 2030 requires all teams to be involved and contribute through innovative ideas and take the initiatives. It pleases me to say that we have witnessed several such initiatives mushroom across the company and country, and many of them initiatives are, you know, driven within the employee community itself. Just give you an example of Doddaballapur, which is our Greenfield Factory, which we have inaugurated last year, for this discussion. Here, we have initiated our first OpEx model Solar Rooftop project, spreading over 5,000 sq ft, and with an estimated generation capacity over 900,000 units per annum. The project will cater to 40% of the energy requirements of this factory. It will help reduce 29 tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gases annually. The project will be fully functional by March 2024.
Furthermore, the location has stopped. Many of such cases, just to give you one example, single-use plastic and paper cups, and will soon be actioning a more stringent water-saving project. Learning from the team's experience at Maneja on recycle, reuse, and reduce, there will likely be an addition of 4% reduction in freshwater consumption. These are just examples to show you how we are driving sustainability in letter and spirit throughout our organizations. Moving to the slide number 5. During the quarter, we received orders worth INR 1,747 crore, up 52% quarter-on-quarter and up 37% year-on-year.
Some key order wins this quarter include renewables in the renewable sector, like a 600 MW Fatehgarh STATCOM, 300 MW electrical balancing system, 400 kV substation for Bikaner, and 400 kV generator transformer for Ratle Hydroelectric Project, just to give you examples of renewables. Rail and metro, such as traction transformer for DMRC, CMRL, and automation, 132 kV GIS for CMRL. Automation, such as Bhutan Power, where we will not only execute a 66 kV GIS substation, but also SCADA, EMS, Energy Management System, system at their National Load Dispatch Center. Solid order execution resulted in quarter-on-quarter revenue improvement of 18% to INR 1,228 crores in the quarter ended September 30th.
Easing of our supply chain constraints and chip shortages also strengthened our earnings and EBITDA margins, and, and recover, recovers quarter-on-quarter to 5.3%. The same aided recovery in profit from the low base last quarter PBT recovered to INR 32.4 crores, and PAT recovered to INR 44.7 crores. While businesses continue improving efficiency through new business models and product standardization, enhancing our strategic approach and go-to-market mechanism, impact of inventory backlogs will likely to take some time to taper off. At the close of the quarter, we recorded the highest ever order backlog of INR 7,517 crores, providing revenue visibility for the several quarters. Moving to the next slide, slide number six, and, most of this particular, slide you know better than me.
So India, you know, remains one of the fastest growing major economies in the financial year 2023-2024. The country's GDP has grown 7.8% year-on-year, April to June 2023, and RBI predicts the country's GDP is expected to grow in the range of 6.5%, for the same period. Keeping the interest rate at 6.5% helped to control the inflation, it was dropped to 5.02%, in September 2023. The power demand, demand in India touched a 5-year high in September 2023, and industry growth IIP shows India's factory output rose to 14-month high of 10.3% in August.
On the policy front, government incentives to the energy sector continued with the approval of INR 3,760 crore viability gap funding for battery energy storage system. This will open up new avenues of investment for the entire energy project and also technology adoption, adoption by our customers. As you can see in the bottom of the slide, the growth drivers for Hitachi Energy remain intact and tracking upwards, whether we're talking about the transmission, data centers, renewable, and rail, et cetera. As you would be aware, we need to add 30 GW of capacity annually to reach the 290 GW solar target by 2030. The first wind offshore tenders announced 7 GW to be actioned by financial year 2024, whereas in the transmission segment, one HVDC project is expected every year.
And, you also know that those things are come up for bidding now. Similarly, for industry, the revival of private CapEx is likely driven by government production linked schemes and, various other schemes announced by the government. On the rails side, metro, high speed, cross-country, rail electrification, rolling stock upgrade, fueling the growth of transport segment, and so on and so forth. Moving to the slide number seven. Energy transition represents one of the most significant opportunities of our time, and we are championing the urgency and the pace of change needed to reach net zero. With our pioneering technologies and solutions, we are helping our customers to accelerate the carbon neutral future, improving, quality of life for not only for today's generation, but those that to come. Collaboration is central to making the energy transition possible.
During this quarter, we continued to lead industry discussion not only on technology, but also highlighting the importance of our diversity to tangibly contribute to Indian energy industry at various relevant forums and platforms. We take every opportunity to drive this, because the challenge of this is bigger than one organization, one individual. We need a lot of collaboration, co-creation, working together on this. During the quarter, we have taken up a grid connection project for the upcoming 300 MW solar PV plant in Bikaner, Rajasthan. We continued engaging with partners, through training, for example, engineering and configuration of RTU 500 series products, et cetera. Our continued efforts have further cemented our reputation as a reliable partner and pioneering in power technologies and driving the energy transition initiatives across the country. Moving to slide number 8, we successfully commissioned...
Just give a couple of examples. We successfully commissioned several projects and noteworthy projects across the geographies, not only in India, but also Indian subcontinent and other places where we have been working in that. Just to give a couple of examples, we commissioned a 220 by 33 kV GIS substation in Gedu, Bhutan, and another similarly rated substation for one of the world's largest web service providers. Within the quarter, we also concluded a successful test trial run of Indore Metro with a 750 V DC third rail. So these are the examples to showcase across the segments, how we are not only getting the orders, but also executing successfully successfully to our customers. Moving to the slide number 9, this is a very important slide.
Just, recall our discussion a couple of quarters back, where we announced our, our factory in Chennai, that is power system, HVDC, and power system factory. This is one example. We have seen this demand coming up much ahead of the time, and then we have invested, and now you can see our orders are, with our new order acquisition, we are able to fill the factories. As India adds, RE capacity at a world-leading pace, this increased, renewable energy generation and increased nonlinear loads impact the power quality in the grid. Large-scale renewable energy converters inject the power system with harmonic reactive power that is adding pressure on the grid without delivering usable value. This is where the STATCOM plays a crucial role. Static synchronous compensator system is a complex multi-component system for reactive power compensation and power quality improvement.
One of our notable orders for this quarter, that is quarter two, is a large contract for high-power STATCOM for integration of 4 GW of renewable energy into the national grid for an upcoming project in Fatehgarh, Rajasthan. The order package also comprises of two 400 kV extension bays. The HVDC STATCOM, high-power STATCOM, and all major components for the project will be manufactured at multiple local factories in India, including the recently inaugurated HVDC and Power Quality factory in Chennai. Moving to the next slide, slide number 10. To provide some more color on the orders received this quarter, transmission projects from multiple utilities, especially towards the build-up of our Green Energy Corridors, led to the momentum in Q2 FY 2024, including the STATCOM order we just discussed.
We are already contributing to various transmission projects and have made a significant stride in this direction, and have seen a growth of 139% in HY FY 2024 versus H1 last year. The data center remains a high-growth segment, thanks to push for 5G and data localization regulations and data center policies. In our strategy, data center always been an important element, which helps us to achieve 28% growth in this segment in the first half of FY 2024 in comparison to the same period last year. With the sheer potential of the market, we see this trend to continue in the future as well.
Moving to rail and metro, Indian Railways is committed to achieve net zero by 2030, along with the electrification of high-density corridors, have been another significant area of growth for us, with a constant growth in the segment. Reflecting the nature of customer orders this quarter, we saw an uptick in orders from various functions. In the segment part, project takes the lead, while sector-wise, utilities saw a major rise in the channel. And in the channel side, direct to end users is the leads in terms of orders. Moving to the next slide, slide number 11 is also a very important slide. We have been talking about our growth levers, that is, service and exports. Our order mix reflects our diversified portfolio across our installed base and our focus on leveraging our key growth markets and capitalizing on market opportunities.
We successfully secured key market wins in services and exports, in line with our vision. Service orders have continued to hold a positive trajectory, as we posted 40% year-on-year growth. Some of the key wins are orders for SCADA replacement in national transmission assets, network SCADA orders from Bhutan, grid interconnection studies as per Saudi Arabian Grid Code for PV solar projects, to name a few. We also won HVDC life cycle space orders from a national utility, multiple single-pole circuit breaker retrofit orders from Delhi Metro Rail, and MMS orders from the Goa Electricity Department. On the export front, we saw a growth of 45% year-on-year. Orders were received from across the continent, transmission orders in Asia, power quality in Europe and U.S. markets, and automation packages in Africa market.
The company also received the largest-ever single order for supply of disconnector for a project in Guyana. Some of the key wins during the quarter were 66 kV, 33 kV by 11 kV GIS substation from Bhutan Power and Indonesia, AIS switchgear for PLN, 130 kV harmonic filter order from UAE Transco, automation package for Sweden, and SCADA/EMS systems, NLDC, Bhutan, for a power system operator. Our strategy of making in India, for India and the world has harbored good results, as our filter factories continue to receive steady orders from various factories worldwide. With that, now I would ask our CFO, Ajay Singh, to walk us through the next slide, that is slide number 12 and slide number 13 on the financial. Over to you, Ajay.
Thank you, Venu, and good evening, and hope you all are doing well at your end. So if you see, our concerted effort continues to overcome the persistent industry and operational challenges to keep the growth momentum on track. The focus and the proactive approach has helped us to achieve better revenues and orders this quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. So in this current quarter, the company has booked orders worth INR 1,747 crore, which is up by 52% quarter-over-quarter. The revenues also, we booked 1,028, and that is a growth of roughly 18% compared to the previous quarter. PBT recovered 857% to INR, basically 32.4 crore, and PAT recovered sequentially, basically 24.7 crore compared to the low base last quarter.
Operational EBITDA stood at INR 65 crore for that quarter. So with the consistent order growth and excellent execution, we have achieved the highest ever order backlog, and we are currently INR 7,579 crore order backlog, which provides us a visibility of more than 22 months of the revenue. Now, if you move to the next slide, where, you know, you see that we have been already discussing the ongoing macroeconomic issues for the past several quarters. And here, I would like to share an update on how the numbers we are doing this particular quarter, the last three months. Let me take a moment and to walk through the specific slide, and that will give you more details on how we have done the progression.
The table gives a clear picture of our relentless pursuit for improving the bottom line and pervasive margin recovery. So if you see, in the current quarter, with the revenues of INR 128 crore, and the gross margin is roughly around 35%, and if you compare with the year-over-year scenario, there is roughly a dip of 2%, and this is mainly coming due to the product mix. As explained earlier, the chip shortage has improved. The short scenario has improved compared to the previous quarters, and now, basically, we are still working out on the backlogs and how to come out of this overall scenario. If you see the personnel expenses, it is hovering around 9.5% and, more or less at the same level year-over-year.
Other expenses are also hovering the same 20-20% compared to 19.7% year-on-year. Depreciation is also 1.8% compared to 1.7% year-on-year. Interest also, there is slight increase, but it's still, you know, we say that more or less, we are consistent. So with all this, we are able to see that our PBT, we have reached to 2.6%, basically, and then our PAT is 2%. So we are basically working on the bottom line, and we expect that we'll be able to work on the margins sequentially in the coming quarters. With this, I hand over to Venu.
Thank you, Ajay. Moving to my last slide. As we move ahead, our growth levers remain intact. You've seen from previous slides. We work to maintain leadership in our core segments, while also focusing on high-growth segments that cater to the evolving needs of the sector, harnessing new segments and markets. We will further strengthen our capabilities in service, export and digital verticals, in addition to our maintaining leadership in our core segments. In our operations, we continue to reinforce the culture of health, safety, and environment across all employees and our customers. The focus remain on transforming our highest ever order backlog and declogging of our inventory to quality revenue. This execution, when coupled with operational excellence across manufacturing functional process, will result in margin accretion going forward.
We'll reinforce our efforts through the last leg of transition in the coming quarter as we enter the implementation of phase four of our multi-year project to upgrade our core ERP system to SAP S/4HANA, standardizing our IT application landscape and digitizing our business processes to meet the needs of our expanding businesses. This integration of core business functions and processes in a single platform will help enhance operational agility, quality, and productivity. Our purpose remains to advance a sustainable energy future for all, and we look forward to delivering this with profitable and sustainable growth. With that, I now close my presentation and open the channel for your questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session.
Yeah.
Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchtone 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, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to one or two per participant. Should you have a follow-up question, we would request you to rejoin the queue. We will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Thank you. First question is from the line of Renu Baid from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, and, thanks for the opportunity, sir. So my first question is, if you see, this quarter order inflows from utilities and projects both have picked up, is this, signaling effect that domestic T&D or transmission spend is finally seeing an upswing after, quite a bit of time? If you can share some of your inputs in terms of order timeline, from the domestic market, including the status on the high-speed rail? That's the first question.
. Yeah. Thank you, Renu. Yeah, I think, you know, after a long time, I think there is a clearly uptick in the domestic T&D timeline, both in terms of the tariff-based competitive biddings getting finalized, and also the other infrastructure related, rail, et cetera, is getting finalized. So we have also seeing a lot of bidding is going on, on the tariff-based biddings. And you also know that, the HVDC, the Bhadla, has come up for a bidding. And so those things are really really driving this order growth, and then our at least see that, you know, this, this momentum will continue on.
On the high-speed rail, electrical package, any update?
On the high-speed rail electrical package, so we have working with potential bidder. At this since this is in bidding stage, I cannot talk more on that. All I can say is that, you know, we have submitted our bid, and then we'll wait for further evaluation.
Sure. The second question is, congratulations for finally breaking into the STATCOM market. Can you share what could be the localization content in the initial order, given the scale of the project? And in your view, how large could be this market, for these power quality solutions, now that renewable, Green Corridors have started to see, some activity? Otherwise, STATCOM was a fairly dull, segment for the last few years.
Yeah. So with as I said, with the 30 GW of annually added to reach 290 Gw of renewable, the STATCOM market is really, really big. Okay? So just to give a the kind of projects what we have got, we see at least another 10 projects-15 projects are in the timeline. Okay, so it might take couple of more years, but that's the kind of scale what we are looking at it. And then the second question about the localization, as I said, I've already covered most of these projects to the extent of, you know, 75%-80%. We do everything locally here. Different factories and the engineering centers, but most of them, we do it here in India.
Oh, that's impressive. And just last one question. Given that, in the recent few weeks, we have seen one of your global peers being under major financial crisis, do you think this will probably may have any impact on the competitive intensity that you face in the domestic market or from global projects, in the high voltage, extra high voltage segment of the market?
No, I didn't get you. Sorry. Can you just repeat your question, if you don't mind, Renu?
Yeah. So my question is, one of your global peer, their parent has been struggling on the financial crisis in the last few weeks, with presence in domestic market as well. Do you think, with this, issue or, they may be less competitive or, in terms of, intensity, when we look at large projects, including HVDC in the domestic market? So do you perceive any difference in the competitive intensity in the market in the near term because of, the financial crisis that they're facing at the group level?
No, I don't, Renu, I don't think I can comment about that company. So we normally, our strategy is always in a very long term, very robust, and we don't look at, you know, one company having a challenge, and then we tweak our strategy. We have a very, a s you have seen since last several quarters, we have continued to build robust manufacturing here. In the last 1 year, we have opened 3 new greenfield factories. So that clearly shows that we want to do more locally here for India and also rest of the world. So that has been the strategy, and we are going ahead in line with that.
Thanks much, and, best wishes, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Mohit Kumar from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. My first question is on the HVDC. If I remember correctly, I think we had asked for extension of the timeline. In the sense, we are looking to execute the HVDC, and you're asking for more than 16 months for the pole one and pole two, maybe more, another six months. Do you still maintain that constraint execute, or do you think that things have improved in the margin and we can, and then the Power Grid, or do the bidding agency can continue at the original pace, or do you think that we need some extension?
First of all, you know, we have not asked for any extension. So there, we are talking about an industry-wide challenge. You may be talking about it, so it's, it depends upon, y ou know, this is the whole HVDC market is, Mohit, if I can give you a little bit of picture on the whole HVDC market globally is really exploding in that. So here we need a different set of way to, you know, do that. There are many utilities in Europe, they are ordering now for the project, which is required in 2030, 2031, because you need to do a lot of work, like engineering, et cetera, in that. All we were telling is that you also, we also need to plan in a different way.
You start and then having an engineering, and you do complete engineering one project and execute two, three projects. If you really want to meet up the schedule, we have to do the different way compared to what we have been doing it. If you continue to do what we have been doing, then we will not do in a traditionally, your 48 months or 44 months, you need a little bit more than that. So that is what, you know, we are articulating with our stakeholders in that. We have the HVDC market is exploding, which is also going to grow in India, because this is exactly what we have been saying, that, you know, countries like India used to have one HVDC project for every four years. Now you need to have at least one HVDC project per year.
That can happen only if we are having a different way of doing it. You engineer it, one time you do, and you'll do the repetitive way of doing 2, 3 projects. That is like-
Have they changed the timelines, or is it, the format on that original timelines?
I think they are working in between. I don't think it will be done, but I think there is an in-between position, I think they are taking.
Understood, sir. Secondly, sir, do we still maintain the target or achieving or, or aspiring for EBITDA margin of 10% in next, by FY 2025? Is that a fair assumption?
Yeah, we said, you know, end of FY 2025, we said. End of FY 2025 is what we enter, double-digit EBITDA margin.
Understood. We should see a gradual improvement as we-
Exactly.
As you progress, right?
Yeah, yeah.
My last question is, sir, is there a substitute for STATCOM, given that, given the renewables are happening at a larger pace, is it right to say that there is absolutely no substitute for STATCOM, and the STATCOM requirement will only explode, not only in India, and export, and be really one of the preferred factory to supply for all, for the global requirement?
Yes.
Is that right?
So, Mohit, what we were saying is that, you know, we are looking India very, in a very strategic standpoint, while the first and foremost, we are creating the factories that we want to be successful in this market. So that's the number one impact. So we are creating this, all these factories and, our engineering centers, et cetera, to cater the thing. But at the same time, we are also looking at, you know, exporting some, some of these to other countries.
How is the timeline looking like at this point of time? Do you think this market is only going to explode?
Sorry?
Do you think this market is only going to, in the sense, they'll be increasing a STATCOM requirement every year as we go forward?
Yeah, absolutely. STATCOMs are very crucial in managing the renewable integration. Okay? So as the renewables are going up, getting added into the grid, so the requirement of the STATCOMs are going to go up. So it's absolutely like that.
Understood, sir. Thank you, and all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Priyank from Vallum Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So my question is on the order inflow. Well, you have seen a strong order inflow in this quarter. Do you want to mention if there is any large single order inflow that you have availed in this quarter? Or is it a combination of multiple smaller order inflows, as you have explained in one of your slides?
Yeah. So as I said, you know, we have received one large high-power STATCOM order, but it is not as big as what we used to have, like HVDC kind of projects with that. It's a large project, but it is not a mega project. We also received a lot of other, you know, medium-sized projects in that. Like we said, you know, 300 MWt renewable for balancer system, and we also received for hydro projects, the generator transformer. So it's a combination of various orders.
And, sir, does this just to clarify, does this STATCOM order get classified into your project order? Because that makes us seen a significant increase. And does this have, has good potential margins in the current order book?
Margins, we are not able to comment on our registering. You are seeing that. Yes, the STATCOM order is a project order, so that's why if you have seen our slide, which is also reflected in a higher project compared to the previous quarter.
Perfect. Perfect, that's clarified. My second question is on, again, HVDC. Considering the project timeline, what you have been alluding for many quarters now, how has been the competitive intensity, while you have been placing your bids for Bhadla? And as well as if you can help us update on the feasibility study that you will be doing in for Leh Ladakh project?
Yeah.
That would be helpful.
Yeah, you know, on HVDC, as we have been telling, you know, we have been working primarily to have more local content, localizing and including the competency, et cetera. So that has been, you know, going very well, and that will enable being more competitive. And, so that, that's our plan, and then, things are going in line with our plan. And, when it comes to the Leh project, where we are doing the feasibility study, so we have to submit our results by first quarter, I mean, first quarter of the next calendar year or before March 2024. I think we are on track, and we will be submitting on or before our due date.
Sir, on the Mumbai HVDC project is moving as per schedule. Is that you shall be booking revenues from Q4 of this financial year? Am I right?
Right. That's going well with that, and the bulk of the revenues, as rightly said, will start flowing in from Q4 and the Q1 next financial year.
Sure. Just, last, question from my side. On the other emerging segments, Hitachi was known for working on the many emerging projects like kind of a flash charging for EVs. If you can help us and, help us, know the developments on that side. And on the bookkeeping questions, what would be the service and exports revenue contribution in this, in this current revenue, as well as the Lumada platform contribution, in this, quarter?
Yeah. Thank you, thank you, Priyank. You have too many questions, so let me try to answer as many as I can. So on, you know, questions about Hitachi, your first question was about the charging, flash charging. That's not about Hitachi, that's again about Hitachi Energy. The technology, we own it, and we have also implemented that in many countries. So we have, you know that we announced also pilot here sometime back, and it got slightly getting delayed, but now I think we are getting there. The whole idea of the technology is to localize the technology. So we are now focusing on localizing the technology.
While localizing the technology, we are in touch with the various stakeholders, such as the bus manufacturers, to have the partners and also various other component manufacturers to have, you know, kind of partnership, so that we are able to bring that technology at a cost which is required by this market. So that's the number one. On the Lumada side, we have. As you know, Hitachi has invested heavily on IoT platform called Lumada. So once we become part of the Hitachi ownership, we are also looking at, you know, looking at how we can offer some of our offerings on the Lumada platforms. For example, we have recently announced Lumada, you know, insights.
Lumada, for example, we have a product called Vegetation Management, and, you know, many of these transmission lines will get tripped due to the vegetation, growth of vegetation and touching the line. So we come out with a product with, you know, drone technology, using the d rone technology and also using the satellite technology, and we can offer that in the Lumada platform, where we can offer to our customers, if they give the profile of their transmission line, so where we can say that which area of that particular thing they're going to have the problem with the growth of the vegetation, and we can also offer them the cutting schedule of those drones. So these are just to give a couple of examples that how, you know, we are now bringing those portfolio technology with the Lumada platforms. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Mr. Priyank, may we request that you return to the question queue for follow-up questions, as there are several participants waiting for their turn. Thank you, sir. Our next question is from the line of Sunaina Chhabria from Chola Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, sir.
Good evening.
So my first question is regarding the transmission and distribution business. So, for, let's say, a company to set up a renewable energy plant, it would cost maybe INR 6,000 crore-INR 7,000 crore. What is the wallet share of Hitachi Energy and the transformers and the other equipment that they provide within that kind of setup?
You, you're talking about power general or, I didn't get your question correctly, Sunaina.
Yeah. So, I'll just repeat. What I meant is, is that if a renewable energy generation power plant is set up, and it would cost maybe INR 5,000 crore-INR 6,000 crore, depending on the source of energy, what is Hitachi Energy's wallet share within this? What is the kind of revenue that they would get from setting up, let's say, a 1 GW plant within the transmission distribution?
So what we, a gain, it depends upon the configuration, et cetera. Suppose a pure play, a vanilla solar plant or something like that, you know, our portfolio is in the range of 20%± this way, 1% to this way or that way. Suppose if this is a large-scale solar plant, which combined with energy storage, et cetera, then it will be much higher in that. Suppose if this is includes, like, a STATCOM, et cetera, then it'll go even up to 40% kind of thing. So it depends upon what's the configuration and what kind of, you know, business models. So those are the one deciding factors in that.
Okay. Just a follow-up question to that. With the HVDC projects, like you had mentioned, the frequency of these projects in India has increased to around one a year?
Right.
Within setting up an HVDC project, what is the company's wallet share over there?
Sure. As you know, probably, you know, Sunaina, this HVDC technology, we have actually invented way back in 50 years back. So our wallet share, suppose, if we take the existing projects, we have at least 7 out of the 13 projects runs with our technology. And this is also the case globally in there. So we have a quite a high market share, almost close to 50%, and we are continuously invent on this technology. That's the basically is great about it. Now, we are bringing the technology, which is, you know, we are bringing the footprint of the technology. We are bringing the losses of this further. So those are the things. And not only that, you know...
The execution center, which is a very high intense technology thing, where we have opened a competency center in India. This competency center not only serve the projects outside of India, but also serve projects within India. This technology and innovation center are the key enabler in bringing the, you know, competitiveness of these projects going forward.
Okay. Just my final question. So, like it was mentioned that there is a guidance for reaching an operating margin of 10% by the end of FY 2025. We can see that this quarter, the company has done about 5.3. So within this particular industry, the competitors have a margin from 8%-12%. Can you elaborate a little on why the company has a lower operating margin within the industry?
Yeah. So, I think the reason we have already told is that because we are part of the previous ownership, and then we are coming out and carving out. While carved out, there is a lot of cost happened in between, overlapping of those costs, et cetera, is another reason. And then we are also used a lot of, a lot of, you know, cash for CapEx related things for future growth. And in addition to that, we have very clear. I don't want to compare, you know, which company you are talking about. In at least in our area, sphere, you know, we are not seeing those kind of margins, at least that.
Notwithstanding that, we want to be, you know, like how on the growth side, we are a very leading player. We are a market-leading growth company, and we would also like to become a market-leading margin company over a period of time. We are making a steps. As I said, we are sequentially improving. We set ourself target, and we will move on that. Our growth levers are continue to drive our our domestic market, improve on the exports and the, and the service. We set ourself exports to be 25%. B y 2023, we have reached at least one year ahead of the curve of our own target in that. This, that is how, you know, we are building up the company in a more profitable and sustainable while investing in the growth.
Okay. Thank you so much, sir. Best wishes for the future.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Bhavin Vithlani from SBI Mutual Funds. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, Venu. Congratulations for good numbers.
Thank you.
Venu, if you could help me, the INR 1,700 crore orders, what would be the size of the STATCOM? You mentioned there are several others of a similar size, just to get the size of the addressable pie.
Bhavin, thank you for your question. Unfortunately, I cannot give you that, the order value exactly, because as I told you that we have several projects lined up, so I don't want to be into that. But, you know, you can guess the size by yourself, huh? It's a couple of hundreds INR crores.
Fair. The second question is, because when we look through the results of your parent company, where order backlog has more than doubled to greater than $20 billion, and when it comes to some of these HVDC projects and some of the other projects, where there is an import dependence, from your parent entities. So if you could just help us understand about your supply chain, and given that we are also seeing an upswing in India, and you expect this to last for, a few years, how are you dealing with the supply chain, and what is the kind of augmentation that you are doing in terms of developing the local vendors so that, the 4 years-5-years opportunity that you are talking about, you should be able to capitalize the maximum out of it?
Yeah. So thank you for the very, very interesting question. As you rightly said, our global organization has a huge, built up a huge order backlog, one of the highest order backlog, I would say. And same is the case, which is also reflected in our company, right, which is INR 7,500 crores order backlog, which is also highest thing. So these are definitely a huge challenge on the supply chain, and that's exactly we started building up this new, new factory, new facility, right from the day when we carved out. You know, we have not stopped investing even during the COVID time.
So from last four years, last one year, we have inaugurated three greenfield factories, and in the last three, four years, we have added at least capacity expansion, other things, in the range of seven to eight Greenfield and Brownfield factories in that. So we have seen this coming in. It's not a surprise for us. We have seen this coming in, so we have been working, first internally, invest in ourselves, expanding the capacity and bringing in a new technology, and making it in locally here. That's number one. And number two, while doing so, we are also working and developing our supply chains here. For example, castings. We use a lot of castings in the GIS. So we started working in developing the casting manufacturers in locally here.
So whole idea is to make this entire supply chain available, available in India going forward in that. The localization projects, several localization projects. We don't call it a localization, we call it a value engineering project. Right from, the, end to end, we want to do that. So those projects are, are, progressing. I would say they are making, very good progress in, in some of those, some of those lines.
Great. And just lastly on the gross margin, which is your raw material margins. We have seen a slight dip in this quarter, but as we are seeing a very sharp increase in the order booking for you and for the entire sector, in the bids that you have seen, at least in the last 3 months-6 months, have we seen an upward trajectory in the bidding margins? And correspondingly, if you could also talk about the competitive landscape, have we seen a better discipline amongst the competition?
Yeah. So maybe I think, the first question I'll ask our CFO Ajay to talk about it, then I'll come back and answer on the second one.
Okay, thank you for the question. So basically, if you see the margin dip, which I explained earlier, in this particular quarter is mainly coming from the product mix. And if you see our earlier quarters also, our margin, basically, we see it towards there is a gap of roughly 1%-2% that we see. So only the product mix, and that has, you know, pulled us down. But going forward with the kind of backlog that we're having, we are very much now confident that we'll again pull back. So that is how I would say on the margin side, maybe Venu can comment on the.
Yeah, I think, you know, I would say there is a slight uptick. I know the price levels in India is always a competitive. We don't see the price levels in India is moving up so drastically compared to the market. But having said that, there is a slight uptick in the, you know, pricing. So we are also driving the pricing excellence as part of our strategy and go-to-market strategy in that.
Just a follow-up. So, leaving the quarterly variabilities aside, where do you see the gross margins sustained for us?
No, we said very clearly, right? You know, our plan is to enter double-digit EBITDA margin by end of FY 2025, and that is how, you know, we are looking at it.
Great. Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much for taking my call.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Harshit Patel from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for the opportunity, sir. Sir, you spoke about the Bhadla-Fatehpur HVDC projects coming for the bidding. Could you indicate what is the size of this project? I mean, what would be the HVDC component in that?
No, the size of the project, both including transmission line and the converter station is huge. But our addressable market is anywhere between INR 6,000 crore-INR 8,000 crore, depending upon the business model, how they award, et cetera, like that.
Understood. So just a follow-up to that, do you think this would be tendered on a single vendor basis, or there would be multiple parties involved in the HVDC converter station itself?
No, I don't think it will be tendered in a single bid basis. It'll be always a multiple, and it'll come for a you know, competitive bidding, and I'm sure whoever wins, you know, they will get that right.
Understood. Then the second question is on the Mumbai HVDC project that we have. I believe the original timelines to execute is 38 months. So, does that stand as it is?
Yeah. Yeah. As of now, we are on track, you know, plus or minus one, two months here and there. Otherwise, we are very much on track.
Understood. Thank you very much for answering my questions, and all the best.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Renu Baid from IIFL Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks, sir, for the follow-up opportunity. Two bookkeeping questions. A, what is the share of exports and revenues and orders for us? Our presentation mentions Y-o-Y growth.
Yeah, share of exports?
Yeah, in revenues and orders.
We are again, you know, we set ourselves as a target to reach 25%, okay, 25%, both in terms of our orders as well as on the revenue. I think we are trending in the similar direction as of now.
Okay. And, the targeted CapEx for fiscal 24 and broad estimations for fiscal 25?
On the CapEx, you know, if you really look at in the last four years, our CapEx is in the range of INR 100 crore per year. So that is, not only we'll sustain that, but, you know, we are looking at further augmenting that.
Sure. Lastly, to Venu, just to understand a bit more, while in your opening comments, you did mention about energy storage picking up in the country. What kind of addressable market opportunity can this open for Hitachi in terms of scope and value?
Yeah, I said energy storage, the government has approved the viability gap funding of INR 6,700 crore, something like that. So that will-
Correct.
-enable these, you know, projects become a business case, right? Because the battery prices are very high, things like. Our addressable market in this, Renu, is except the battery, rest all, you know, we can do that.
Got it. Sure.
Yeah.
Thanks much, and best wishes, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you.
One last question, maybe, yeah?
Yes, sir. Next question is from the line of Amit Mahawar from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening, Venu. Just two quick questions. First is, so we've seen, you know, the best case, industry size, for you maybe a decade ago was more than INR 20,000 crore. Today seems to be around INR 15,000-16,000 crore, if I'm not wrong.
Sir?
INR 15,000-INR 16,000 crore equipment market, I'm saying, transmission equipment market.
Okay.
How do you see your addressable market, you know, panning out in the next two, three years, assuming we have one HVDC every year, and we have a significant portion in, you know, renewable portfolio, which is maybe a third of transmission market annually in India, being in technology space where you are having strong global leadership. How are you placed vis-a-vis, you know, maybe 10 years ago, vis-a-vis two of your global competition in India? And you can maybe specify on the extent of localization you do vis-a-vis both of them. Thank you. That's my first question.
So, I do not know your calculation, but we have our own modeling, et cetera. You know, just to give, tell you, Amit, we operate not only on the utilities, T&D, and this for sure is a thing, but we also work on industries and the rail. Rail is another big market for us. Rail, not only the metro projects, but rail electrification and the new, you know, modernization of the rail coaches, et cetera, like that. So that's the thing. And then high-speed rails. In addition to that, high-speed rail. So that is how we look at our market as a total, you know, utilities, industries, and infrastructure, which includes rail. So the market is definitely growing, okay? Growing with a high- single digit, and might go high- single digit, going forward.
But, what we are also looking at it, you know, if you really look at in the last, couple of years, couple of quarters, we have been growing very high double-digit. So how we are growing is primarily because we brought a lot of, you know, optimization, localization of our technology. We have opened our new factories, greenfield projects. We have started producing it, a very state-of-the-art equipment, such as HVDC, STATCOMs in locally here, and, that is how, you know, we have been able to compete and then win projects, locally in there. So that is how our strategy, and we continue going forward.
Sure. And maybe second question on, you know, following up on Bhavin's question of supply chain. Is my understanding correct, we know that, you know, we've been consolidating the supply chain, and we will be working with less but very strong suppliers, whether it's stampings, castings, et cetera, and hence move towards more efficient procurement?
Yeah. I won't, I won't say that it is less. Strong for sure, you know, the whole idea of building the robust supply chain is to bring the efficient... Of course, quality is given, because when we are looking at sending the parts from here to the rest of the world, the quality has to be superlative, exceptionally high. So that is how we are working with our suppliers, a long-term program. It's not a one time, okay, you have this, project, and you go get away. That's not the way. For example, when we are given example of a casting, we are example the heat pumps, which are very crucial components of, in our products. So the supply chain, we are building the robust supply chain in, in India to taking care of these kind of things like that.
Okay, thank you. Then maybe one last question before we let you go. Vis-a-vis the past HVDC contracts in India and your company has been at the forefront of, you know, educating the power grids in India on the HVDC in the last couple of decades. How competitive you are vis-a-vis the last few HVDCs that India has seen and we, you know, Hitachi has done under the banner this time around? Thank you.
So I think when it comes thing about. We have been taking a lot of actions. We don't e ven though this technology we have invented, we are pioneer. Today, we have not only in India, globally, more than 50% or close to 50%, install base runs in our, through our technology. So when we have that kind of thing, we don't take any chances. We continue to reinvent, reinvest into our processes, optimization, localization, and those are the things we continue to do that. And we believe with that, we should be in a better position to compete, compete in these projects. And if you really look at our past experience shows that we won a HVDC Mumbai project last year, and we are looking, we are looking forward to.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, that was the last question of our question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. N Venu for closing comments.
Yeah. Thank you very much once again for taking time from your busy schedule and attending to that. And I hope we could answer most of your questions, but should you need anything more, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. Happy to engage with you guys. And also, I want to take this opportunity to wish you and your family, your loved ones, festive greetings, Happy Diwali, and take care, and stay well, be safe. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Hitachi Energy India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.